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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

What would you do with this bit of garden?

18 replies

PancakeAndKeith · 16/08/2019 22:45

I’ve just cleared the bottom of my garden. It’s left a much bigger and lighter space than I thought it would.
It is south facing but is surrounded by trees, it’s rather like a woodland clearing.
There is a straight path that can’t really be moved as it’s cemented in.

No DC to worry about so, what would you do?

(Third picture is from the top of the garden! The area I’m talking about it past the willow)

What would you do with this bit of garden?
What would you do with this bit of garden?
What would you do with this bit of garden?
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SpaceDinosaur · 17/08/2019 00:25

Veggies! It's away from your gorgeously landscaped and we'll established garden. Of it were me, I'd grow edibles down there!

DamnitCharlie · 17/08/2019 06:19

What a beautiful garden! You could have a fire pit with seating around it. Plant some veg in raised beds with a compost bin if you're into that. If you want to increase the amount of wildlife in your garden and help the environment you could put in a small pond.

DamnitCharlie · 17/08/2019 06:21

Could be a nice hidden spot for a potting shed or greenhouse too!

TinyMystery · 17/08/2019 06:24

It’d be a lovely little spot for a pond!

PancakeAndKeith · 17/08/2019 10:47

And this is how it looks from the house.

The house is higher than the garden so this is the view from my living room.

I have a pond at the top of the garden and think one down here would get full of leaves.

The seats on the right hand side are there because that spot can’t be seen from the house or any other houses.

I don’t think it get enough sunlight to grow veg to be honest.

I thinking fire pit and seating.

What would you do with this bit of garden?
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PancakeAndKeith · 17/08/2019 10:51

And here from the bedroom.
It’s the bit right at the back where the sunlight hits.

What would you do with this bit of garden?
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sackrifice · 17/08/2019 10:54

i'd put some fruit trees and bushes down, they don't need as much light as veg. There is not enough light there for veg beds.

And i'd put woodchip down around the fruit trees and bushes if I could get it up there without too much hassle.

PigeonofDoom · 17/08/2019 10:56

You could plant a lovely woodland garden around the fire pit- I’m a big fan of woodland plants. Big ferns, hellebores, heucheras, hachonecloa grass, arisaema, toad lillies, martagon lillies, witch hazel, trilliums, rodgersia (for damper soil), sanguinaria, ornithogalum. I could go on!

titchy · 17/08/2019 11:07

Fire-pit, hot-tub, seating and a bar! Grin

Your garden is lovely!

MereDintofPandiculation · 17/08/2019 12:09

My experience is that veggies need sun. I've disabled my "vegetable garden" by planting apple trees, and it's now so shaded that I grow all my veg in pots up on the terrace.

Alpine strawberries do well in the shade and they give a good crop. Raspberries and hybrid blackberries (like loganberries and tayberries) also give a good enough crop to be worth growing.

But in your case I'd go ornamental, since it's the backdrop to your seating area. No lawn, and open space covered with bark chippings or similar. Then plant a good selection of "shade" plants, trying to give all year round interest, and remember that in spring there'll be more light to it, so you can have a whole raft of spring bulbs, and primroses and other primulas that don't like getting too hot and dry.

It's nice to pay attention to winter stuff so that you have reason to walk down there for a look in the winter. Hamamelis, winter flowering Viburnum, shade tolerant evergreens, things with good coloured stems (eg Cornus, some willows), autumn flowering Cyclamen hederifolium, spring flowering C coum.

Then you could move into winter aconite, snowdrops, small dainty daffodils etc. And Hellebores with long lasting coloured bracts.

For summer a range of perennials, eg Astrantia, Heuchera (also has good leaf colour), Tellima (very shade tolerant), Rogersia.

Arrange it as a sort of circular stage, with very low scattered bulbs in front, shading back to perennials then shrubs.

Stefoscope · 19/08/2019 11:25

I'd plant lots of bulbs for spring and early summer colour then throw a perennial wildflower seed mix down for the summer. I'd probably plant some fast growing evergreen ground cover plants to try to keep the weeds at bay. This website has some lovely native British mixes www.wildflower.co.uk. I'd add in some log piles and shelters for hedgehogs, bird feeders etc.

Aussiesaff · 20/08/2019 06:43

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BuckingFrolics · 20/08/2019 07:19

In what conceivable way is plastic grass good for the environment?

I'd go fire pit. And sweat lodge :)

Aussiesaff · 20/08/2019 07:45

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PurpleWithRed · 20/08/2019 07:59

Green, shady understory stuff like PP have said - depends how damp/dry it is as to what will be happy but I have epimedium, pulmonaria, woodruff, rhubarb in a damper bit, rodgersia, camellia, an acer or two, some tough hostas, hellebores in my shady area. Grass won't grow, you would need a very special wildflower mix to be happy but there are wildflower seed companies who could supply something suitable. And a clematis up that tree if the soil is good enough.

Half bury some chunks of wood - oak for preference - to create a stag beetle habitat, and some piles of logs and stones for other wildlife. Artificial grass has no value for wildlife at all. I'd have a little mini pond/puddle for a wildlife drinking station too.

kjhkj · 20/08/2019 08:07

Personally I would put plastic grass down. No more mowing or weeds and good for the environment

Presumably that's supposed to be a joke?

PancakeAndKeith · 20/08/2019 08:31

No fumes from lawn mowers

Yes, my electric lawn mower kicks up a load of fumes.

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PancakeAndKeith · 20/08/2019 08:32

We have a pile of logs that were in the shed we pulled down so the plan is to create a log pile/wildlife area.

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