My Gardening Plans – How Did I Do?

As this is the last blog of 2022, I thought it would be fitting to take a look back at the things I resolved to do at the start of the year. How did I get on with my gardening plans? How many things did I actually achieve?

Sunny Border

My sunny border wraps around two sides of our patio. So it’s potentially the most important part of our garden. It’s certainly the bit the family sees the most of. To reassure me, they kindly say it’s lovely.

It’s certainly full of lovely plants. Roses – Jacqueline du Pre, Wildeve, Natasha Richardson and the floriferous Little White Pet. Alongside these there are oodles of perennials – sedum, the towering, fluffy Liatris Spicata, geraniums, Astrantia Major Rubra, the airy Gypsophila Bristol Fairy and Salvia Caradonna. The ingredients are good. That said, it has the potential to get a bit tired looking. So this year I planned to refresh some of the plants – particularly the very tall Phlox Mount Fuji which had become a bit congested and the salvias which were looking lack-lustre.

Well, as is often the case with my gardening, I did a bit of what’s planned, but not all! I sorted the Phlox. But I forgot about the Salvias. Actually, if I’m honest, I think that because I knew we were opening our gardens in the summer, I bottled it! I didn’t do as much division as I should, fearfull that if my divisions didn’t work, a very visible bit of the garden would look a lot worse when the visitors came in the summer.

But the salvias definitely looked a bit tired when we opened. And I’m not sure division will sort them. So I may need to be more radical next year!

I also promised to monitor my oriental poppies to see if things were picking up, following my bolstering of their number through root cuttings. Well they looked a lot better, so much so that I’ve taken further cuttings which I’ll nurture and develop before planting them out in 2024 – gosh that seems a long way away!

Gardening Plans – Mulching

My gardening plans also included mulching the whole garden. Hands up here, I didn’t manage it. I mulched about 60%, which is pretty good going, but didn’t get to everything. I ran out of steam – and mulch!

That said, the one plant I was very careful to mulch this year, with special mulch called strulch was my hostas. Strulch is a marmitey, straw-based mulch which has some kind of slug deterrent in it. So it’s ideal for slug magnets like hostas.

I seem to have loads of hostas – about 17 but it could be more. I’m always surprised by how many I have, as of course over winter they vanish. I almost forget I’ve got them, and then suddenly up they pop.

Anyway, the strulching (is that a new word I’ve invented?) certainly paid real dividends as my hostas looked lovely this year – and their leaves were pretty well munch-free.

Lavender Line

I have a lovely line of lavender which gentle curves in an arc around a path leading to my garden refuge, my potting shed. Walking past the line, running my hand through the lavender has to be one of life’s great yet simple pleasures. However, the lavender is getting a bit leggy. As per my gardening plans which I set out in January, I removed two of the worst plants. I replaced them with fresher plants. I didn’t actually buy new plants but used two young lavenders which I already had, growing in pots. I’d forgotten I had them as I’d grown them from cuttings a year or two before.

The younger plants looked much better but the rest of the line is not brilliant. It still looked quite nice for gardens open, and people were kind about it, but I know it’s on its way out. So after flowering I cut the whole line back quite brutally to see if I can freshen it. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to replant the whole thing in 2023.

Gardening Plans for My Semi Shaded Border

I planned this year to tweak my semi-shaded border. It’s rather wild which I don’t think is a problem.

With its colour scheme of mainly lime green, white and purple, it looks pretty good from early Spring until the end of June.

The border is rammed full of snowdrops, primroses and hellebores early on in the year. Hostas, ferns, polygonatum and Silene Fimbriata follow after that.

A large chunk of the border is carpeted by a layer of sweet woodruff which provides the most gorgeous fluffy soft cushion under one of the old apple trees in the bed.

To keep the bed looking soft and romantic, it is very informally edged with white fluffy Tiarellas Emerald Ellie. I love tiarellas!

Three large limey green euphorbias provide a slightly prehistoric looking backdrop to all this (I always think they look like they are from another world). Then to add a dose of purple elegance to the proceedings, in May and June Alliums Purple Sensation power (and tower) through the border.

