The Bare Root to Border Planting Success

Acer in autumn

Evaluate your border planting

It’s a perfect time of year to evaluate your borders, and especially some of the more structural garden planting in your gardens because with bare root plant season upon us it’s a great opportunity to add some specimen plants to your borders for a much more affordable price.

Bare root plants are typically grown in a field (i.e. open ground) and are then dug up when they’re dormant, the soil removed from them, and then sold as bare root plants.  So, bare root plant season in the UK, generally runs from November through to March, making your winter garden the perfect time and place to change, create or add to your garden planting plans.    

Bare root plants offer savings

Because bare root plants aren’t containerised, they are often a lot more affordable than their potted peers which means that you can generally buy bigger, or more, plants; essentially making your budget work harder for you.  So, this is a great way to buy plants generally, but trees and hedging plants especially.

With no (usually) plastic pots to dispose of, bare root plants are also considered to be a much more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice for purchasing plants.  And as long as they are planted correctly, bare root plants are thought to establish much faster than planted container plants too and are arguably less likely to fail because they’re being planted when dormant; which also means, that less water is required than for plants that are planted in full bloom during the summer months! 

As garden designers bare root plants are a no brainer for us but for many of our clients as the weather changes, their minds turn away from their gardens in autumn and winter, often not returning to them until the weather picks up again in the spring.  Unfortunately, at this time, bare root season has ended, and with it the opportunity to avail our clients of some serious savings on plants, since most of our clients don’t want to wait until the following winter for their planting.  If this is you, it might be worth evaluating your borders now in order to make some savings on plant costs before bare root season ends.

Review and plan

We can help, of course, and our plant prices are extremely competitive, but to do it yourself look at the plants you already have and consider whether they are working together or against each other; is the border missing anything like colour or height or seasonal interest; is there enough variety of forms and textures of plants; is there a good mix of shrubs, perennials, trees, groundcover, etc; is there enough foliage, or too much foliage, too many flowers or not enough; are there any gaps that need filling, or is everything congested and could do with cutting back or dividing or thinning; does the border look and feel how you would like it to, does it fit with the rest of your garden?

Make a note of everything you’ve observed along with the aspect, size and shape of the border and then try to create a plan of it as you would like it to be. If you can draw your border and the general sizes of your existing plants to scale it will help you visualise the sizes and positions of any additional plants you may need. If you’re creating a new border the same principle applies, although obviously a lot more plants will be included on your list.

When choosing plants make sure they will work with the existing plants you have as well as the sunlight levels, space, soil type and pH that will be available to them in your border.  If you can start thinking about it now, you might well be able to make the most of bare root season too so not only could you make some savings on plant costs, but your newly spruced up border will be ready and waiting for those first rays of spring sunshine!  Win-win all round!

Don't forget where we are if you need help with your garden border planting, bare root season or otherwise! Contact us to find out more.

Creating an Indoor Outdoor Cohesive Space

Creating an Indoor Outdoor Cohesive Space

One of the jobs of a garden designer is to try to make the garden feel part of a cohesive whole with a client’s house so that they feel they belong together. It’s rarely an explicit request but when we’re designing a garden, a good starting point when trying to decide where things should go is to do it with the sight lines from the house very firmly in mind.  Regardless of the size of garden if you can create something beautiful and interesting to look out at then it brings the garden ‘closer’ to the viewer because they feel more engaged with it.  We’ve talked before about creating views of the garden so that from inside the house, the frames of windows and doorways when looking out are ‘framing’ the view beyond.  In putting that ‘view’ together it’s a good tip to try to think as a painter or photographer would, in terms of thinking about fore-, middle and backgrounds; about balance, subjects and ways of leading the eye through the view.

The décor, along with the use and choice of materials indoors, can give huge cues for outdoor decisions in terms of linking a garden and home – and more on that in a future article – but one obvious way to link indoor and outdoor spaces is through the use of greenery, i.e. plant choices and planting design.  Indoor gardening is more popular than ever and as we’re becoming more and more aware, just as looking out at a view of nature is good for us, surrounding ourselves with house plants is too.

