Gardening Ideas from the Weatherstaff PlantingPlanner Blog

Style Guide – Woodland Gardens Part 1

Woodland gardens invoke all our senses at once. Sun dappling through leaves, a shady respite on a hot summer’s day, birdsong, damp earth, rustling leaves. Spending time here can help us relax, slow down and breathe more deeply. It’s good for our souls.

If you have trees and shrubs casting shade in your garden, then you already have the makings of a woodland garden. And if not, then there’s nothing to stop you creating a woodland garden from scratch. Create a little copse of trees, by planting 2 or 3 suitable specimens close together, and underplant with shade-loving perennials and bulbs. For an instant impact, you can buy semi-mature trees which will provide immediate height and structure.

Trees which won’t...

The Thrillers are the architectural plants, usually the tallest plants in the display. They provide the structure for your planting combination.

Next come the Fillers, the second layer of planting in the container. They add mass to the planting, as well as providing a contrast in shape and texture.

Finally, there is the third layer of plants, the Spillers. These are the trailing plants which, when squeezed in around the edge of the planting, will tumble over the sides and soften the boundaries. Where the filler can contrast with the thriller, the spiller can unify the display by echoing elements of the other two layers – picking out a secondary colour, for example. Plants with good spiller qualities are often...

Yellow is the colour that brings optimism into early spring gardens. It’s the gardener’s cheer-upper after months of slate grey and mud-brown. But yellow is not the only colour for early spring!

In my last blog post, I looked at the yellow flowers that bloom in late winter / early spring and bring a ray of sunshine to drab winter gardens. But, even as I was writing it, I noticed that Yellow often comes hand-in-hand with its partner in crime, Blue. Daffodils look enchanting with a skirt of muscari. The watery sunlight colour of native primroses is enhanced by bright blue scillas.

Blue is the colour of the sea and sky. It is the colour of peace. It calms and...

After months of grey, damp winter, a splash of early yellow flowers brings a shot of spring into the garden.

Yellow sings of warmth and sunshine. It’s the colour of happiness and optimism. Here are 5 gorgeous, cheer-uppers for gardeners.

Daffodils

While daffodils are at their peak in April, Welsh people need their daffodils in full bloom for March 1st, St David’s Day, so it’s great that so many varieties are early flowerers. Plant daffodil bulbs in autumn for a glorious swathe of sunlight in spring.

One of the earliest daffodils to flower is Narcissus ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’, growing to 40cm in height. It can flower as early as January in sheltered spots. February Gold is another early daffodil and...

Misty mornings and the leaves are ochre and gold. There’s a nip in the air and the hedges are dripping with berries. Time for a spot of autumn foraging! Here are 4 vitamin-packed fruits to collect in autumn.

Elderberries

Elderberries ripen in late summer or early autumn. Pick the berries when they are fully ripe. You want them to look almost black, so if they are still green or burgundy, wait a little longer. Use a pair of scissors to snip the cluster of berries away.

Be certain you know what you are looking for as there are some poisonous lookalikes. If you need help to identify the elder tree, the Woodland Trust has some useful advice here.

Separate the...

Romantic gardens are more ordered than the haphazard jostling of a cottage garden. The garden will be delightful not just to look at, but also to smell, hear, touch, perhaps even taste.

Plants for a Romantic Garden

There will be roses, of course, and they must have an old-fashioned scent. David Austin’s roses are renowned for their excellent range of colour, combined with the ability to repeat-flower and the fragrance of old garden roses.

Rosa Falstaff is a fragrant shrub rose, with deep crimson petals. It grows to 1.25m high.

The Generous Gardener is a climbing rose, growing to 4.5m. Its pale pink blooms carry a delicious Old Rose fragrance. It has earned the RHS Award of Garden Merit.

Camellias...

Rosa Cardinal de Richlieu - romantic garden

Romantic Garden – who wouldn’t want one? Can you picture it in your mind’s eye? You will probably be wearing something from the 18th century and inhaling the intoxicating scent of roses. The garden will be delightful not just to look at, but also to smell, hear, touch, perhaps even taste.

So what does the garden actually look like? Romantic gardens are more ordered than the haphazard jostling of a cottage garden.

They may be formal – think Lady Someone’s Walk in the grounds of a stately home – or more relaxed. In fact, they could be a mixture of both. Neatly trimmed box hedges and topiary balls combined with billowing drifts of flowering shrubs and fragrant perennials.

Features

Features...

Geranium cinereum Ballerina - ideas for container plantings from Weatherstaff garden design

The Thrillers are the architectural plants, usually the tallest plants in the display. They provide the structure for your planting combination.

Next come the Fillers, the second layer of planting in the container. They add mass to the planting, as well as providing a contrast in shape and texture. Think mounds, if your Thriller is a spire.

Here are my 6 choices for plants with superb filler qualities.

Geranium

The colourful summer bedding pelargoniums of course make fantastic summer container plants. If you want a longer lasting display, though, choose from the hardy perennial geraniums, known as cranesbills. They are superb for providing long season flowering year on year. Some of the more vigorous ones, like Geranium Ann Folkard, make...

18,000 years ago, the cave at Lascaux, in southwestern France, was visited by a group of prehistoric hunters who set about creating their masterpieces. With pieces of iron oxide, manganese oxide, charcoal and kaolin, and using the cave walls as their canvas, they painted their subterranean cathedral.

In earthy shades of reds, browns and yellows, nearly one thousand animal figures – horses, aurochs, bison and red deer – clamber, jump and charge across the walls of the underground gallery. The story of how the cave entrance was discovered in 1940, in a country ravaged by war, by an 18 year old boy and his dog, seems almost as much a fairy tale as the idea of prehistoric man, clutching his...

Need to know just what to do and when in your garden? The Weatherstaff’s new maintenance calendar screen collects together in one place all the maintenance tasks and information for each plant in your personal planting plan.

If you’re not using the Weatherstaff PlantingPlanner yet, read more here to find out how it can help you create stunning garden borders.

So, you’ve generated your tailor-made planting plan – your choice of colour and style, with plants selected to thrive in your garden’s micro-climate.

You’ve printed out your plant shopping list.

And you’re all set for your home-grown designer show garden!

But how do you keep it looking fantastic year after year?

The Weatherstaff intelligent garden design software has just got...