Good flower choices help please!

[Gardeniafleur]

Hi all,

I am planting an almost completely new large garden - I'm sure that over the next few years I'll be adding some shrubs, but this year I just want to add lots of flowers and plants to a big sloping border that had to be cleared due to vastly overgrown seventies conifers and saplings and brambles/ivy etc.

I'd love advice on what would be nice - we're in Northern Ireland quite low near the sea, I was previously on higher ground so i'm excited about being on below the usual frost line. Close to the sea but plenty of gardens, hedges and trees in between us and it (and not open sea anyway, a lough) and quite sheltered generally.

I have thought of - roxane type geraniums, bees i think LOVE these and they will give good spread for now. I have lots of verbena seedlings.

I'm too late to plant alliums this year, aren't i?

I was thinking bishops children dahlias, sunflowers in a patch, might try again with sweet pea although I am always crap with them. Nervous of foxgloves for another couple of years as youngest could possibly just about eat them (i mean she won't but she once ate yew berries which was the most terrifying few hours of my life and so am overly anxious).

Anything that needs HOURS of hot sun is prob not great, but most things do well in this warm damp climate.

Well Shrubs would give the cover and base structure to try and make sure you get regrowth under control.
How big is 'big'?
What colours do you like?

What about campanulas, stachya daisies, iris, astilbes, persicaria, snow in summer, salvias, aquilegia. shrubs that like warm wet conditions are cornus, hydrangea, rhododendron, azaleas, or any thick leaved shrubs.

If you have brambles and ivy then you have moisture retentive rich fertile soil - that means perfect for a lot of potentially nasty weeds and might be the polar opposite type of soil to what is being suggested to you when you search coastal garden (which are usually sandy & low fertility)

I would go with power house perennials to combat the bramble regrowth. Persicaria is a great shout from a pp. Dwarf miscanthus would be a strong grower companion grass. Leucanthemums going to be better for you than South American daisies like Echinacea. Irises are forgiving and good for early in the year - potentially Libertia would work.

Cammasias going to work better in richer soils than Alliums which like gritty soil.

Oh yes, it's definitely very rich and fertile, and being Ireland very moist! Some fabulous National Trust gardens about, they just tend to be more green and verdant than say south of england which would have more proliferation of blooms. So, bishops children do well here but I've never been able to have a really deep successful bed of dahlias as just not quite enough sun.

It's got a lot of shrubs already that we are slowly liberating from endless bramble. As predicted, hydrangea azalea rhododendron, very overgrown escallonia. SO deep in bramble that we didn't really know it was there.

0.8 acre

Rectangle long side facing see which is I guess 0.25/0.4 miles away (my measuring is crap, you can see it from the top bedroom windows but its not sweeping down to the sea and soil not sandy at all.)

Bottom of rectangle what I think was once a escalonia hedge with azaleas/rhododendrons/hydrangea. By the layout, the depth of bramble and holly saplings etc, been abandoned for maybe 30 years? In the summer the bramble was so thick it was a solid green wall and it has been extraordinary taking it out and seeing what is there beneath.

Brilliant suggestions, looking them up one by one. Weirdly not feeling it for campanulas. I can't find what stachya daisies are. I have ox eye seeds - am I crazy to sow a lot of those this year, will they haunt me forever?

Persicaria is going on the list.

I have weirdly never heard of Cammasias but also on list!

Miscanthus - also lovely. We have a great family run RHS garden and nursery nearby and going to be buying as much as possible from them.

I will try a few echinacea from said nursery, as they breed from their garden so test what 'works' here in NI - they did say before that it was hard to get them to grow here but I'll give it a go.

Aquilegia great shout too!

Sorry just realised this post v long, almost diarising to myself!

Love astilbes and iris, good shout on the latter as am remembering the lovely garden my parents inherited with huge velvety irises.

I don't want to plant shrubs in the big bank border I have as I feel like I have just had all the overgrown, entangled ones removed... I just don't even know what I want.

It slopes down and is in sun most of day, open to south and west. shaded by house in morning.

What can i have for height? I LOVE fennel, and what produces those gorgeous tall teasel things in winter?