Studies show that there are both psychological and physical health benefits of indoor plants; psychologically they improve our mood, reduce our stress levels and help make us more productive.  Physically they reduce our blood pressure, headaches and fatigue.  Indoor plants – just as outdoor plants do – also bring with them a massive and versatile potential for aesthetic styling, and just as we work with such things like form, habit, colour and texture externally, so too can we do so indoors. 

There’s a huge potential then for creating cohesion of indoor and outdoor spaces through planting.  For instance, if you can bring your outdoor planting right up to your house – perhaps through window boxes or raised beds leading up to your patio doors/bifolds, etc - and your indoor planting right up to the outdoor threshold so only the glass of a window or doors separates them; it can be a very effective way of blending the boundary between indoor and outdoor. 

Similarly repeating the forms, textures or leaf shapes of indoor plants with outdoor planting reinforces the links between the separate areas.  Picking repeating/similar flower or leaf colours across thresholds has the same effect as does choosing similar styles of pots that continue across the divide. 

For many of us space can be an issue both inside and out, so as usual, when floor space is limited, we’d recommend thinking vertically.  While hedges aren’t quite an option indoors, indoor wall space can be just as effective as garden fences and walls outside when it comes to accommodating plants.  You don’t need a full-size living wall either (as beautiful as they are!).  Climbers can be used indoors or as in our image/s small ‘living pictures’ can be used to harmonise the indoor/outdoor areas just as effectively as floor or shelf standing planters.  (We were so delighted with these living pictures in terms of looks, versatility and practicality - they have their own reservoir so watering is pretty much taken care of – we are now accredited suppliers of them so do get in touch if you are as equally delighted with them!)

Of course, choosing plants for indoors needs the same consideration as choosing for outdoors so light levels, room temperature and fluctuations, plant care needs and toxicity are some of the things to be considered along with their looks, size, form, colour, texture, etc.  If you have the right plant, in the right place doing the right job for you both indoors and out then the chances are good that you’ll also have a cohesive indoor/outdoor space.

Now you see it – magical garden design

Garden Designer as Magician?

Before we start I do want to make clear that garden designers are not magicians! We can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat or find a fortune for you behind your ear but that said garden designers do have a few tricks up their sleeves that, like magicians, depend on the powers and skills of misdirection, and dare I say it, manipulation.

The garden designer’s motivation for using such skills is fairly benign: how can we hide this ugly corner, for instance, or make the garden feel bigger, smaller, longer, wider, shorter, more intimate or more expansive; I’m sure you get the picture! We often want things we haven’t got or struggle to deal effectively with things we have and gardens are no different – thank goodness then for some of the tried and tested illusionary tools in the arsenal of a garden designer…

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this subject, it’s as expansive as the results appear magical, but hopefully it will give you an insight into some of the ways garden designers achieve some of the effects they do.

Colour in the Garden – Outstanding Yellow

What’s not to love about yellow you might think – it’s bright, cheery, striking; there are some gorgeous yellow- flowered and leafed plants; it’s sunshiny disposition is a tonic, managing to uplift us all, especially in spring. But yellow is not without its detractors it seems. The modernists of the 50’s for instance disliked yellow for its intensity, considering it way too jarring to be comfortable; and yellow has been banned from many a ‘snob’s’ garden for simply being considered the colour of ‘the people’.

Controversy and prejudice aside though yellow has a lot going for it in terms of garden design and if you can harness its power effectively the results can be spectacular.

Like red, yellow is both a primary colour and a ‘hot’ one and many of the attributes of red also apply to yellow. For instance both colours draw attention and as such seem to ‘advance’ – useful if you want to make a large space appear smaller. Play around with hues though and yellow becomes much more versatile than red. Paler yellow can act as a soothing balm to other colours for instance – odd for a hot colour; and an all yellow – but different shades – scheme works so much better than an all red planting scheme. The secret to its success is probably in its positioning on the colour wheel. Sitting right next to green – THE predominant neutral colour of any garden – yellow blends with green like no other colour.

