ljgardens

April Plant of the Month
Fritillaria meleagris

Otherwise known as snakeshead fritillary. A beautiful, delicate, bell shaped, spring flower with speckled markings. Fritillaria meleagris has many uses; an ideal plant for naturalizing into a lawn and/or meadow (plant in groups for maximum effect), it is equally attractive planted in groups within a woodland scheme, it looks wonderful planted along the edge of a stream and will also do itself proud within the rockery. I have underplanted a magnolia with groups of Fritillaria meleagris along side my pond, they look gloriously wonderful bobbing in the breeze!

Carefully plant the small bulbs 4″ deep in fertile well drained soil in either sun or partial shade. They need to be kept damp during the summer (not a problem last year!!).

Fritillaria meleagris is protected in the wild.

Plant of the Month

Garrya Elliptica, the silver tassle bush, is a fabulous plant for this time of year, with it’s dark wavy leaves and long catkins it can grace any border or wall.

It will grow in sunshine or partial shade, even on a North Wall, in costal areas it will make an excellent wind break. G. ‘James Roof’ with its dark sea green leaves and eight inch catkins has a RHS merit award and is the one I would suggest you plant.

Recently I’ve planted two Garrya into very large, wooden containers against a north wall either side of patio doors. I’ve planted them with Sarcococca hookeriana for scent, Hellebores for winter blooms and Muscari (Grape Hyacinthus) for colour. Hopefully over the coming years the plants with thrive and grow large and happy. (That is if I can stop my Cocker Spaniel from sitting in the container!!)

Well chosen plants in well chosen containers make an excellent focal point to any garden, patio, wall or entrance to your home providing a wow(!) factor.

A bright, beautiful collection of pots filled with co-ordinating plants can brighten a patio or terrace. To make a collection of pots work you need good shapes, colours and proportions in both the pots and plants. Attractive pots filled with herbs, placed in a sunny location, perhaps outside your kitchen door make a lovely, compact kitchen garden. With a little tender loving care they will thrive and produce added ingredients for your cooking pot.

Two pots either side of a front door or porch provide a dramatic,welcoming entrance to any home. If you’re selling your house it provides a glimpse of what lies within, enticing future buyers through the door.

Wall hung containers, add much needed space for plants in a small garden or brighten a big dull expanse of wall. Hay racks look fabulous planted, they not only take large plants due to their depth and size but trailing plants too.

No room for a pond? A sealed container makes a wonderful water garden feature, not only looking great but attracting good wildlife into the garden that act as natural pest controls. Add a small pump for extra impact and soothing noise.

Are you struggling for an ideal special present? Any of the above would make a lovely, long lasting present. Certain flowers take on different meanings…Gardenia-’You’re lovely’, Forget-me-nots-’Love’, Pansy-’I'm thinking of you’, Red Camellia-’You’re a flame in my heart’, Primrose-’I can’t live without you’, Yellow Irises-’For Passion’. A stunning pot filled with a favourite plant has much more longevity than a bouquet of flowers and mark a special birthday, wedding, anniversary for ever.

At ljgardens we offer a service to give your containers a designer edge. If you have a desire for some gorgeous containers we will visit you for a consultation and either take the containers away to plant or plant the containers on site if they are of a larger variety! We will also source and supply containers when necessary. If it’s a present a telephone consultation is normally sufficient, it may be that you would like us to visit your recipient if they have a special container to be planted or you may like us to find a suitable container and plant it with either favourite plants or plants of a special colour.

Our service is both professional and friendly and we endeavour to keep costs reasonable for containers,compost, plants and our time. No job is too small, we put the same amount of care into all our containers big or small, one or one hundred!

Success is all about the right container, the right place and the right plants.

A month or so ago I learnt a large lesson……to back up my computer files.

My computer and hard disk were damaged and all my written work and photographs were deleted and lost forever.

Now everything is backed up!

My web-site is void of photographs for the moment until I can get my camera out and re-visit some of the gardens I’ve designed and had built and take some more.

Hopefully in the near future…..keep checking!

Time to air our views…!

Beware…!

It is said in Irish Folklore that removing a Hawthorn Boundary Hedge is bad luck.

All the fairies that bring good fortune into your life live in the hedge, removing it replaces the good luck with bad luck.

Watch out! Remove Hawthorn at your peril!

YESTERDAY’S GARDENS……

Gardens have undoubtedly changed over the years, styles, fashions come and go. Societies change due to outside forces and with that requirements for their gardens alter. The biggest example, of course, during the wars when all gardens became vegetable patches minus their iron railings.

