Please or to access all these features

Gardening

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

Damp shade and London clay - what to grow?

6 replies

jcurve · 15/03/2020 13:04

I’ve just laid newspaper and mushroom compost over the beds in my small, north facing London courtyard garden.

I have no idea what to plant though! I have two camellia bushes (one 3m tall) and a rose bush that love our soil, but no idea beyond that. What would grow well in damp, shady London clay? Especially things I can plant now to flower in summer?

OP posts:
BadCatDirtyCat · 15/03/2020 13:09

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3314028/How-to-grow-Malva-moschata.html

I have loads of these growing in my shady London garden. Really easy to grow from seed.

Nigella also seems to do well and is extremely pretty

BadCatDirtyCat · 15/03/2020 13:11

(NB I know it says that malva moschata needs sun but my garden is NE facing and they do fine, lots of flowers)

jcurve · 15/03/2020 13:13

BadCatDirtyCat thank you, Malva Moschata are really pretty. That’s exactly the kind of advice I need - so much I’ve researched requires full sun so it’s good to hear they do well in your NE facing garden.

OP posts:
BadCatDirtyCat · 15/03/2020 14:14

Np. I also have a fuschia which does well, even in a very shady area. They're a bit 80s looking but nice and bright and flower all summer and into autumn.

KizzyWayfarer · 15/03/2020 14:54

I had a hydrangea in a London courtyard garden with zero sunlight, and it seemed quite happy.

MereDintofPandiculation · 16/03/2020 09:39

Astilbe, Astrantia, perennial cornflower, helleborus (in flower now but the "petals" are in fact bracts and will last for months)

New posts on this thread. Refresh page