Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Tim Ingram on August 27, 2012, 09:35:05 AM
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Our front garden has changed a lot over the years and the recent emphasis has been on alpines and smaller dry loving perennials and shrubs. Slowly it is changing character to reflect these plants more, and as you do one thing it has an influence on what is around it. This patch was taken over by Ballota and a small rose and seeding euphorbias and seemed ripe for a lot more interesting plants. I have already had a comment on the NARGS Forum that the grass paths are likely to disappear in time - I would like this but a degree of persuasion will be needed! The idea of the planting has come from the sand beds and berms that growers in America use to grow dryland plants and alpines. This is the entrance to the garden and the aim is make it as exciting and 'different' as possible with many plants not generally seen, and of course a lot of alpines. It is nice to have a blank canvas to work on between the general maintainance of the garden!
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We have had no grass in our front garden for decades and I lifted the last grass in the back garden after my Cocker Spaniel, Max, died in 1974. We had kept a grass path around a central raised bed because he liked to chase a football round it!
I was distraught at his death and needed a physical task to divert my my grief... grass lifting proved suitable, though it may not have been the best idea in the July heat.
So, now we have no grass at all, lawn ot paths , in our garden. No-one who has seen the photos (bear in mind these are shown regularly on the internet as well as in talks), or from the visitors to the garden has ever even remarked on the lack of grass, let alone bemoaned that lack.
Yes, a lawn can be lovely, grass paths can be charming but there are many situations where keeping grass is simply not necessary to the overall beauty and pleasure of a garden.
As Ian has remarked about our garden, a huge amount of both time and effort was expended on the maintainence of the most boring plant in the garden! I think in our case, he was correct. I know that I would never have enough time for the work I do here, for the IRG etc if I were still keeping the grass in good order!
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Maggi,
I am always amazed that the phrase "Low maintenance Garden" is used by Estate Agents and Housing Officers to mean "Lots of Grass". Admittedly, you don't have to think much to cut the grass. But one of my homes had such a garden where it took at least three hours to cut all the grass - which I rarely had at one time - all too often some of it got neglected and it took all year to get it back. I haven't eliminated all grass from my current garden (yet) but it is definitely getting less.
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Hope this is the place to show the latest change to my garden.
Newly aquired tufa (half ton) now installed to its final resting place.
Planting has started.
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Have you built in a watering system, Mike ?
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Maggi
The watering system is at the bottom of the picture, the green thing!!!!!
Will run rainwater off the small greenhouse roof into the sand between the wall & the tufa.
Other watering for the time being will be done by hand.
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Ah yes, the manual solution!
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It's going to be huge fun planting that Mike! I'm very envious.
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We've no grass at all in our front and back gardens!
(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/scattery/second%20album/IMG_7617.jpg)
(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/scattery/second%20album/IMG_7729.jpg)
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There is only one word I can use to describe those pictures
WOW
Angie :)
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Lovely gardens, Kevin -so neat and colourful, you don't miss the grass at all.
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I can see grass. ;D
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Stunning, Kevin. :o :o How old is the garden?
Anthony,
I'm assuming you're talking about across the road on the other side of the hedgy thing? ;) Or are you talking about the various plants which are "technically" grasses within the garden? The Palm for example? ;)
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Great example of a lawnless garden Kevin, very attractive and some lovely 'borrowed landscape' too!
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Thank you, Angie and Maggie. Do you want to help with weeding? ;D ;D
I can see grass. ;D
;D ;D Ah, Ha! Anthony, you've spotted Cortaderia Richardii, Carex Pendula, Bamboo and loads of others. Don't mow those, though. ;D ;D
:o :o How old is the garden?
Hi Paul,
I dug out the pond at the end of 2008 and started planting at the beginning of 2009. The first bad winter in January 2010 wiped out many of my plants. I replaced them and then the bad winter in December 2010 destroyed all the replacements. :'( :'( So I had to change my ideas slightly.
I started the front garden in the summer of 2009 and started planting there in the summer of the following year, 2010.
It's been a voyage of discovery as I didn't know anything much about plants when I started. One section of the garden has now been converted to an Arid area since and all around the patio and house has now been surrounded by troughs of Alpines. 37 in total. 8)
Great example of a lawnless garden Kevin, very attractive and some lovely 'borrowed landscape' too!
Brian, the hill behind, is where we get our local water supply and also our broadband from. :)
I absolutely HATE cutting grass. Mindnumbingly boring. :(
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Very nice indeed Kevin, both look lovely.
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Kevin,
I thought it looked relatively new, but given you've had to replant the majority since 2010 you've done absolutely brilliantly. It will be fascinating to see what it looks like over time as things settle in and grow. You've done a superb job so far, that is for sure.
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I think the garden is fantastic.
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Fabulous job Kevin !! :o
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Well we haven't managed to create anything as colourful as Kevin but we are planting a lot of silver foliage and Mediterranean species suited to our dry garden, and that will provide propagating material for the nursery. We already have our sights on an old leyland hedge on the shady side of the front garden, which is a waste of space and could provide an area for a nice cool shaded raised bed just right for those plants we can't provide the right conditions for at present. One thing leads to another...
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You, I think, have Festuca Glauca there. How do you keep it blue? Mine eventually goes a boring beige colour.
I threw my first lot over the wall to the cows and bought some more. They've gone beige now as well. They're in a section with Black Mondo grass and Uncinia Rubra. It's supposed to be Blue, Black and Red there. :(
More fodder for the cows? ???
