help me replant my garden

[goshhhhhh]

So....I have a challenge. I have a north east facing garden with a plum tree, green Gage, Apple & pear tree. I am thinking along the lines of woodland planting & I have a few shrubs. I need ideas for plants.

It is ok for spring plants but less for summer colour & I have some areas with little winter structure. I need some ideas that don't cost a fortune as quite a lot to replant. I am happy to do over a period of time & grow from seed.
I have the added delight of wet shade & dry shade.
Happy to grow pots as well as planning to put some patio in. (Anyone have any ideas for lovely patio stones that don't cost a fortune?) Ideas v v welcome. I need some inspiration as I fear what I really like won't work here.

Hi this has been posted several time s - can you remove?

What dimensions is your garden? Are there areas that get any sun at all? And what soil do you have?

My garden is also north facing and has heavy clay soil. It slopes downwards, away from the house. It's not very big (around 30 m x 6 m) but it's long enough that the area at the end is out of the shadow of the house and gets a bit of sun. So I put all my stuff that needs sun there (the greenhouse, for instance).

I am finding that there are lots and lots of very beautiful plants that love the shade, and that actually, rather than being awful to give up sunny planting, it is a real pleasure to do shade gardening. Try looking at a specialist nursery for ideas - Long Acre Plants is one that I've bought a lot of plants from recently, all of which have been superb. If you can go see some of the famous woodland gardens, that can be very inspiring.

Ideas for wet shade: if it's really soggy, the good news is that you can plant bog plants! Some of my favourites for the wet: ornamental rheum, rodgersia, some gorgeous primulas (lots of varieties, but check out japonica 'Miller's Crossing'), irises (short season, but worth it), adjuga, arums, lamium, brunnera, and ferns, which can be staggeringly beautiful.

In dryer areas, some of my favourites are acers, anemone nemorosa (so lovely), woodruff (a thug in behaviour but dainty to look at), omphalodes, Erythronium (glorious in a month), hellebores (not just the boring white ones, there are lovely doubles now), tiarella, magnolia stellata, foxgloves, box, and shade geraniums (some of which love dry shade).

Oh and lots and lots and lots of spring bulbs - make the most of bluebells and tiny daffs!

Thank you for the tips.
The garden is a fair size but not huge. Will have to measure. The plan is to have a patio near the house & one at the back so we can follow the shade round. I've become a bit of a fern queen & have a fair few aquiligia & bulbs. I also have a pond that I think I want to keep but it is in the shade. There are a few trees & where they are there is dry shade & a woodland ish corner. On the other side is wet shade - clay soil. It is walled all the way round.
I shall go looking on your recs. I grew some foxgloves from seed last year & tried to do alpine strawberries. I think I will try again with those!

Oh wow, a walled garden sounds magical! It sounds lovely as it is - it will be amazing with a few extras here and there.

Actually some beds are a bit empty & I like the full to bursting English country garden look rather than a civic park. I am ,waiting to see what comes back from last year & feeling a bit impatient. I think because it is n east everything is a bit later.
It is not that lovely because I have been slowly eradicating brambles & ground elder.
Any ideas for the pond? Water lillies would not do well I fear. Monty said no ponds in shade...Oh well I've got one - so I need to make it work. (it would look odd filled in because of the shrub planting round it)

This winter feels very long. I don't know if others think the same, but spring feels late and things in my part of the world are not as far ahead as they would usually be. We've had a moderately hard winter though (lots of lying snow), whereas my DF who gardens in the SE says that it's been mild there, so maybe that makes a difference.

I'm not very experienced with ponds, so others will be better placed to advise you there. Watching with interest because I am thinking of putting one in myself in a semi-shaded site, along with a bog garden (would this be an option for you to change the shape and reduce the size of the pond without affecting the 'look' of the garden?). I seem to remember from my OU biology courses that it's about light levels, so I think it depends how dark it is (she says, optimistically).

Oh, and a word of caution, based on a mistake I just made about 'fulness' - I thought 'Oh dear, the garden is looking a bit bare', so I went out and bought some cheap shade plants (well, it was a good excuse). Went to plant them out, and every site where I was thinking of putting them has green shoots emerging. There is far less 'blank space' than I thought - it's simply that I don't have enough evergreens in the garden!

foxgloves and alpine strawberries should seed themselves about happily so once you've got them they'll do their own thing without being rampant.

How about hostas, pulmonaria, ferns (which you already have), fatsia japonica (taller) and geranium phaeum? also lysimachia nummularia auria (yellow flowers) and campanula portenschlagiana / poscharsyana (blue flowers). These can get a bit out of control eventually

Thankyou!
We are in East Anglia & whilst we often don't have much rain, spring does feel late or it might just be I'm fed up with winter & itching to get out there.
I'm going to do some pond research. It would be hard to get rid of it as it has mature planting around it. I think I might need to be patient & see what comes back in one bed but one is really quite bare.

Sorry n east facing garden in East Anglia.