Wish me luck

[IstandwithJackieWeaver]

Yesterday I took the bull by the horns and ordered a stack of plants for part of the garden - it's a huge sloping bed between the terrace and the grass at the front of the house which our living room looks out onto.

This means I now need to dig out a lot of randomly planted things and overgrown shrubs which I want to replace - like a huge hypericum, golden privet, lonicera nitida and several of something a bit like a kerria which isn't but which goes beserk in summer and blocks the light for everything else. There are seven more of this git to dig out.

I'm planning a rose hedge alongside some steps and putting in more evergreen flowering shrubs. I'd already put in a dwarf acer and a camellia a couple of years ago.

Lots of hard work ahead and it'll be a couple of years before everything is established.

Good luck! Your plan sounds awesome, might you share some before/after pics?

Good luck, it will be so satisfying when finished. It sounds like your garden was planted with a lot of shrubs that were sold as job lots in the 1960/70s. We once had a garden like that. So unimaginative.

I've got a suspicion the unidentifiable plant - it's similar to goatsbeard but really dull and just a bare and twiggy in winter - is knitting the soil together, but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it! We're in Derbyshire so if necessary I'll get some local stone to stabilise it.

Plants of Asian/Japanese origin work well with the soil and conditions so I've got some lowish growing evergreen azaleas coming and some nandinas.

If anyone likes David Austin roses, they had a deal on 5 bare root roses for the hedge - works out as one plant free with a bag of their microfungus stuff (technical term) thrown in.

There was rampant buddleia everywhere when we moved in - great for wildlife but real thug if it's not kept in check and this wasn't.

I have just order some tree lupins, which are supposed to be very good for stabilising sloped ground and like acidic soil. They are scented too.

Here's a before photo. This afternoon I've dug out one of the bastard boring plants that was more like three together with a huge spidery root system, three hypericum, one lonicera nitida and a golden privet. I'm going to try for one more of the boring ones then that's enough for today. I've also pruned my cold damaged roses, refreshed a huge honeysuckle and a jasmine that had been growing through a really overgrown hedge that I got rid of last summer.

DP is lucky he isn't under the patio as he's just said to me, "There seems to be a lot of digging out and not much going in".

Forgot the photo

It's such a good thing to get rid of mistakes. In a few weeks, when I've decided on their replacement, I will be digging out a quite mature white Daphne that won't stand up and doesn't smell of anything and it's neighbour, a white magnolia (allegedly) bought on a whim that is now 6ft tall and has never so much hinted at flowering.

Looking for something evergreen ideally flowering up to about 6', and resisting the easy option of another camellia.

What about a hebe? I've got one I need to plant - hebe macrocarpa. Not very exciting I know. I've ordered some evergreen white flowering azaleas.

a white magnolia (allegedly) bought on a whim that is now 6ft tall and has never so much hinted at flowering. Isn't Magnolia stellata (or maybe it's M kobus) known for not flowering until it's been in several years? Absolutely glorious once they start.

I can't criticise. I removed a walnut, decided I wasn't prepared to wait for the fruit.

Sometime this week I'm going to have to try to liberate the buried Skimmia currently invisible under a huge mass of Pernettya that is festooned in big clumps of white berries. East to massively cut back a boring plant, or an interesting plant not currently doing it's interesting stuff, a different matter when the plant is looking stunning.

I'm not going to try actually moving either of them. I know when I'm beat.

I still have a mammoth hypericum to dig out, plus a smaller one, several of the boring plant with the huge root system and another lonicera nitida to go. DP has suggested getting someone in to do this, but I think I'll carry on and see how far I get this week.

Then I can start prepping the soil for the new plants. I also need to reclaim some lawn from perennial geraniums that have taken over.

My roses have been dispatched and I bought a low growing flowering quince which is on its way. Apparently it's good for slopes and partial shade.

Last weekend was a write off for clearing the remaining unwanted shrubs and planting the roses - we'd had lots of rain and it was a mud bath. Some of the other plants I'd ordered have arrived today so I really need to crack on this weekend. Pray for dry weather for me please!