Fancy Helping Me Redesign My Garden?

[Shortie]

Evening everyone

Though my back garden is a tad boring, I was happy with it until I saw someone's 'cottage sytle' garden recently and really want one.. Thing i I have no inspiration, not helped by my loathing of cutting grass (hence I have none in my garden except ornametal types.)

If I posted up photos of my garden, anyone fancy throwing suggetions my way as to what to do with the space? I can also post up a list of seeds I have for planting next year...

Cheers
Shortie

EDIT: Picture link added to post #11

[vicky]

Lets have a look then! If not purely for nosiness value...
I certainly have more ideas than I have the space in my own garden so would love to have a go at yours too!

[Alice]

Put the pics up Shortie. I'm sure everyone will chip in their ideas. Some of them will be good

[Snadger]

The very nature of a cottage garden is that it is a haphazzard collection of flowers and veg. Just chuck the seed down and it will design itself!

[Flummery]

Mine's pretty haphazard - you only have to look at my style of living to know I'm a haphazard person. In a garden it works. In the house, it's a mess! Come on with the pictures gal!

[zazen999]

OOh yes, photos please.

[Shortie]

Ooo fab... I'll put them up when I get home tonight. They may be a bit small though, I've never mastered the larger picture in Picasa that is small enough in kb to upload.

I'm hoping you guys can give me some planting inspiration, a bit of layout, mulch ideas (baring in mind my dogs eat the bark that's down at the moment....) I'm happy to move plants that are in the wrong place too

I feel all excited now!!

[Hazel at the Hill]

Just make sure that Wellie sees this thread, Shortie - she will be brill at this!

[ailsasyl]

Yeah great idea!! After doing my veg beds I now have the black placcy out again in order to kill off the grass to create a patio area made from the old slabs and bricks dug up from an old path which was buried under grass when i went to start the veg beds reckon my garden hasn't had anything growing in it for years so starting from scratch and keep changing my mind as what to grow as on a very tight budget recycling is the key and have already raided mum's garden for cutting and will be doing so again after summer flowering is over. Love garden design and am learning fast!! Am sure my daughter(happybunny) will chip in too!!!!

[kwa50]

Can I be cheeky.......

and tag onto this - I have a large rectangular bed in my front garden that I would like filled with fragrant flowers - nothing untidy though (poppies sweet peas etc).

I filled some space at the back with 2 rose bushes, sweet peas, poppies, pansys, hebe and lavender, now however, the rambling rose in the front of this space has grown huge and this does not look particularly good as it is covering all the flwoers behind it. I suppose being a novice with all this - I am unsure how big - wide shrubs etc grow. I possibly made a mistake because the rambling rose has been in the front of the bed for a while and is about 3 ft tall and quite wide (could this be moved - is that my best bet)

I am disappointed that the sweet peas and poppies grow quite untidy (maybe its the way I have/not staked them).

I want to start again could someone please help - I dont mind what I put in there but prefer nice smelly flowers.

Will try picture but unsure what to do.

kwa50
CraftChallenge.co.uk - Home

[Shortie]

Sorry for the delay everyone, I broke my keyboard last night. I dove off the side of the sofa it's last time and I ended up with a shower of weird blue rubber nipple things all over the floor

Here's the photo's of le garden el Shortie

Picasa Web Albums - wayne - Garden pics

Sorry for the messiness, and I'm hoping to maybe cover the concrete path with soil (not good to plant over I know but damned easier than ripping the concrete up).

I have a fig tree, cherry tree and green gage tree I was going to pop into the allotment but will plant here if it'll fit somewhere, and about 3 foot behind my sexy washing line, we're having a koi pond installed so that's a no-go area.

I'm not adverse to moving plants around, and the raspberry/strawberry mess on the back left is going to come up anyway. However there's a rhubarb monster in with them there that's staying put (not my choice... it's just too much of a beast to attempt to get rid of!)

