Plotting the future
hard look at your plot and consider what you’re dealing with. If you’re improving an existing garden, are there features you should get rid of or retain? For example, will the removal of an established fast growing conifer transform your space by allowing lots of light in?
To understand what you can grow and consider where you may like to sit out you should examine the garden’s aspect. This means where the sun is at different times of the day. Does your garden face north (a bit gloomy) or south (often sun-kissed)?
Productive plants such as vegetables or fruit will often require as much sun as possible.
Examine your soil. Is it light, loamy and free draining, or is it heavy and plodding?
Improving your soil may be key to any new garden success. It’s often the hard part and can involve digging or mulching with good organic material. The addition of well-rotted manure will benefit every soil type, helping to break down the heavy stuff and allow lighter soil to retain moisture and nutrients. Now, begin to dream. What type of garden do you love? Is now the moment to make the changes to move towards a complete new garden style? Maybe you love the Oriental style – that sense of serenity with lots of green planting, bamboo, ferns, Japanese maples, variegated hostas, some gravel, possibly a pond or a stream with some fish. Or it might be the cottage garden look you’re after – with the glorious colour of herbaceous flowers set behind the relaxed margin of a low box hedge with possibly fruit and vegetables mixed in.
Contemporary garden style uses a more recent way of planting perennials, with waves of herbaceous plants married with grasses, swaying and dancing together as if in a field, speckled with spots of pink or yellow.
Or is it the style I like, a feeling of the tropics with large architectural foliage – Tasmanian tree ferns, Cordyline australis in shades of green or purple, Phormium tenax and Japanese hardy bananas?
Let’s decide together and by the time spring arrives I’ll show you how to create a plan and what type of plants are great for your choice of new improved plots!
Do you want a cottage garden, or to maybe go Oriental or modern?