Elmms undertakes garden development. I only undertake soft landscaping works which includes planting plants and bulbs, hedges and trees.
I have often found that following on from hard landscaping constructed within a garden, it leaves their customers wondering what next to do with the soft aspect of their redesign: i.e. the planting
A visit from myself to your garden for an initial low cost meeting will include a full discussion on how the new hard landscaped garden can be planted up to provide, colour, shape, form and interest all year round.
My view is that it’s always important to meet a customer’s requirements and expectations or if unachievable then to offer alternatives that could still meet the brief overall.
As a result, gardens are greatly improved.
Small border created in back garden
A customer asked for a small border to be created within the back garden, keeping it small in size due to the narrowness and small size of the back garden. The customer just wanted an area to be able to start growing some plants to brighten up a bland space.
After agreeing the shape and using string and canes to set the width it was first necessary to carefully remove the existing turf cutting below the root zone and then removing as much soil as possible from the grass returning as much soil back to the border.
It was then necessary to dig through the new border breaking up the soil, removing any further weed roots and other ‘unwanted materials’. Following this, peat free organic matter was added to improve the soil structure, provide nutrient and water holding ability as the existing soil was totally dry. Watering the soil and adding slow release granular fertiliser completed the border ready to be planted by the customer.
Front garden space improvement (Spring 2021)
On new housing developments I find that there’s always awkward and often misshapen plots of land that are ‘gardens’ belonging to their owners. Bits of land that add little value for the owner although helps to improve the overall aesthetics of the development.
One of my customers has such a plot or garden space separating her and her neighbour’s driveways. Although small in size it has often been driven and walked over and as such the existing plants had become damaged and with the soil being trampled, just didn’t look like it belonged to anyone.
So initially, to relieve compaction a thorough cultivation was required. The large concrete haunching set behind the kerb edgings reduced the overall size of the plantable area, however enough space was available to increase some planting for the space.
In selecting appropriate plants, something more substantial, evergreen and prickly was required to give a living barrier where the bed met the tarmac roadway. I chose an evergreen Berberis julianae, a tough reliable plant which would cope with such poor conditions and be clipped to prevent it getting too big. Some existing plants were growing again within the bed, so enhancing the space with Euonymous ‘Emerald and Green’ and Lavandula spica ‘Hidcote’ would give evergreen foliage with splashes of scented purple flowers in Summer and would contrast well with the existing Spiraea ‘Gold Flame.’
Only a small planting task yet one which has greatly improved the space, has added, shape, form, colour and interest, has made it look ‘owned’ and as such will be respected and walked and driven around it in future!
Time to renew – March/April 2021
A small project within an established border provided an opportunity to thin out, prune back and in part, remove older established shrubs so injecting new life and plants into the spaces available.
My customer wanted most of the plants retaining to keep the height within the border and most existing plants being evergreen would keep an all year round interest.
The border being Southerly facing is always dry, with the soil being hard all year round and strewn with roots from the existing plants and well established trees making it difficult to cultivate.
Removing several large shrubs was a challenge:-
Replanting a rockery
An established rockery just needed some attention including weeding, thinning out, cutting back and replanting and with some new rockery plants added brought this feature back to life!
Front garden improvement
A customer asked for her front garden to be replanted to provide interest through the year. Currently the two borders contained a variety of decent and old, worn out shrubs with a helpful splash of weeds growing well on the heavy wet clay soil.
So, the starting point was to look at the planting areas and see which plants could be retained and which needed to be removed. Then checking the condition of the soil, looking at the aspect and where the sun affected the garden during the day.
The new plant selection was to provide plants which would cope with heavy wet clay soil and a westerly facing aspect. And to have a selection of plants to provide shape, form, colour and interest through each season within the bounds of the two narrow rectangular borders.
The work involved the thorough weeding and then removal of selected plants, cultivating and adding organic matter to the tightly formed clay soil in order to open up the heavy structure of the soil.
Back at base, choosing suitable plants for the garden took time yet worthwhile to get the effect required. Bearing in mind that some of the plants retained gave structure all year round, it was necessary to provide some additional evergreen plants in places to give Winter to Spring interest whilst the perennial plants had died back over the Winter months.
As the clay soil was saturated it was necessary to delay planting until the soil had dried out somewhat and once suitable, a final cultivation adding organic matter to the soil to help to open up the clay soil and the areas were then ready for planting.
My customer was delighted with the result and the choice of plants have grown really well through the year and something she has enjoyed looking out of the living room window to see what’s next in flower in her garden!
Corner garden bed planting
Just a smaller task to bring back to raised planters back to life:-
Tidying up an area
Extending an area within a garden