Oooo and the last two photos are the bits to the side and behind of my large shed. I've never knwon what to what to do with it, and is a shady bit, again on concrete.... any suggestetions for that bit greatfully received

[ailsasyl]

It depends how much work you want to do. I would want to dig a test hole next to path to see how deep the concrete is on the path i did this for mine and it wasn't that deep and came away easy once I'd got it started. I'm saying this as changing the direction of the path to a more curvy one criss crossing the garden would give it the impression of being wider and means your not seeing all the garden at once once the plants are more mature of course. Are you keeping the decking at the back of the house and by the shed??
By having a curvy path it would give you large beds with curved edges to plant in, the next step would be identifying what plants fit with you cottage garden theme although you can bend the rules a bit I would be tempted to get more climbers to cover he fence, clematis, passion flower, honeysuckle and jasmine. Placing honeysuckle and/or jasmine nearer to seating area as these smell nice and would creat a good backdrop at the back of beds. Planting like foxgloves, hollyhocks, poppies will add colour and height in the middle of a bed use hebes frther forward and lavender nice by the path as you get the smell as you brush past.
Hope this is of some help i'm sure you'll get loads of help on here. Might be an idea to decide on basic layout then post more pics once ponds in and you decided where beds are going then we can advice on planting

[Flummery]

You definitely need more ground cover to hide all the bark chippings! I always go with hardy perennials - get onto a good site and look at some of the hardy geraniums - blues, pinks, hot carmines, whites, nearly blacks - I love them. They die down tidily in autumn and come back neatly. You can plant spring bulbs with them - autumn is a good time for planting both - and the new geranium foliage covers the nasty dying-off bulb foliage a treat.

I wouldn't be without the frothy lime-green flowers and pleated foliage of lady's mantle either. Plant these things near the edges, putting taller stuff - maybe bears' britches or iris, in the centre of the beds. You really need some catalogues - real or on-line - to see what's available. Take note of final growing height. Blooms of Bressingham used to be good - but pricy, but there's notheing to stop you making notes and shopping around. Also, Claire Austin of David Austin roses family, does good perennials. Try googling to see if you can see on-lin views. Perennials are the back-bone of my front garden and the area around the patio out the back (until you get to the veg plot when it all get serious!) They only need to be bought once and if you choose them carefully you can have colour all summer and autumn. Spring is best served by bulbs though I love the Lenten Hellebores too - and I loved my brunnera macrophylla (try google images) so much I brought it from my old garden.

Loads to think about, but if you don't want to rip up the beds, that's the way I'd go, but then, that's the way I go anyway. Others will have loads of ideas.

As to the area round the sheds, we have dug out the grassy soil (it ALWAYS gets grassy) and put a membrane down and coverd with gravel. You can plant a few little thymes and dwarf perennial pansies - Bowles black for instance - and alpines in soil pockets to soften it.

Whatever you decide on, good luck. You've got a bit of work to do!

[Shortie]

It depends how much work you want to do.

I'm not adverse to some hard labouring in the garden.

Are you keeping the decking at the back of the house and by the shed??

Yup, both sets of decking and the shed are staying, it's the bit in between

Might be an idea to decide on basic layout then post more pics once ponds in and you decided where beds are going then we can advice on planting

Ah, now you've got me.. this is what I was hoping to have help with

[Shortie]

Loads to think about, but if you don't want to rip up the beds, that's the way I'd go, but then, that's the way I go anyway. Others will have loads of ideas.

Sorry I thought I'd said... The beds are to go. I'm thinking.. removed the wooden paths between the beds and level the soil, cover the concrete path up the middle with more soil as I know from neighbours gardens they were awful to take out and then ne left with one big square between the two deckings to 'play with'.

I'd need a path in there somewhere, but then I'm stuck on the rest of the planting and plant layout

As to the area round the sheds, we have dug out the grassy soil (it ALWAYS gets grassy) and put a membrane down and coverd with gravel. You can plant a few little thymes and dwarf perennial pansies - Bowles black for instance - and alpines in soil pockets to soften it

Oooo now that's got me thinking.... gravel. if someone hot foots it over our back fence again too, they'd have a loud landing. I'm thinking now of shade loving evergreen prickly plants...??