Flowers along SW facing front wall

youllbemine

Hi folks,

Fairly experienced veg grower but fairly inexperienced at growing flowers/ any other plants. We have a 70m long south west facing wall at the front of our house.

It has been covered in gravel and sprayed with roundup every year for the past 25 years since the house was built. The weeds always reestablish themselves.

I would like to have a constant bloom of flowers along this wall for as much of the year as possible.

Anyone have any tips on preparing the ground, timings of plantings and when these would flower? Also want to have only bulbs as much as possible.

Idea would be that daffodils take over from snowdrops, tulips after that etc etc.

First off is this a good idea and a couple of years down the line will it still work?

Bulbs/seeds so far are: snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, iris, crocus, foxgloves, sunflowers, chrysanthemum, dahlias, zinnias.

Anything else to add to that to ensure a constant bloom from early spring to late autumn?

Would prefer perennials but don't mind doing some annuals as plan on including them in the veggie patch for next year anyway.

Thanks in advance.

wildwillow

Remove as much gravel as you can and replace with some soil and lots of compost. You probably have a compost heap if you grow vegetables so use that. It will be very dry during summer so need to plant with that in mind. The wider you can make the bed the better. I’ve seen tulips and daffodils planted too close to a wall and they tend to be blown over very easily when windy as the wall doesn’t allow the wind to filter.

Plant bulbs deeper than suggested, especially tulips., which can be planted 20 to 30 cms dep. Mulch the area really well in spring and it will retain the moisture better and help suppress weeds. As you say, do make life easier by planting mostly bulbs and perennials. Plant in groups for better impact. Choose carefully so new flowers are appearing during the season. I would plant cosmos annuals as they have a long season and give great value.

Dead head everything regularly to have continued flowering.

Use something like alchemilla mollis, ground cover campanula, oxalis to give a permanent edge which is easy to manage.

Daffodils and tulips are unsightly when dying back so plan to have something coming up in front of these to cover the dying foliage.

If you are not great at planning a planting scheme, visit a garden centre or observe other gardens, at intervals during the year and take note of what is in season.

I’m presuming the wall isn’t high enough for climbers. If the bed is wide enough consider planting a few Sarcococca. It is evergreen and the scent in mid winter is delicious, can be kept small with pruning. Common name is Christmas box. If you know someone who has one, look under it and you will probably find lots of little seedlings.

Enjoy.

SnowyMuckish

That’s a very enviable boarder position to have! You’re very lucky, You have so many options!!

Weeds are always going to be an issue, as I’m sure you have experience of! in my personal (not too long, not too expert) experience, the more insects you have in your garden the more efficient it is, from the point of view of produce and flowers, so I’m wondering if laying off the roundup might help?

Basically depending on the size of the border, my lazy personal gardening weed suppressing style is to grow ‘thugish’ perennials like mint or oregano/marjoram that will self seed and spread. I use these as my base plants, and build accentuate my favourite plants based on their colours.

Happy gardening:-)

I'm doing something similar atm, the exception being my s/sw portion is where my concrete patio is. I built a pergola over it last year and the plan was to make it more of a green space using flowers in containers. (I use the main portion of the garden for growing veg too and the border along the back is n/ne, so it's mostly trellised with shade planting along the back wall so less annual flowering going on.)

I've been following a couple of channels dedicated to flower gardening and getting inspired. I know I can grow a lot in planters so that's my goal and I also just picked up some daffodil, tulip and allium bulbs for next season. I agree with the above points that having some perennials in the mix will definitely make life easier and help as a filler as the seasons change. I've got some large tub planters that I've used for growing jasmine up one side of the pergola last year and some evergreen trees in pots around it for year round value. I'm using salvia's and veronica's for longer seasonal colour alongside potted perennial grasses like pennisetum and green leafy shrubs like choisya for background foliage and planting the tulips, daffodils and alliums in individual pots around these and so can be moved or updated as the seasons change.

I've learned quite a bit from watching channels like Garden Answers and Claus Dalby, I'd really recommend the latter as his climate is more akin to ours and he specifically has gardens that are dedicated to growing exactly how you want to grow. (also, I don't shop there myself but the newlands website is pretty good as it lays out plants by season as well as area so you can get a good idea of what would be available to grow and when to suit your needs)