It wasn’t so long ago people worked their gardens and made the garden work for them. Their back garden provided food, vegetables and fruits, flowers for the house, a lawn for entertaining. Recycling and composting was a necessity, you re-used what you could.

I have lovely memories of my Grandfathers garden and him working in it, or sitting in his chair at the bottom of the garden when the day was finished. His 1930’s house was surrounded by what would be considered a large garden by today’s standards. The front garden was of good proportions screened by a hedge and full of roses. The long back garden was split into various areas, vegetable garden, fruit garden full of gooseberries, raspberries, plum trees, lawn area, compost area and shed. I would spend time picking fruits, digging potatoes, gathering sweet peas and eventually playing on the lawn when the work was done eating a fruit pie made from our pickings! Happy Days reflecting what a garden should be…..

With the importance of what we eat at the forefront of our thoughts lets go back to working our gardens, they can with commitment produce good organic food for us, flowers for the house. as well as looking good and providing us with that ‘outside room’ we crave. Growing vegetables and fruit, perhaps keeping a chicken or two can be a family hobby, children love ‘planting and picking’, learning as they go along becoming horticulturists of the future.

Whether you have a big or small garden you can grow vegetables and fruit, you don’t need a big vegetable patch remember you’re only trying to feed your family not the street. Fruit and vegetables can grow amongst shrubs and flowers in the border, in containers or customised vegetable boxes. Grow what you like to eat, and attracts youand start with small projects. Go on buy a packet of seeds and some good compost, grab the children and find an old container in the garden and give it a go.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
Disappearing Front Gardens… A Contribution to Flooding?

This summer saw the worst floods for many years.

Disappearing front gardens are a contributing factor to overflowing drains, therefore flooding. Gone are the traditional front gardens with a lawn and flowers beds and in there place a concrete platform for car parking. Leading on from that, the council erect a dropped curb removing the grass verge and or any tree in the way. In summary, all green gone replaced by grey concrete.

The result rain pouring off your drive out into the main drain putting untold pressure on an already overloaded drainage system. Absent front gardens also have other negative effects on the environment

Did you know a concrete front garden;

Absorbs heat during the day and releases heat during the night into your bedroom causing you to use fans and air conditioning units increasing your carbon footprint.
Can cause structural problems, with no water going into the ground shrinkage occurs causing cracks in walls and even houses leading to expensive repairs or worse, walls collapsing.
House prices can drop if a street adopts paved front gardens, shrubs, flowers and trees disappear not only from gardens but from verges as councils install dropped curbs.
Can increase asthma, plants and trees absorb dust and fumes balancing the atmosphere.
Nature is affected without plants and trees, wildlife have no homes and food chains breakdown as well as natures way of controlling pests and diseases.

You do not need to concrete the whole of your front garden for one car – you don’t concrete your whole back garden for one shed. In fact you don’t need any concrete to park a car. The easiest solution is gravel, it is permeable allowing water to past through it and into the ground. Look for locally sourced or recycled products, shrubs and flowering plants can be planted through it softening the overall look adding scents and colour. If you have a drive on an incline use paved tracks for the wheels of your car, the rest of the garden can be treated as you wish, you can plant certain plants like thyme or creeping jenny underneath the car they will still thrive. Cellular paving , recycled plastic ‘honeycomb’ matrix cells filled with locally sourced gravel or recycled glass or by products of the ceramic industry make a good, strong parking area. You can also use a similar product for reinforcing grass in recycled plastic.

A traditional front garden with good planting can provide screening and privacy for your property and give you a green and/or colourful outlook from your sitting room. Planted with the appropriate plants it can also be good security, no burglar will want to climb through thorny shrubs. As well as adding value to your property a well planted front garden can soften and enhance your property and street. Plants and flowers make a good home for wildlife and encourage insects into your garden, providing a natural control for pests and diseases.

Above all a traditionally planted front garden will contribute to lessening the threat of flooding to your home and environment as well a adding some plus points to your property and street. We all have to contribute to change – and changing your front garden or thinking through different ideas before paving or concreting your parking space seems a fairly small sacrifice to make. But one that could start making a big difference to our lives and lifestyles.

Garden Grabbing

It seems our gardens are shrinking, and or disappearing at an alarming rate, 30,000 gardens were concreted over last year ready for new houses to be built.

Small houses with large gardens are being sold over to developers to squeeze in as many houses as they can often with disproportionate sized gardens, all in the name of profit. Is it that home owners have forgotten the importance and pleasure of a garden or is it a case of all modern houses have the same sort of garden to offer therefore dumbing down the importance of external space?

Gardening is reported to be the UK’s number one hobby, if that’s the case then why are we accepting smaller gardens with less plants and more hard landscaping?