But it’s not only green that yellow works well with. Pair it with blues and purples (violet) and it acts as a spectacular foil to its complementary colours; and still further, no hot border will ever be complete without the analogous colours of red, orange and yellow.

Yellow is also one of the best natural reflectors of light in a garden – edge a pathway with yellow foliage or flowered plants and you instantly create a ‘light marker’ along the path. Position yellow in areas that get early or late sunshine and you create golden ‘glows’ around your garden. Pale yellows, like white, seem to glow in a night time garden.

Whilst yellow can seem super fresh and radiant on hot sunny days, summer time is perhaps its least effective season because of its reflective qualities. Depending on the tone of yellow, very bright sunshine can make a bright yellow seem far too dazzling and overpowering whereas the softer light of spring, autumn and winter tends to only bring out the best of yellow.

One of the tricks of using yellow to its best advantage is to mass plant with it rather than dot it around a border. Think how striking fields of sunflowers or rapeseed are when seen en masse and whilst we don’t all have a field available to us we can proportionally mass plant within the space we do have. And one more thing about yellow (flowers) that’s worth mentioning: bees love it (even though they think its blue)… and we love bees… so what’s not to love?

Garden Design Quick Tip: Repetition

A well known fact in our industry is that people often impulse buy when at garden centers and end up with one of this and one of that.   Whilst it feels frivolous and perhaps even rather extravagant ‘dot’ planting really does leave a garden feeling uneasy, busy and sometimes even restless.   Next time you’re buying get a larger quantity, even if that is 3 or 5 and plant them together to form a larger planting area of one plant.  

To really get repetition right you would need to repeat that planting again further down the border, so you could buy 9 of the same plant and plant 3 lots of 3, or if you had 3 small borders you could plant 3 in each.  If you only have one border and a few small containers you could repeat the planting from border to container.  These methods have a great effect of steadying the planting design and it helps each area relate to each other giving a calming and more harmonious effect.  

If this concept of repeat planting is fairly new to you then I suggest next time you visit a National Trust property or a local garden that is open to the public see if you can spot the repetition in the planting and ask yourself how it feels.   It could well be in one border or if you stop and look around the same plant could be used en-masse in a lot of borders.  Our main photograph is of the lakeside borders at RHS Wisley but it’s a great example of repetition done well.

Three well known plants that can be used in repetition planting and look good when planted en-masse together are:

Stipa tenuissima, which works well planted at the edge of borders in groups of 3 or more, it not only adds movement but looks great with other perennials such as Sedum.  It likes full sun, well drained soil and gets to around 60cm in height and can look at home in a gravel garden and containers too.

Buxus sempervirens (Box) is a very popular plant for topiary and can come in many shapes.  Cone shapes add height and interest to the border whereas balls or domes give the eye a resting place and anchor the rest of the planting to the design.  It also works very well when planted at either end of the border as a horticultural ‘full stop’.  It is quite expensive so it’s always best to plan this one before you buy, and you’ll need some topiary shears if you’re keeping it in shape! Generally it will be happy in part shade and well drained soil.  Taxus baccata (Yew) - even more expensive than Box - is also a popular choice for topiary especially as Box has suffered a lot from blight in recent years.

Alliums with their globe shape add height, an architectural quality and great texture – so why not repeat them around the garden?  There are so many to choose from but one that I’m rather partial to (and the bees love it!) which isn’t quite as popular as others is Allium sphaerocephalon which has egg shaped, claret coloured flower heads that stand 60-70cms tall.  Ideally it has to be well drained soil in full sun for them to thrive and they are best planted in drifts.

Colour in your Garden

How people use colour is quite personal and if one person said the colour red to 20 people, those 20 people would view the colour red in different tones or hues.  This means that colour is subjective and is undoubtedly affected by our own likes and dislikes as well as location, light levels and use of the garden.

