Border conflict
Whether you’re battling shade, clay or dry soil, if you’re smart there’s always a path to victory
AS A teenage horticulturist, I used to fantasise about creating a fabulous garden of my own. I envisaged taking on a sheltered, south-facing plot where everything I planted would romp away i n loamy, nutrient-rich soil.
Well, I’m still waiting to take on the perfect blank canvas. I’ve owned two properties as an adult; my first had a sunny back garden blighted by heavy clay, while my current one is shady and has impoverished, fast-draining soil.
Of course, I’m not the only one with a difficult site. Many gardeners have to deal with challenging light levels or tricky soil conditions – but there’s no need to despair. With a little bit of elbow grease, it’s possible to improve growing conditions. However, the key to ensuring that plants flourish, rather than limp along, is to choose the right plant for the right place.
Perhaps the biggest bugbear for gardeners is shade. Lack of sunlight means there’s no chance of filling the space with pretty cottage garden perennials or architectural Mediterranean specimens, and growth of ‘normal’ plants can be patchy or result in spindly stems searching for any chink of sunshine.
Before planting anything, it’s worth trying to increase the amount of light by reducing the height of perimeter hedges, ges, or removing lower tree branches.s.
Soil in shade tends be either her consistently damp or so dry that it resembles dust. Help dry patches hold on to moisture by working in plenty of leaf mould, well-rotted compost or good-quality bagged compost, such as John Innes No3. Adding organic matter also helps with drainage. Soft shield fern, hostas, bleeding heart, Siberian flag (Iris sibirica) and mountain hydrangea (Hydrangea serrata) cope admirably with damp shade – for a quick splash of summer colourcolo try busy lizzies, begonias and monkeym flower. Alchemilla mollis,mollis epimedium and tiarella willwil thrive in parched soil. There’s no doubt that many gardenersg with shade are enviouse of those with a sun-kissed garden. But plants in a warm, southfacing garden have a higher demand for water than those growing in a shadier spot. This can make it tricky to establish somesom plants in beds and borders,bord as the soil tends to be on the dry side. However, many species willw thrive in well-drained soil embellished with leaf mould or compost to make it more moisture-retentive. Leading contenders for such conditions are echinacea, rudbeckia and New England aster. Verbena bonariensis will bloom its socks off, producing masses of 6ft flowering stems from spring until autumn. Anyone with an exposed garden will know that plants have to endure icy blasts in the winter and drying winds in summer, which can scorch foliage, snap stems and blow off buds and flowers. Closer to the coast, plants with a weak disposition are unlikely to survive for long against salt-laden gales. A boundary hedge is essential to take the edge off the wind – holly, Griselinia littoralis and Elaeagnus x ebbingei will shrug off gusty blasts and tolerate salty conditions. Remarkably, there’s a host of plants that will thrive too, including agapanthus and Convolvulus cneorum, with its silver foliage and white, saucer-shaped blooms.
A big problem for a lot of gardeners is coping with heavy clay soil. The ground often becomes waterlogged in winter and dries solid in summer, leading to the surface cracking. On the positive side, clay soils tend to be rich in nutrients.
Before planting anything, add copious amounts of leaf mould or garden compost to help improve winter drainage and boost the soil’s ability to retain moisture in summer.
Another way of loosening up clay soil is by digging in lots of grit. Although this works well, it is a short-term fix, and will need to be repeated every few years.