Gardens and gardening have huge plus points for everyone. They can provide a great social area, inviting friends, neighbours round for cooking, chatting and entertaining. Spend the weekend de-stressing in the garden, pottering around losing yourself in the garden is the best free therapy I know. The whole family can get involved, children learn all aspects of science, oxygenating ponds, germination,pollination, composting and wildlife habitats, they will also know where vegetables and fruits come from if you choose to grow them. The whole family can get all the physical exercise they need whilst breathing in fresh air – better than any gym I know!

Our gardens, our ‘outside living room’ have to grow, giving us all a green space to view and use, providing habitats for wildlife and improving our surrounding environment. An all important environment for future generations, think 25 years ahead, we will be living in an urban jungle without trees, birds singing or colour to lift our moods.

Above all gardens are part of our English Heritage, a heritage we should be holding on too encouraging our younger generation to embrace and enhance.

Lisa Turner qualified at Pershore College of Horticulture and now practices in Garden Design and Management.

Lisa is known for her cottage garden designs and planting but this is by no means her only strength. She has commercial, private and show gardens in her portfolio. She has also been involved with Channel 4 and BBC Radio.

Lisa believes that good design should be carried from inside to outside, your garden should be reflective of your personality, your home and your needs.

Applying the principals of design and planting to your outdoor space while incorporating your own tastes and requirements creates a long-term plan to work to. Ensuring the end result is both pleasing and practical. Lisa firmly believes that a good garden design should only be the start to a continually evolving outdoor space.

Ultimately a garden should be a place where all the family can work, relax and play together. It should be a place for fun and entertaining, giving a sense of well-being and inspiration to all that use it. It should be a place constantly changing and growing with the seasons of the year. Not forgetting, at the end of the day, a place to sit back, enjoy and reap the rewards of all your hard work!

You can contact Lisa by:

E: lisa@ljgardens.room57.com

T: 01386 861 922

M: 07891 511 598

W: http://www.ljgardens.room57.com

Different gardens, different Design options.

Starting afresh…

Sometimes starting from scratch is the only option, for example if you’ve built your own home and are left with a sprawling ‘garden’ of mud! Or you have brought a house with a bare, empty garden.

Now that you’ve decided to invest some time, effort and money in your outside space and whether it’s a small space or many acres the same rules apply. You have to think of your needs, style, ultimate desires and aspirations aswell as your budget.

It’s important to have ideas of your tastes and visions listed. We would suggest that you look through magazines and books, visit open gardens collecting pictures and photographs of planting, features and hard landscaping materials that inspire you. Armed with this information we can then start the exciting process of planning your garden.

Firstly, we’ll spend sometime with you at your home discussing your likes and dislikes, and looking through the photo’s and pictures you’ve collected. Following this, with confirmation that you’d like to commission ljgardens having accepted our quotation, we will re-visit your garden and carry out a site survey and draw up a base plan to scale. Taking into account all the information gathered at our original meeting we’ll sketch some plans for further discussion, these will include ideas for planting and materials. At this meeting we can look at the sketch plans together and talk through any changes you may wish to make, it’s very important to have plenty of time and be very honest as any changes made later will be costly! Once we’ve altered the sketch plans and are happy with them a detailed master plan which will be to scale, labelled, and any specimen plants/materials named can be completed.

From the master plan we can then produce planting plans and working/construction drawings if necessary. ljgardens can also organise quotations from recommended landscapers if you don’t have a favoured contractor and project manage the build of your garden, something we recommend so the garden that is built is the same as the garden on the master plan! We like to supply and plant all the soft landscaping ourselves making sure the overall finish of the garden is both pleasing and beautiful. Further down the line we can also offer a maintenance service to keep your garden looking at its best.

Making changes…

Sometimes an established garden can need some care and attention. Gardens we inherit after a house move may need some re-organisation and additional features for asthetic or practical reasons. You may have had small children when you originally planted and laid out your garden, now they have left home you would like to reclaim your garden back as a haven for relaxation and entertainment. Another reason for re-designing your garden is the onset of later years, you may not want to be digging and mowing every weekend and now want a garden with easy maintenance that you can enjoy without any worries.

For these circumstances we find that a more ‘hands on’ approach works. For re-organisation and enhancement of a established garden we offer a service where by we’ll spend a short day with you in your garden talking through problems, additions and alterations you may wish to make, sketching plans as we go.

Once back in the office a report is written summarising the day including alterations and additions to be made, together with any sketches where appropriate. Formal plans can be drawn (at extra cost) if you require them.

This process also applies and works well with other parts of the garden; starting a vegetable garden, an overgrown border, a garden empty of plants or choosing the right plants for the right soil and location.