Colours can appear in different ways to us for example, red is classed as a ‘hot colour’ and it really does demand your attention and has the effect of coming towards you.  Yellow also comes towards you but isn’t as demanding as red, yellow tends to reflect available light.  Green is ‘cool’, it makes a good backdrop to other colours and blue is a very cool colour that often seems to merge with the background and looks smaller to its red counterpart.  

Garden Colour Tips

Hot colours – red, orange and yellows; these are strong, warm, attention seeking, stimulating and lively and can make your space feel smaller and more intimate.  Most plants that fit this description will come from the sunnier climates like South Africa and the tropics.  These colours can become quite difficult to see during the evening or in lower light levels.

Cool colours – pale blues, creams and pinks in the spring become a little stronger as the season moves on and are indigenous of northern Europe.  Blues, pale violets and greens show up best in lower light levels i.e. shady planting schemes and offer a calm, subdued and restful  effect, these colours tend to recede and can therefore make a small garden feel larger.

Harmonious colours are those nearest each other on the colour wheel for example, blue, violets and green from the cooler more restful side and red, yellow and oranges from the warmer more dramatic side.

Monochromatic colour schemes are those that are usually one colour but where plants are selected by using their tints, tones and shades of that hue.  You may have heard of a famous monochromatic planting scheme, The White Garden at Sissinghurst in Kent.  Different tones, tints and shades of white have been used and are offset by the use of silver and greys and then backdrops of greens. Our image shows part of the White Garden at Sissinghurst photographed in September.

Contrasting colour schemes are from the opposite sides of the colour wheel for example red with green, blue with orange and yellow with violet.  These are also known as complementary colours and by having two next to each other it forces the eye to see the other colour more intensely.

Care must be taken when using white in the garden because white flowers stand out from other colours and can disrupt a colour scheme as your eye is immediately drawn to it.  There are few true white flowers; most of them have touches of pink, blue, green or yellow in them and can therefore be used with plants of the appropriate colour.  This colour is excellent for shady difficult areas to lighten and bring life to it.

If you are a person who wants lots of colour in their garden it can be the most difficult scheme to achieve purely because colour is transient and frequently changes with the seasons.  If you recognise yourself here, remember that form and texture also play a really important part.

There are so many possibilities for our gardens. It is important though once you have chosen your colour scheme be strict and only plant those colours you have decided on. This will ensure that your planting holds together, creates the mood you want and doesn’t feel busy or disjointed.

Planning for Spring in Autumn

Yes, that’s right and there’s no better time than late autumn to plan for spring!  The garden centres, nurseries and in some cases even supermarkets have huge amounts of spring flowering bulbs for sale right now so it really is the perfect time to buy and plant them.   Just the sight of snowdrops or daffodils can make even us feel just a little excited that spring is on the way and the cold winter months are being left far behind us.  Spring plants are also one of the earliest sources of nectar for our emerging bees and other pollinating insects that really need do need a food source.

Some people I have spoken to see bulbs on sale and buy a selection of those they know or have heard of and plant them up and there is nothing wrong with that at all.  However, if this is you why not try something different this year and here’s a few questions to ask yourself which could influence your decision:

Once you have the answers to these questions you’ll have more of an idea how to plan for early colour next year.   If you don’t have a colour scheme in your garden don’t worry just try to think of a pleasing colour scheme and use it to plan for spring. T. 'Flaming Spring Green', for instance, looks great paired with blue Forget-me-nots (as shown in our image) where it can give a real pop of colour.

There are so many different varieties of tulips some are late spring and others early summer but you can find those that are a solid colour and others mixed.   Let’s take soft, muted pinks and purples as our colour scheme for this example Tulips, e.g. Tulipa ‘China Pink’, T. ‘Ballade’,  T. ‘Greuze’ or T. ‘Queen of the Night’.  So, where do daffodils fit with these colours?  There are several varieties of daffodils that are white or cream with limited yellow in the centre so you could look out for those rather than the bright yellow ones that are likely to clash e.g. Narcissus ‘Actaea’ or N. ‘Cool Crystal’.  White is a colour that is often used sparingly in planting design for the eye to naturally rest and this provides a comfortable break or pause from colours.  Snowdrops will do this perfectly, there are so many different varieties why not try a different one this year?  You could try Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ or G. elwesii. There are a huge variety of bulbs or other small flowering plants in so many different colour schemes that can add interest in your spring garden such as Fritillaria meleagrisAnemone blanda ‘White Splendour’, Eryanthis hyemalisMuscari armeniacumPrimula vulgaris also crocus and various cylamen.