I have been deep in the dread of 'wtf have we done' for a long time and so now am starting to get a little more excited.

Cerinthe, calendula, borage and nigella all self seed nicely so will last for more than one year, have long lasting blooms and are loved by pollinators. What about some shrub roses as well?

For height, fennel is superb and also verbena bonariensis. You could also plant Jerusalem artichokes for sunflower like blooms and height.

And stick in loads of spring bulbs! You could probably get some in now if it’s warm!!

Don’t forget some flowering shrubs as well - philadelphus, ceanothus, ribes - there are loads.

I don’t want shrubs right now as we’ve just removed so many, and because while philadelphus is lovely, it didn’t do as well here in a v sunny spot in my last garden. In that it grows ENORMOUS but no flowers.

I just want to spend a few hundred quid and get some gorgeous Englishy cottage garden /mad florals.

(I lived in England for 18 years and I miss you, you lovely gardening, wellybooted, church-spires-and-cottage-gardening people).

I have a David Austin rose that yes, needs to go in, good idea. And I LOVE fennel.

I do have a small cutting of hydrangea vanille fraise but I might be quite sick of those now having had a lot in my last garden.

I put two bee/butterfly friendly borders in my old house, so have billions of verbena seedlings. How soon could I plant them?

What bulbs can I put in now??

I have some little potted snowdrops and crocus and tête à tête and muscari that I thought I could pot once they’d bloomed?

So the tree stump remover has been and the soil looks a bit crap post conifer - what should I put on it - chicken manure pellets? Blood and bone? Bark chippings?

SO exciting and sorry if I haven’t come back to your specific suggestion yet, I’m still reading and processing.

Jerusalem artichokes! Would I be able to eat the roots?! Brilliant suggestion.

Sorry PLANT the snowdrops etc once they’ve flowered not pot them. Is that the right way to do them?

You can still put tulips in - and even daffs if you find any bulbs. They were being sold off super cheap in my local garden centre this week

Yes to the eating Jerusalem artichokes - you can dig them up every single year once they’ve died back, and you’ll never get them all, they’ll come back. What about other flowering herbs like lavenders? More roses? Some nice flowering thymes and oregano/marjoram at the front of the border? Delphiniums are another cottage garden classic, and hollyhocks. Grasses are good for adding structure if you don’t want big shrubs. Re the soil - I’d go for a heavy thick mulch as it will be dry post conifers so something like manure.

If you want more edibles think about globe artichokes, dwarf fruit trees, fruit bushes, perennial kales, herbs, salads and veg like rainbow chard and rocket among the flowers…

I’m not sure if glove artichokes grow here - but I would def give them a go as I love them.

It’s so interesting seeing what grows here and doesn’t - you wouldn’t think roses would do brilliantly, but they do. Lots of ‘market garden veg’ grown locally (cruciferous veg, carrots etc) but hard to grow tomatoes or peppers without a polytunnel.

Would it be madness to put some cabbages in just for the caterpillars? I LOVE butterflied esp cabbage whites.

GLOBE not glove.

Okay interesting re manure, will get some on.

I have had a lot of lavender in my life and am feeling weirdly like I want a temporary break from it.

Love delphiniums and funnily and enough have another thread just started about hollyhocks!

You could still plant alliums, I put some in just after Christmas last year and they came up beautifully. Tulips too, definitely not too late for them so long as they're in soon.

I still have some alliums and tulips to plant this year, too... 🤦

Check out the Sarah Raven website for inspiration.

Right will check for allium bulbs on my b&q dash tomorrow.

Oh how I love Sarah Raven... You're right, I had just been avoiding it because it breaks my heart we can't get delivery from her any more, but funnily enough saw an insta post of or about her and was thinking what good combinations she has...

Her rose-scented geranium is the gift that keeps on giving, you could literally break off a stem and shove it in the ground and it would root! I feel like Marmaduke Scarlett with it sometimes.

Great thread! I might be back to look at some of these suggestions.

Definitely ask the RHS garden centre what grows well without needing special care and ask your neighbours what grows well for them. We have a great local gardening group where people offer seeds, seedlings and lots of advice!