Practical gardening

Spring into action

My last post showed the garden three weeks ago just after I had knocked down all the perennials with the question “would you want your garden looking like that?”. Well, as promised, the perennials have reappeared rapidly to cover the ground level debris and the shrubs are bursting into flower. This is how it was …

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Perennial plants in winter

Dutch Garden Wave Tidy Up

The naturalistic style of planting popularised over the past twenty years by Dutch garden designers, including myself, places great importance upon perennials that look good throughout the winter by retaining their form either as dead skeletons or by way of their distinctive seedheads. At this time chaos threatens and the urge to tidy away the dead …

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soil preparation

Managing Soils

Healthy soil is the foundation of any perennial meadow planting I have already written about my decision to mulch newly planted perennial meadows following initial planting in order to suppress weeds. Time and again I am amazed just how much work it saves and the fact that we don’t have to walk in amongst the …

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Soil and Mulch

Managing Garden Soils

Soil Management for Perennial Meadow Planting Schemes Americans mulch and Europeans don’t and arguments rage between those that do and those that don’t. Like many generalisations there are more exceptions than truths, but apparently an over reliance on bark mulches in American landscaping has triggered a knee jerk reaction against them. In a recent book …

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