Once you have decided upon your bulbs check which months they flower to ensure that you have colour as early as possible and every month right through until your established garden plants begin to come into their own.  Don’t forget to plant up your containers too as they will give you more interest and you can move them around the garden. If you have squirrels in your area lay some chicken wire or similar over the containers for protection until they start to grow.

The next stage is to buy them and remember a tool to plant them with, if you have only bought a few you would get away with a hand held tool if you’ve bought a lot it would be worth investing in one with a long handle that you can use standing up.  Buying the right tools for the job makes the job much more pleasurable and less painful!!  

We’ve only really touched lightly on planning for spring, if you want to know what to do now for your garden in spring give us a call we’ll be happy to come out and give you some advice.

Pledge for Pollinators

Pollinating bee on rudbeckia

Pledge for Pollinators

Here at Blue Daisy we’re really passionate about saving our humble British bumble bee and other pollinating insects like hoverflies, moths and butterflies.  The decline in our pollinating insects, especially bees, has been noticed through various studies over the last 50 years or so, the reasons are far reaching but one has been the reduction of our wild-flower meadows through the use of chemicals.  Recently it has become a hot topic with many organisations including the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) taking up the mantel led by Sarah Raven, to help gardeners identify the best plants in garden centres.  They have introduced a badge called ‘Perfect for Pollinators’ which will be on plant labels in all good garden centres.

Why are we interested in pollinating insects?  Well in brief, they transfer the pollen from one flower to the next allowing it to be fertilized, which means it will have the ability to set seed or produce fruits.  This is really important for us all, if plants aren’t able to set seed we risk reducing the amount of plants we can have as they could become endangered or extinct. The worst case scenario is that the pollinated flowers don’t turn into fruit which means it could have a huge impact on what we are growing and eating, or not eating as the case may be!  The pollination would need to be done by hand, it would be such a laborious task taking so many hours that the products themselves would subsequently be so highly priced the average person in the street may not be able to afford them.

We rely on insects to pollinate apples, raspberries, strawberries, red and blackcurrants, plums and pears so that we may eat and enjoy them.  It doesn’t just stop at fruit the bean family i.e. broad beans and runner beans also the marrow and pumpkin family too are pollinated by insects.  The value of insect-pollinated fruit and vegetables grown here in the UK is a staggering £220 million every year.* 

What can we do?  There are so many things that we as garden owners can do to help the bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies.  Did you know that the combined area of our gardens is larger than all of our nature reserves combined?  It goes without saying if we change but one thing in our garden we are helping the biodiversity for our community which in turn will have a beneficial effect for our diets, also our colour and variety rich gardens.  Here are just a few things you can do:

Here at Blue Daisy this year we will be encouraging our customers to consider the insects in their gardens.  We will be advising which plants to buy to extend the pollinating seasons and above all we guarantee that all our planting plans will have pollinator friendly plants incorporated.

Blue Daisy is asking you to consider what you can do to help our insects, asking you to think about what new plants you are buying and making sure that at least 50% of them are pollinator friendly from now on. You don’t have to start from scratch in your garden it’s about being realistic, it’s about understanding what is in your garden now and what you can add to make it more friendly.

From now on please consider our pollinating insects every time you buy new plants for your garden or as presents for friends and relatives.  Blue Daisy is a small business but if we and all of our customers, old and new, commit and if we can convince anyone else to along the way, together we will hopefully be starting a wave of change!   So please, commit now yourself and use our social media buttons at the bottom of this article to get the message out to others!  We really can't afford to lose our pollinators and we CAN do something about it, so please, let's try.