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Here's an old pic of this section from September 2010. The Arctic weather in December a couple of month's later killed all the Uncinia Rubra. >:(
You can see that the first three Festuca Glaucas, that I planted, were already on the road to Beige Heaven. :(
(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/scattery/IMG_5464.jpg)
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Yes Kevin, the Festuca I've planted is glauca 'Intense Blue', and I don't have expectations of it keeping this colour. It is in a hot dry spot so I hope it will stay quite blue - will have to update you next spring!
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Doesn't blue fescue always fade at certain times of the year, and if the sunlight is not good?
It should "blue up"again the following year, shouldn't it? :-\
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I have a great book by Richard Bird on 'Border Pinks' and can see why so many of them have such great appeal. But they do seem to go in and out of fashion. These are some late flowers on a range mostly from a local Garden Centre. None of them, except 'Badenia' (which was a gift many years ago from Allan Robinson when he was at Wisley) are mentioned in Richard's book and must be much more recent cultivars. Several though are wonderfully scented. Time they came back into fashion again?
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The Starseries of Dianthus gratianopolitanus are more recent hybrids from Whetman. They are indeed very nice but in our winter wet climate we have problems to keep them longer than 3 years in the garden.
On the other hand the rather old cultivar Badenia which was bred by Knecht( near Karlsruhe) between 1970 -1975? is hardly to kill and makes nice rich flowering low cushions year after year.
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Luit - very grateful for more background on the origins of these cultivars. I hadn't realised that several originated from Whetman's - they should be good plants; will be interesting to see how they do here in our relatively dry garden. Graham Rice in the latest 'The Plantsman' speaks of a cultivar raised by Whetman as an improved version of the famous old 'Mrs Sinkins'. This should be extremely popular! Having said this 'Mrs Sinkins' must hold great appeal to have been propagated continuously since 1863 so is never really likely to be superseded.
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Tim, I just want to come back on these newer hybrids of garden pinks.
They may be beautiful in flower but I am (through experiences) rater suspicious :-X
I found this website with grower notes. Reading these notes my comment is: are we really waiting for such plants??
http://www.skagitgardens.com/_ccLib/image/plants/PDF2-200.pdf (http://www.skagitgardens.com/_ccLib/image/plants/PDF2-200.pdf)
I mean the lines: Use a fungicide drench at transplant to prevent Pythium, Alternaria and Fusarium. Good air circulation and careful watering are the best disease prevention, but use monthly sprays when conditions are optimum for disease development.
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I mean the lines: Use a fungicide drench at transplant to prevent Pythium, Alternaria and Fusarium. Good air circulation and careful watering are the best disease prevention, but use monthly sprays when conditions are optimum for disease development.
Those are grower notes - for the large scale commercial grower, probably raising plants under protection. I don't think they have any relevance to the gardener planting these plants in their garden. In my experience these Dianthus are no more disease prone than older varieties.
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I have been reading Richard Bird's book more closely and it becomes obvious that there are a certain number of really tried and tested pinks which have retained popularity and constantly been repropagated, eg: 'Oakington' from Alan Bloom and 'Brympton Red' (named by Margery Fish). Others like 'Old Velvet' are just so extraordinary that they would be kept going come what may. I suppose time will tell with these Fire series, but I must admit some of the old laced varieties like 'Lady Wharncliffe' or 'Allspice' have such strong appeal that vigour and disease resistance in newer varieties is unlikely to take that away. Perhaps I'm in danger of becoming a collector!
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A little soliloquy on a bed I have just been weeding in our garden. Unfortunately in other parts of the garden a machete is more necessary!
An American gardener has said that 90% of gardening is weeding. If this is so, an essential feature of the gardener is to enjoy weeding! In a large garden the problem becomes more difficult and the tendency is to go into certain areas in succession and work on them intensively before moving on to the next. There is the element of 'Painting the Forth Bridge' about it. On the smaller scale of alpines the scree-like soils and gravel top-dressing, and sheer fascination of the plants, really do make weeding a pleasure, and little and often is probably the better policy. With bulbs though the annual cycle of growth that these go through leads to a different way of tending them. This small bed in our lawn originally was the site of a weeping cherry which was eventually removed and the bed extended with liberal amounts of stone chippings in order to grow a wide range of bulbs. After these go over though interest is maintained into the autumn with small late perennials, notably sedums and self-seeding Eryngium bourgatii. Come October the autumn crocus are just beginning to come through, followed through the winter and spring with many more bulbs, so the bed needs to be thoroughly tidied up. These pictures show the bed 'before' and 'after' with still a few sedums left to keep some colour.
Generally the bed works quite well and keeps interest right through the year but both the sedums and eryngium and a number of other plants self-seed generously in the gravelly soil so a good bit of weeding is necessary. Not something probably that is taught at Horticultural College. But certainly an essential feature of making a garden.
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A little soliloquy on a bed I have just been weeding in our garden. Unfortunately in other parts of the garden a machete is more necessary!
An American gardener has said that 90% of gardening is weeding. If this is so, an essential feature of the gardener is to enjoy weeding! In a large garden the problem becomes more difficult and the tendency is to go into certain areas in succession and work on them intensively before moving on to the next. There is the element of 'Painting the Forth Bridge' about it. On the smaller scale of alpines the scree-like soils and gravel top-dressing, and sheer fascination of the plants, really do make weeding a pleasure, and little and often is probably the better policy.
I empathize totally with all you've said.
The only thing different, that I've eliminated, is that Lawnmower! ;D