Can you suggest some flowering, colourfl plants that thrive in heavy clay?

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Hello!

Have only just seen this section - very excited! My question is as in the title really. We have a very heavy clay garden, and we have lots of 'greenery' in there, but not much that actually flowers. Anything I put in (despite putting sand and stones underneath it) just dies.

Any thoughts?

That should read 'colourful', obviously

I have heavy clay (and pictures on my profile) and first of all, you should add chunky compost or even bark chips to open it up, not sand.

Things which work for me in a border which has had about a bag and a half of compost per square metre added... heucheras, astilbe, hellebore, shrub rose, euphorbia, hebe, evergreen honeysuckle, hypericum, euonymus, alchemilla mollis, aquilegia, sissyrinchium, and the surprise runaway success of the past year is a Monarda.

What a great list! Thank you, Lexilicious! I shall also try the chunky compost. We've been adding bark chippings (to the top) for some years - hopefully that will have helped a bit!

tis no bother at all :)

have a look on the RHS website which has a plant selector page where you can put in the conditions and what sort of look you want. the bbc website has something similar too.

Roses, honeysuckle, ceoanthus, buddleia, daffodils, tulips, muscari

Thanks again to you both! I shall definitely be visiting the garden centre this weekend! I tried the 'soil selector' thingy on the bbc site - it just came up with green things (bit of a novice here, if it isn't blindingly obvious!!)

Just keep improving the soil by adding compost. This is by far the best thing you can do. Then you can plant whatever you like. Clay is a nightmare if you don't improve it.

I also have heavy clay. My list would be similar to Lexi's, with the addition of

Astrantia
Geum
Salvia
Hemerocallis
Geranium (not pelargonium)

Come and join us on the plant porn flutter your foliage gardening enthusiasts' thread!

i can grow most things in our front garden but it has full sun most of the time (ob when it is sunny) the shady bit at the back it harder though, flowering things very hard to establish.

plants like lavendar and jasmine seem to be ok

As ever, the RHS has the answer!

oh yes, that link mentions digging up the soil into clods and letting it be frozen and thawed over winter. I did that with my front garden and haven't needed to add compost.

I have never had any success with waiting for the frost to split the clods. I guess it's because we're in a city and it never quite gets cold enough. But I can see, though, that years of adding composted bark have worked wonders - its even beginning to show results in the Brownie garden, which I only started two years ago. Another thing that helps, I think, is adding the old compost from pots of bulbs - even if it had no nutrients left, the mix of multipurpose and John Innes that I usually use still improves the soil structure.

Some great advice here - thank you!

I agree that the best thing to do would be to improve the soil, but there are lots of (very green!!) things already planted in it and I'm a bit afraid of digging up their roots and doing damage. There is a patch which just won't grow anything though. Perhaps I could start there. Honeysuckle sounds good!

Am very glad to hear that bark-chippings and the contents of old plant pots are good. Containers have been the only way I've got colour into the place for a few years. Last year / at the end of last season I got a bit lazy and tipped the old compost into part of the 'dead bit' just to fill a dip.

Even adding compost on top on the clay as a mulch will still be beneficial for these established plants as you don't want to disturb the roots

You'd have to dig a hole to plant something new anyway so just put compost in those holes when you plant up.

Good luck!

Yes. Research the No-dig method! It's how I add my compost - I sling it on the soil surface and let the worms do the work.