Carol shows you how to rev up a tired border
Is your garden looking tired? Now’s the time to act! Follow Carol’s simple steps to give your borders a new lease of life
This is not a room you’re wanting to redecorate – it is a living, changing scenario, moving from season to season
We have lived at Glebe Cottage for more than 40 years and though we started from scratch and have been working at it ever since, there are parts of the garden that have passed their peak and need rejuvenation. An established garden need not be a tired garden, but we gardeners need to be aware that left to its own devices and with no attempt to renew, refresh or reinvigorate, our plots will become samey and a shadow of their former selves. Our intervention, preferably on a consistent basis rather than as a one-off exercise, can make our gardens what they should be – ever developing and dynamic.
A make-over isn’t the answer – it isn’t a question of ripping everything out and starting again. This is not a room you’re wanting to redecorate, changing the décor and the colour scheme. It is a living, changing scenario, moving from season to season and from year to year.
Most of us will have invested a great deal of time and love into our gardens and we need to work on the positives, while being prepared to relinquish our attachment to what doesn’t work – regardless of how much we have come to take it for granted. This is not something we buy, much more it is something we do. Our actions can give our gardens new life and optimism.
Action can commence at any time of year, but autumn is the very best time to start. This is the season when we can not only make plans, but we can put those plans into action. It is the ideal time to replant, while the soil is still warm and roots will get the opportunity to establish, be they the roots of plants we’ve just divided or those of a few new additions.
As the sap recedes, pruning can be undertaken, although with some plants, shrubs and trees we may have to wait until winter. But we can still make plans for what to cut back and what to tie in or train. And it is not too late to make new plants, not just from division but from cuttings too. So that next spring, we will be able to supplement our existing plants with new ones we have grown from cuttings – penstemons and salvias make ideal cutting material now.
Seeds too can be sown and, nurtured through the winter, they can make many a dream turn to reality. We always sow our orlaya in autumn, which then makes chunky plants to play around with in late spring.
A time of reflection
The garden is beginning to wind down a little but, this year, especially, we have been face-to-face with our gardens, their good points and their bad, throughout spring and summer. We have the recent memory of what worked and what didn’t. Most of us take photos of what we’ve liked
– pleasing plant combinations, the young foliage of a favourite tree or shrub, or a view that was perfectly framed. We are less likely to record what didn’t work – unfortunate colour combinations, an ugly branch or a border full of plants of exactly the same scale or the same-sized leaves. It is now that we need to recall what didn’t work and to think about how we can change or adjust it. Which plants were taking up too much room and perhaps preventing more select neighbours from growing properly. Which plants took too much cosseting, and were not worth the effort? Were there plants that didn’t earn their keep, maybe failing to flower for the
third year on the trot? Are there unhappy combinations, where plants just didn’t look right together? Did you buy too many of a particular plant and though you may now have a comprehensive collection, they just look boring? Or were you unable to resist everything the garden centre was featuring as its ‘plant of the week’ and you now have one bed with no cohesion just lots of different plants dotted around. Maybe it’s the opposite and being a thrifty soul you’ve divided your geraniums so frequently and planted them out in every part of the garden, so that now beds and borders have lost all individuality. By all means propagate and increase stalwarts
and stars so you can use them in an impactful way, grouping them in drifts, but don’t be afraid of combining plants you hadn’t considered partnering together previously. Experiment and adventure are the means to ensure your garden doesn’t travel backwards. If things don’t work, it’s not the end of the world. You can always try them somewhere else.
Try to consider all the factors: colour; texture; form and scale. Stand back from your border, take photos, reverse them if you can, so that your familiarity with what is there does not disguise its true nature or its shortcomings. Different gardeners will tackle rejuvenating their gardens in
Prune to rejuvenate
When shrubs have become tired, congested and full of dead wood, with poor leaves and flowers, renovation pruning may be needed to return them to their former glory. It’s a drastic process though, and especially with deciduous shrubs such as deutzias, weigelas and philadelphus, is best done in winter when they are dormant. But avoid very cold, frosty days. Use sharp loppers to cut main stems back to 15cm or so above the ground. You may have to remove thin, weak branches when the shrub regrows, choosing the strongest, bestplaced shoots to create a balanced shape. Feed with organic matter after pruning.
Take out thugs
Sometimes a scheme changes from a carefully orchestrated combination into a free-for-all, due to one plant turning out to be a thug, and taking over (acanthus, pictured in the centre, can be guilty of this). The best idea is to remove it completely, even if this means digging out and replanting other more well-behaved neighbours. If you don’t want to ban it completely, try potting pieces up in old compost (to restrain growth) and plant the pot ensuring its rim is just below the surface of the soil so it will receive water.
Move plants
If you’ve decided a shrub’s in the wrong place, it’s worth preparing it for its move in the months before you dig it up. Prune it, aiming for a well-balanced shape and an open centre, cutting back to outward-facing buds. With mature shrubs, it’s also an idea to prune the roots by slicing through with a sharp spade (and secateurs in reverse), making a trench around the plant. This encourages it to make new feeding roots and means that the move will be less traumatic. Prepare its new home in advance, adding lots of organic matter, and make the planting hole wider than the rootball. Backfill and shake gently to get rid of air pockets. Water well. Keep watering regularly during dry spells, even in winter.
Divide plants
Dividing plants is a straightforward method of propagation. Autumn is a great time to divide early-flowering plants, such as shasta daisies and brunnera, by digging up the whole clump and pulling it apart. Late-flowering perennials, such as asters and rudbeckias should be tackled in spring, when they’ve had a chance to recharge their batteries after expending energy on flowering. Some plants with dense roots and solid crowns, like hostas, can be lifted whole and chopped into chunks or given the slice of cake treatment where sections are chopped out and replanted. As long as each chunk has resting buds and substantial roots, they’ll grow away well in the spring.
different ways. My approach tends to be organic – with plants suggesting themselves and my trying them out.
Because of the geography of the garden here at Glebe Cottage – it is situated on a slope with terraces – there is no opportunity for a radical redesign, but then the design of this garden has been vernacular; a response to the topography. However, it has also been an expression of our personalities and our aesthetic sensibilities and that is what should drive any gardener’s decisions about changes and developments.
Meanwhile the garden itself tells us what needs doing: impoverished plants need to be fed, or their soil does; tangled roses need to be enabled to exhibit their natural grace; and views need to be maintained. The key to ensuring our gardens remain fresh and inviting is keen observation and empathy with their characters, plus the willingness to help them be the best they can.