The Selection of Plants

Maintaining a garden is a time-consuming business, but there are some things which can be done to minimise the time.

Try to build into any scheme, in particular, the use of ground cover plants (see Ground Cover Page). If you do not have a specific style of garden in mind, the most appropriate is usually an informal mix of trees and shrubs, hardy perennials (as ground cover) and bulbs (in ground cover areas and lawns), with broad sweeps of lawn — not too fiddly to mow.

Using too many herbaceous plants is labour intensive, and will not provide colour all the year round, which most people want. In this type of planting, the trees or shrubs provide the background or shape, the bulbs and hardy perennials provide definite colour during the spring, summer and autumn, and the ground cover retains moisture and prevents the growth of weeds.

From everything we have said, it can be seen that trees and plants for your garden should be selected, not on a whim, but to fit in with a specific design.

The first step is to decide which trees and large shrubs will form the line and shape of the garden. This ‘structural’ element requires trees and shrubs which are more than 2.1m (7ft) high so that they will not only provide the line of the garden and form the required shape within the hard lines of the boundary, but also act as a screen to hide poor views together with providing privacy and shelter.

Having established the types of ‘structural’ plants that could be used, you then consider specific aspects of each plant as detailed in the step-by-step guide to selecting plants. In addition, each plant must be selected so that it will complement both those existing plants next to it and any new ones in colour, texture, form and shape.

Public demand for water has increased by 70 per cent over the last 30 years, and 40-70 per cent of the water supply for the south and east of England is dependent on ground water reserves. Due to these water restrictions, your plant designs should move towards drought tolerant plants and to use a 4 inch deep organic mulch (Spent Mushroom Compost, Garden Compost or Cow Manure) over the whole of the bed or hedge area after the plants have been planted.