*Source: www.rhs.org.uk

Good Pollinator Plants

The RHS has produced a list of plants that are perfect for pollinators and here are a few of our favourite plants from that list:

Winter:
Sarcococca hookeriana (winter box)
Galanthus nivalis  (single snowdrop)

Spring:
Chaenomeles x superba (Japanese quince)
Geranium phaeum (dusky cransebill)
Ribes sanquineum (flowering currant)

Summer:
Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush)
Lavender cultivars
Verbena bonariensis

Autumn:
Anemone hupehensis (Japanese anenome)
Dahlia cultivars (single flowering )

Useful Pollinator Links

Coping with Drought

Drought tolerant gardens are the way forward…

When we're designing gardens the subject of climate change sometimes crops up and we're now often being asked whether it is possible to ‘drought proof’ a garden. One garden that has succeeded famously at this is the Beth Chatto Gardens in Essex and her ‘Gravel Garden’ has been an inspiration to gardeners and designers alike. Her gravel garden works with nature and does not fight against it, she used plants that will cope in dry conditions for example, Lavender, Cistus, Bergenia, Allium, Sedum and drought resistant grasses that have not been artificially watered since around 1992!

If you are thinking about having your garden designed and are starting with a blank canvass you could consider installing an underground rainwater harvesting system, a huge undertaking to be completed before the hard landscaping begins but well worth considering. Harvested rainwater has many uses around the house, for example flushing the toilet and for use in washing machines, but it can also be used to water the garden. Today a lot of people have water butts – which are great – but they don’t last long during a period of drought which we all saw this April when we had no rain for most of the month! It is also very important to choose your plants and the location of them carefully; you need to include plants that can cope with little water yet look good most of the year; after all you do want a beautiful garden.

High water use areas are lawns, vegetable patches and flower gardens so whether you are creating a new garden or adapting one you already have some ideas below show how you can reduce water useage:

Planting choice

Planting location

Soil structure

Lawns

Mulches

Watering

So you see, you can still have a beautiful garden if you work with nature and consider what else can be done and incorporated into the design to deal with our ever changing weather.

Fruitfully Speaking!

apples on the tree

Fruitfully Speaking!

Having a productive garden – it’s all the rage, bang on trend and everyone seems to want one.  The only thing is no-one seems to have the time to tend one and as much as they’re popular now, they can be time consuming and, for beginners, confusing. 

You could start small, think about what you like to eat, (take a look at what is in your fridge right now if you’re short on ideas) and rather than having to think about things like crop rotation if you’re growing vegetables you can grow some in containers instead - but if that’s not for you (and it’s not for everyone) – my advice is to think about fruit.  It is generally easier to grow, not as time consuming to look after and the rewards are truly wonderful (as our picture shows!).

There is a lot to be said about fruit, but designing a garden that is both practical and productive whether it is an urban or rural garden, contemporary or traditional it is possible to combine it with fruit.  I’m not suggesting that you have a specific fruit growing area but instead that you try and grow your fruit in and around the rest of your plants – incorporate them into the borders and the design. Imagine sitting on your deckchair looking out over the garden - the tall grasses and perennials are swaying gently in the breeze and amongst them your apple and pear trees are in full fruit, the medlars are looking good and the soft fruits are ready for the picking.

Sounds lovely doesn’t it?  Well, it is achievable; it’s is all about planning – choosing and positioning plants that look aesthetically right, through texture or height, contrasting with or complementing the leaf and fruit shapes of the chosen varieties you want to grow.  Choose accompanying plants that won’t grow too vigorously either – fruits generally like the light so you don’t want their neighbours blocking it out from them and reducing your crops!

Any fruit you grow would certainly reduce ‘fruit miles’ and encourage our native bees and other beneficial insects into your garden which is great for biodiversity.  It would also be a talking point for friends and family and above all, its fun to harvest and eat or store your fruit to eat over the winter.

So if you haven’t considered growing fruit before I hope this has convinced some of you to just have a go – it really is great to pick fresh strawberries off the plant!