Chicken boarders

[Old Speckled Hen]

I have a bank in the garden planted up with heathers by the previous owners. These heathers are now very leggy and I want to pull everything up to start again. I was thinking of some azaleas for spring colour and quite a bit of thyme for the bees (infact I've ordered thirty plants already).Has anybody any other suggestions both for spring and summer but particularly for the autumn?

I'm useless at garden planning so is there anybody talented out there. The area is in the middle of the garden, faces Northish but gets a good deal of sun. It's some 15 X 8 feet. Thank you

[Cinnamon]

Any chance of a photo of the area?

 

Personally I like the mixture of low growing shrbs like Thyme & Lavendar,studded with bulbs,for interest almost all year round.

[Old Speckled Hen]

Lavender I'd love but is a no no, too wet ........ I have tried.

Will post a photo later

[Guest]

ramsons wild garlic is good for wet areas, has pretty flowers a little like snowdrops, bees love it and you can eat it if you want to

 

ferns are always good for moist areas as are hostas.

[Cinnamon]

Don't want to worry you,but if its too wet for Lavender,it may be too wet for Thyme too

[Guest]

this might help?

 

http://www.humeseeds.com/plntwet.htm

[Christian]

What about heucharas? You can get some lovely colours with two tone under the leaves. The flowers are on spikes which the bees love?

 

http://northernshade.ca/2009/10/03/heuchera-plum-pudding-in-a-border/

 

I have plum pudding and marmelade. Lots of different colour and very winter hardy.

[Daphne]

So are you on acid clay stuff? Assuming you are as its wet and you want to grow azeleas, you could try pieris for spring leaf and flower, small camellias and rhodies for spring, euonymous (sp?) for year round leaf if you go variegated, spirea spring/summer/autumn, what about cornus for spring/summer leaf and autum/winter stems. This lot might be a bit tall for what you're thinking - what sort of height are you thinking? But I'd definately go with Cinnamons suggestion about bulbs - in order of coming up I'd go iris reticulata, crocus, small daffs, species tulip. If you want bees than my neighbour swears by gaura - not sure what it needs to grow. Unfortunately I also agree with Cinnamon re the wet and thyme Oh, and my personal all time favourite grow anywhere plant are geraniums. Spread and flower and not tall. Right varieties will give you Spring to Autumn colour. Then I'd plant a few taller plants in the midst of the billowing pillows as well to give contrast. The dreaded buddleia is loved by bees but tends to get out of control a bit and is probably too tall but I can see mauve wands arising from pinky/purple geraniums. But perhaps you don't like pink or purple? Decisions Decisions. Off to put chooks away now!

[ValerieR]

was going to suggest the very things Daphne did! Only thing about camelias is they take years to establish and start flowering on clay soils

[Old Speckled Hen]

Thanks everybody, lots of ideas.

Well there is some progress at last. We have a clay type acidic soil here which is extremely stony.

The bank slopes quite a bit and drains well (unlike the wild part of the garden at the back of the house which tends to be damp simply because it is really shaded).

I was surprised to see how dry the soil was as we pulled up the old heathers.

I have planted lots of azalea and mini rhodees and did succumb to the thyme after seeing how well drained the area was.

We have relocated two five feet tall conifers( so well that there is a chaffinch nest building in one) so the whole area is now quite sunny.

I had a good look round the neighbourhood to see what else grew in other gardens and added delphiniums,hollyhocks,centaurea and filled in some places with snapdragons and cosmos.

I see that some of those tall sedums have sprouted which will give me some added autumn colour but I like the sound of the Gaura, never heard of them before.

A mish mash I know but we'll see how it goes

I have geraniums and a huge hebe elsewhere in the garden and crocus/snowdrops/daffs and bluebells in the chicken lawn I planted when the hens were allowed in the garden.

I have 100(yes 100) gazanias( must have ordered them last year and forgot them)growing on in the greenhouse so will dot some of them them about.

Sorry, bored you all to death with my garden(it's just that I've never had more than a patio before and it's sooooooooooooooo exciting )

[Daphne]

Its always nice to hear about other peoples gardens! If the bank is sufficiently sloped to give good drainage, plus the stones, plus it sounds a bit impoverished after the heathers then that might be good for thyme - if they do survive then you could try lavendar and/or rosemary as well. If the thyme doesn't survive, another thing which grows well for me if you need ground cover in sun is marjoram. If you go for the golden variety then once its established you get a creeping mat - mine is about 2.6 ft long x 1 foot wide x 2 inches high from a single plant after 4 years, but I've seen bigger clumps! Of course you can harvest it and/or dry it as a herb, plus the purple flowers in Summer are attractive to insects.