Creating a Woodland border - Part 16

Garden transformation Part 16 – Colour at last!

The woodland border runs down the right-hand side of the garden in front of the holly hedge. It starts by, what is now the bamboo bed and finishes by the large yellow Irish yew tree ‘Taxus baccata Fastigiata Aurea’. It is a partially shaded border.

Winter 2013 – Spring 2014

When we moved here there was no border down most of the hedge. At the end nearest to the house there was one very large conifer that started on the patio and spread around the corner.

Then two more conifer trees down the length, they had grown over into the hedge and the one had grown into the yew tree. As they were a good evergreen screen we thought about keeping them. We raised the canopy on them, but still found them most unattractive so that was that, they had to go!

The only plants on that side of the garden, were in a small curved border around the yew tree. It was edged by a crazy paving path, which stayed for a while for practical reasons.

There was also a red rose in the curved border that we saved. It’s been moved twice but is now in the magnolia border, doing quite well.

The red rose before we’d cleared the bed

We kept the yew tree and cleared the bed of weeds, saving the Crocosmia, Geraniums, Pulmonaria and Primulas. The border was obviously going to be changed at a later date. In the meantime it was nice to have one tiny area tidy, with some colour.

We decided to leave the trunk of one as a totem-pole, which we have grown winter flowering jasmine on. It’s also used as a bird feeding station.

Replacing the trees

At our last house we had planted a red leaved tree, Prunus ‘Pissardii Nigra’.

I love red leaved plants anyway, but this particular tree variety has so much going for it. By mid-March it has beautiful pink blossom and leaves already, which is earlier than most deciduous trees.

At the other end of the season the leaves turn a beautiful shade of red and it loses them later than most other trees.

Planting the trees

We planted one tree as soon as we’d got the huge conifer out. Then once we’d decided to take the other two conifers down, we planted two more along the holly hedge. The sooner they were planted the better. This way they could be maturing, whilst we got on with all the other tasks we had ahead of us.

The three Prunus ‘Pissardii Nigra’ 7 years on

I hadn’t given much thought at that stage to what else I wanted in the border. I knew it would be quite some time before it was finished, as we had a great deal of hard landscaping to do, including building rather a lot of walls!

May 2014

In one area of the garden that we were clearing, we came across a lovely white rhododendron. It needed a new home and so we chopped it back and planted it by the yew tree.

Once free from weeds the rhododendron started romping away, together with the forget-me-nots!

We noticed that there were a few ericaceous plants in the garden. This type of plant likes acidic soil but more importantly they hate lime. There were two Pieris shrubs, one we planted in the border and a variegated one that is still in a large pot.

Also looking at what was growing in neighbouring gardens, we noticed some enormous Magnolias around.

We concluded that our soil’s PH must be more on the acid side. This is where my idea for a woodland border started as woodland plants like an acidic soil.

March 2016

Having used the right hand border as, yet another storage area, whilst the Great Wall was built on the other side of the garden. We finally cleared a bit more of the border to plant some shrubs, this would give them chance to start maturing.

We had been growing food in our new garden almost from the beginning. But it was lovely to feel we were finally getting some colour into the garden. We chose a purple rhododendron ‘Fastuosum Flora Pleno’ & an orange azalea ‘Gibraltar’. My father had been posted in Gibraltar and never stopped talking about how kind the people were to them, so I had to have it!

Rhododendron ‘Fastuosum Flora Pleno’ & Azalea ‘Gibraltar’

June 2016

We planted one of the Pieris shrubs at the beginning of the border by the bamboo bed. It was already here in the garden when we arrived near to the house.

Ericaceous shrub Pieris, with geraniums behind

For a slow growing shrub, it’s certainly grown a great deal since we moved it five years ago.

April 2017

By the end of 2016 the Great Wall was finished, allowing us to create white borders at the end of the garden. The white rhododendron we’d rescued and re-homed in 2014 was now uprooted again, lifted onto our hardworking trolley, and manoeuvred to its new permanent home in the aptly named, white garden.

June 2017

As we gradually put the pathways down the length of the garden, it finally created the boundary for the woodland border.

We were intending to build a summer-house further down the garden at some stage. This meant we needed to run a pipe through the border for cables etc. before we could finish planting it.

July 2017 – time to plant

Now that I had the full sized border, I decided to move the rhododendron and Azalea as they were too close to the holly hedge. I needed perennials at the back, as they die down in the winter allowing us to cut the hedge in November/December.

Woodland border through the year

I’ve tried to mix the bed with a combination of shrubs and perennials and bulbs to give interest all year around.

March to April – First colour of the year

The first spring colour comes through with the purple of the Pulmonaria, the yellows and pinks from the primulas and the intense blue of the muscari (grape hyacinths).

Unusually we had snow in April this year but luckily it was brief and didn’t seem to do any harm.

Next up are the tulips, the traditional yellows and reds come first.

The most flamboyant tulip though was bought from Wilko’s. It’s ‘Double Late Blue Spectacle’ and it looks somewhere between a peony and a rose. It grows to at least 18” tall, flowers for weeks and comes back well every year, simply fabulous!

Higher off the ground we have the new vibrant pink growth of the Pieris, and up above that the Prunus trees are already bursting into leaf with beautiful pink blossom.

May

As we move into May the leaves on the shrubs come out fully, the lime green on Physocarpus ‘Darts Gold’, and the dark red of Physocarpus ‘Diablo’.

The Choisya ‘Sundance’ has bright yellow leaves setting off the Brunnera macrophylla which is covered in little blue flowers that look just like forget-me-nots. An orange geum ‘Orange Queen’ comes up between that and the fading muscari.

Aquilegias that were here when we came have seeded around the border.

The beautiful large red leaves of Ligularia ‘Desdemona’ next to Centaurea Montana with their almost illuminous electric blue flowers.

As the month progresses the azalea and rhododendron open up to join the colour party.

June

The early spring flowers have now gone. Instead the bed is now bulked out with a riot of perennial colours, from pink Geraniums and Digitalis, orange Lupins, yellow Lysimachia Punctata, Verbascum and ligularia’s, purple Campanula and Delphiniums, and dark maroon Knautia,.

Geranium, Lysimachia Punctata, Lupin, Verbascum and Digitalis

Ligularia, Delphinium, Knautia and Campanula

Under the yew tree I planted Saxifraga x urbium (London pride). Even though it is so dry, it thrives, and its little rosette leaves have spread right around. In June it produces masses of frothy pink flowers that the bees love.

July through to September

The border is full to capacity now. Quite a few things have stopped flowering, but the late bloomers have started. The orange Crocosmia and pink Persicaria amplexicaulis look good against the dark red leaves of Physocarpus and the sedum ready to turn pink.