Move it or dump it - you choose!

[Karbea]

I know nothing about gardening.

We are having an extension and there are a few plants that either need to be moved to somewhere else in my garden, or given to the big allotment in the sky council dump, I've no idea what is worth keeping, what will just die if we move it or what's just weeds!

If I attach photos will you clever lot decide their destiny? And tell me where is best for them to move to?

The plants all need to be moved in the next six weeks.

Yup. Post pictures and the gardening fanatics enthusiasts will tell you what they are and what their fate might be.

lets see what you've got!

I love move it or dump it (I'm quite ruthless though...)!

Excellent! Here is the first one (or 6).

Ok there are six of these, they currently are planted around a compost heap that we don't use (and will be dismantled).

Can we also see the rest of your garden? Some things might be worth keeping but only if you have the right spot.

Ok, back garden faces SE. It's triangular. Please don't laugh, there's not much in it.

The front is pretty much all lawn as you can see is the back

Both are quite damp. Back garden is quite shaded due to two old oaks.

That looks like privet. Very uninspiring and only worth keeping if you need to make a hedge somewhere else. It's tough as old boots and would probably survive the move but frankly (as the owner of the world's dullest privet hedge) I would add it to the compost heap.

Does it grown tall?

I'd dump that first one unless you need a large shrub to cover a certain area in the garden.

I've a few things in my garden that I'm not a fan of but the fill a space IYSWIM?

See I'd keep it now I've seen your garden (since there's not a lot in it!)

Depends how planted you want your garden to end up. My neighbours all seem to be fans of dig up all the (often lovely) plants and just lay turf.

Do you have an idea in mind of what you want your garden to look like?

This is about 8ft tall.

I'd love lots of flowers and plants, fruit trees etc. dh doesn't like gardening at all, I'm rubbish, I've a gardener who currently just cuts the hedges twice a year and mows as required.
My perfect garden would be very different, but I've no idea and no talent. :/

Would the Privet grow here?

I think everything else struggles because of the Oak tree.

Privet will go just about anywhere you don't want it to so would most likely be fine - only one way to find out! Nothing to lose if it doesn't take. On the other hand, if there was a budget for planting after the extension, there are so many nicer plants!!

Not a fan of the other one but it'll be a bugger to dig up

I don't think we will have budget to eat after the extension haha! So planting will probably be next year or the year after.
I don't really like the other thing either, it's a bit exotic for our garden really :/ but it is one of the bigger plants.

Now, I was thinking the palm (I can't think of its full name) would make a good focal point, especially if you've not got much else.

The palm is perfectly nice, I've just never been a fan! But agree if there's little budget for planting it could be a nice focal point, if it copes with the move

I'll put some more pictures of the garden on here tomorrow so you can work out where a good focal point might be.

I think your plot looks terrific, Karbea. It has a really nice feel to it, and being surrounded by oaks sounds wonderful! (You must get loads of lovely birds in). I think your problem under that oak, by the looks of things, is that the soil is in poor nick. If you get some compost/manure/leafmould (ideally a mix of all three) and dig it in, you'll find you have a lovely basis for a shade garden under there. But not if you put the privet in there - it is very water hungry and will preferentially grab it, drying out your already dry shade even further.

I am a privet-hater so I say bin it. In fact, I hate it so much, I want to vote for you to destroy it with a flamethrower then bin it, just for the satisfaction of it. (I have metres and metres of privet hedging that I can't get rid of because my garden backs onto about 7 others).

Please don't get rid of the palm! It would be lovely planted up in the right place, with things in front and beside it. Established plants like that cost £££ and I think it is structurally very fine looking. The problem with palms, in my view, is the way they are used - people stick them in overly formal gardens, where they form a slightly pitiful, raggedy centrepieces for a tiny border of horrible, gaudy busy lizzies and begonias, instead of making use of their more jungley and wild qualities. Yours looks in fine fettle, and planted with some other medium sized, big-leaf things, it would look just terrific.

Here is a picture of the type of planting I'm talking about: palm planted wiht large other things. (I'm not suggesting you go for anything this rectangular - I think that would be a mistake with the shape of your garden, where a curved path that snakes around would really work). It's more to compare the size of the palm to other plants (if budget is a concern, you could buy cheaper, small plants and watch them grow).

And (courting controversy a bit) this is the kind of old-fashioned park-style palm planting I strongly dislike. Argh! My eyes! My eyes!

You're quite right, shovetheholly. Unless you're aiming for ironic retro cool, the Victorian carpet bedding look is not a good one.

high fives Maud

It's also fussy to do, and incredibly unsustainable. There is a park near me where they have a few beds like this, and I watch the gardeners out there watering and weeding like crazy every day. Mental. Elsewhere in the park, they do much less water-hungry planting and it looks a million times better.

I think that's theist compelling argument against it. Done on a massive scale in a park it can be quite an arresting sight - and there's a National Trust property (Waddesden Manor) that famously does it because it has always been a feature of the garden there - but anything that requires hundreds of tender plants to be composted every year is bad environmental practice. And done on a twee scale in the average domestic garden is doesn't even have visual impact in its favour.