The other colour which can work in the bed is hot pink. But what doesn’t look right in it is red. And sadly right at the end of the year Crocosmia Lucifer run through the bed with a hot red flower. It’s lovely but not in this bed!

So this year my gardening plans included editing the bed a bit. I succeeded a little. I removed the odd plant which wasn’t working with the colour scheme. And I added a lovely Astrantia which has slightly limey white flowers – apologies I can’t recall the variety. I also added more Mexican Feather grasses, (which I’d moved from elsewhere. They provide a further soft limey effect and seem happy in the semi-shade. I’m not sure they should as I wouldn’t say there’s huge amounts of shade in Mexico – but hey ho!

But I left the Crocosmia, only removing them a month ago after they’d finished flowering. I will still need to replace them with something else in 2023.

However I may pause before deciding on what to plant, as – drum roll – Mr F-W began building his new shed next to the bed this year. Once completed it could well change how things look and the lighting. So I don’t want to make any rash decisions. I must be patient – if I can.

Shed Removal

This brings me neatly on to the next of my gardening plans which I talked about way back in January – shed removal. It was only a possibility in 2022. But as already mentioned, it’s became a reality this year with the work begining.

This is such a major development as our garden features two of the ugliest sheds imaginable. They span 15 metres and one of them is tumble-down wood and the other is concrete. No amount of planting, hanging containers or screening can disguise them. However, once Mr F-W creates his gorgeous new shed (which believe me will be an utter thing of beauty), everything will be decanted into the new one (or chucked out) and the two old sheds will go. Giving me a new expanse of garden to work with.

But I mustn’t get ahead of myself. Although the new shed construction has begun, Mr F-W isn’t to be rushed on a job like this. He is an amazing carpenter (it was his job) so he’s using reclaimed old windows etc to make his new shed a real feature. This is painstaking work and therefore I’m doubtful 2023 will include signficant new planting at the bottom of the garden. But with shed removal definitely at least on the horizon, I will be able to start planning for the bottom of the garden. Exciting!

Gardening Plans for the Patio

This year’s gardening plans included editing and adding to the red corner of my patio, and I certainly did make some changes to this area in 2022.

The corner features exotic looking plants in pots such as a banana (Ensete Maurelii) and a tree fern. These are combined with the Heuchera Fire Chief plus Japanese blood grass and other grasses, ferns, and a red clematis. I also have the chocolatey red dahlia Mexican Star in this corner.

My editing plans for the corner originally included swapping a mauve clematis Bernadine, which is in the area and doesn’t really go with the colour-scheme. Swapping it with a lovely ruby red clematis which stands near our kitchen window. But, I didn’t get to the containers in time – getting sidetracked with other things. So that’s still a job for 2023 – I will move the plants when I do my clematis pruning in February.

I also had to suddenly find a home for a hosta I’d divided. It has purple flowers and limey leaves so looked all wrong in the area. I’ll definitely find a new home for it next year! Probably in my semi-shaded bed.

What I did manage to do in 2022, in addition to successfully bringing my ensete back to life after over-wintering it in the shed, was adding to the corner a really nice planter. The container was planted up with Salvia Love and Wishes, Echincea Delicious Candy and Pennisetum Shogun. I think the colours and shapes really worked.

I also divided my heucheras and blood grass to create more of both for free. Dividing perennials is such a good, money-saving gardening idea.

The eagle-eyed among you will see a sunflower peeping above the proceedings in the photo above. This was an addition to the patio which, like the hosta, didn’t work. The sunflowers which I grew from seed were meant to be red! They clearly weren’t. Also, in that position they were really tricky to water in their pot. So I won’t repeat that experiment next year.

Looking at the area I also think it ended up too busy. With everything jostling for attention the plants weren’t given space to shine. Next year I’m going to take that on board and remove a few elements.

Happy Christmas

Well that’s it from me. In 2022 I definitely did some things I planned to do – and some things I didn’t. But that’s the joy of gardening for me, ad-libbing, seeing what works – and what doesn’t and learning as you go.

Have a lovely Christmas break. I’ll see you in 2023. I’m going to have a two-week break, as I don’t think I’ll be up to blogging on New Year’s morning. So I’ll see you on January 8th.

Much love – happy, chilly gardening in the meantime! Louise xxxxxx