Will my garden grow??

[CookieDoughKid]

Novice gardener and for first time ever, made over my bed. It's a clay soil (like a dark grey colour) in a sunny south facing spot. Lots of sun. I dug over the soil and put in a 130L of rotted farm manure and turned it all over a second time. The border is 4m x 2m. It was back breaking work.

I bought some bargain plants that I liked the look of but I am now not so sure about how well that would thrive. The heathers were in the bargain section at 70% off so I thought why not?! Then I think the heathers won't like my clay soil now reading up about it!

I'm worried that I didn't put enough manure now. It's a new estate so not much was growing in there before!!

Here is a picture up and I will put another one up in a few weeks.

And here are the plants I put in..see pic. Can you critique my efforts as I think I need to invest more in the future to make my garden really work!! I love flowers BTW so anything bright as suggestions I'd be grateful for. And I'm in a windy spot in the colder months so not sure how well my perennials will do!!

And last two plants I put.
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Hi, it is back-breaking work isn't it?!!!

If it is a warm and sunny bed you will probably need to keep everything really well-watered as they won't like it if they dry out before the roots get established.

Different types of heather like different conditions so they could be fine.

Now that you've planted them just wait and see which ones thrive - you can always replace those that don't or move the ones that aren't in the right position. As taxi says, you will need to keep them watered until they get established. A garden border is not static - over the years you will have to change things as some plants get too big for their space and others come to the end of their useful/attractive life. That's what makes gardening interesting!

OK thank you very much for your input!! I'll put up more pics in a month's time. Finger's crossed!!

Hi CDK -

I have had a good look at your plants, though I can't quite work out what some of them are.

But the one I really wonder about is the Carex grass; I would be interested to know what made you choose that one?

Sometime I'll come back with other grasses, that personally I think are more attractive.

Oh thank you Ferguson . I picked the carex brown grass as it was on offer! I wanted a grass of some kind but don't have a huge budget. I posted previously on this threas, pics of the plant labels, hope you can see them!

Yes, I did see the labels (good idea to do that!) so I know some of them, but it's still not so easy to match them all up with the garden picture. And what is beyond the fence on the left hand side; is it lawn?

This is a collection of grasses pictures, if I can get it to link:

garden-photos-com.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Ornamental-Grass-Stock-Photo-Images/G00003laL9F5OfHo/I0000n3RZva2vr0g

There are over a hundred, and you should be able to 'step through' the list I hope.

I think you've done a great job, particularly for a first-timer. You should have seen the state of my first border- I made every mistake going! Yours is so much better.

Enriching the soil is a really good idea, and if your clay is heavy all that manure will really break it up. Very rich soil can make some ornamental plants go a bit leafy instead of flowery, but in the first year, when you're bulking it up this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Next year iwhen they are established, try compost rather than manure!

I would be tempted to fill the spaces between the plants during your first year with some easy-sow annuals. These are plants where you sow the seed directly into the ground where you want them to grow, and they pop up! If you go to Aldi right now, there are packs of them for 39p each. One of my favourites for under a window is night scented stock, which has a raggedy little pink flower but smells amazing as dusk falls.

Some amazing grasses Ferguson! I'll definitely keep that link for inspiration in the future, I had no idea there is so much variety in grasses. Just to answer your question - beyond the fence on the left is a tiny lawn patch and my driveway. I'm tempted to grow some kind of climbing clematis in the future.

Shovetheholley Thanks for the tip! I've about 6 or 7 mini sweetpeas I'm growing from plugs which I'm planning to use to fill the gaps. I had a look at the night scented stock and going to buy some since they are nice looking (smelling) and cheap ;)

Question - Since it's only the ''first year'' I've turned over the soil etc and improved it - if I see in a few weeks time some of the plants not thriving (my guess the heathers??) - would it worth me digging up the non-thriving plants? I thought I could ''cheat'' and add some some ericacaeous soil in the hole where I dug up the plant, but make the hole twice as big, adding the ericacaeous soil. Or would it not be worth doing given that, the whole front garden is essentially clay soil? And thus, my efforts better turned to the kind of plants that would prefer to be there - like roses??

Definitely don't bin plants after just a few weeks! Some of them sit and sulk for quite a while and only get going in the second year. I have a cherry tree that sulked for an entire year!

By all means try to improve conditions around them, though, if they are struggling. The thing about gardening is that with the internet it's quite easy, providing you're vigilant, which means having a quick look at least 3 times a week to check things are happy. So if a plant is looking a bit off-colour, and you take action early, you can mostly find the problem on the internet and rescue the situation. It's generally when things are left for weeks on end struggling with pests or the wrong soil that they start dying. Sometimes you get extreme weather, or a deadly disease or something that you can't do anything about, but most of the time there are things you can do.

I would hold fire on the heathers for a bit. You have clay soil, which is probably slightly acid anyway (have you done a pH test kit on your soil? They cost a couple of quid from garden centres and it's well worth doing. Make sure you use a bit of soil that hasn't been manured!). The manure will probably have raised the pH a little, but clay buffers pretty well so the difference might not be huge enough to be a problem for the heathers. I would wait and see.