UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

I hope this is the right place for this.

I am trying to infuse some colour in to my garden and am hoping that the gardeners among you might be able to offer some suggestions.

I am looking for some good, colourful, easy to maintain bedding plants? I want them to go in between my climbers (which are actually growing well surprisingly)

Colourful flowers that won't go to crazy (take over the whole garden etc)

And some really easy herbs that have nice aromas.

I have been to garden centres but I always get a bit overwhelmed and end up buying the wrong things and the garden ends up looking a bit hodgepodge and messy.

I have a smallish yard that has a clay base under the soil (soil is not very deep). So I can't have anything to large, like rhododendrons or anything.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Are you really wanting bedding plants, which are annuals and you have to replace every year?
I'm a sucker for perennials. I love hardy geraniums (not the bright but tender red 'geraniums' you'll find at this time of year. I also love alchemilla mollis - lady's mantle - and aquilegias - so-called granny's bonnets. Lupins are good doers too - you can Google all these for images. If you want bedding plants try the English marigolds and blue lobelias - but there's no end if choice. I bet Rosie can come up with a long list.

I like lupins, but unfortunately so do slugs. I've never managed to keep lupins until they have flowered. My recent purchases have been violas, some alpines (rock garden) and a dwarf wisteria. I have various plants in tubs & containers - an acer, winter jasmine, clematis, bay tree and some roses. I think one of them is an Old English rose which is very scented.

Impatiens, easy to grow, have flowers and come back every year. Herbs: cilantro, even comes up in winter, oregano, rosemary and mint.

Got slugs but my lupins don't seem to suffer.
Pinks! Smell gorgeous too. :)

Impatiens don't come back every year here. Frosts wipe them out.

I really want plants that will come back year after year.

Right - so perennials, not bedding plants.

Yep, see I totally know what I am doing! :-/

I am definitely not a gardener, so feel free to correct me!!

What about Sweet peas? Smell and look gorgeous, but think they're annuals.

Agree with Kath about Aquilegia and Geraniums(:

Bluestar? (not sure of the proper name!)
I also really like sweet william, but not sure if that's what you're looking for!


And if I can remember correctly, herbs you want are mint, basil, thyme, chives, and of course lavendar

Not sure if that's much help, since I'm not a gardener, but my grandma is and I think those are my favourites!

When I had a garden I had these. The Daphne has a lovely fragrance.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

I also had some Japanese Azaleas. They come in lots of really bright colours.
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/6-DWARF-JAPANE...

Definitely geraniums. Try chives as well - they have nice purply pom pom flowers. Lavendar as well, it will attract bees.

Careful with mint. Took over one of my beds back home.

It's better in a pot, I'd say.

I have mint in the garden at the moment Patti, it is huge, I keep chopping it back but it keeps getting stronger.

I might be paranoid but I think the mint is trying to take over the world!

I think mint likes being chopped at.

If you have the patience, visit a garden centre or nursery once a month for a year. Buy something each time that is in flower/decorative leaf that you like. You'll then have all-year-round colour.

Don't forget lenten hellebores which can flower in February/March and come in shades from while, though pink, to dark, almost black purple. You gt speckled ones too - but as I said, you have to see them in flower. I bought all mine in flower.

Azaleas can get pretty big. They also need acid soil so we can't grow them round here. If you have clay soil I doubt they'll do any good.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Careful with mint. Took over one of my beds back home.

It's better in a pot, I'd say."

with new potatoes!

Kath wrote: Azaleas can get pretty big. They also need acid soil so we can't grow them round here. If you have clay soil I doubt they'll do any good.

I had the dwarf ones. I had chalky soil and they seemed to do ok.
Do you know what type of soil you've got Lindsay? Oh just saw you said you had clay soil.

What about Lavender? That's nice.

What part of the country are you in? That will influence plant choice. If it's clay soil I am thinking maybe deeper south.

This is another you might consider...Potentilla.

http://www.thegardencentregroup.co.uk...

How has Nosemanny not found this thread yet?

I live in Cambridgeshire, it is drained swamp so very clay-ey

Lindsay wrote: "I live in Cambridgeshire, it is drained swamp so very clay-ey"

Forget the garden. Build a kiln. :D

Been really busy all weekend :)

In terms of herbs I would recommend rosemary (natch!) you can get a nice creeping variety as well as the normal upright one; and you can never have enough different thymes and sages! Actually salvias (those are non-culinary sages) are hard to beat for colour and bees love them - lavenders too. Bear in mind many herbs are mediterranean in origin so like to be a sunny spot and if the drainage is really bad dig in a bit of grit and compost (or it might be better to make a raised bed for them). I wouldn't want to be without oregano, chives and parsley. Bronze fennel is a handsome plant!

Kath's suggestion about visiting local nurseries is a great one - and check out what grows well in gardens near you!

Clay soil is actually full of nutrients so plants that like it will do really well - roses love a clay soil Lindsay but they do need a wee bit of looking after. Other thoughts - hardy fuchsias; hydrangeas; cranesbill geranium; asters; daylily (hemerocallis); coneflower (echinacea) and rudbeckia daisies.

What about poppies? Are they any good?

My mint plant leaves on one side have turned purple. I might dump the pot outside and let it take care of itself since I'm failing so badly

Many are annuals - the cornfield poppies are. You can get the oriental poppies - big, blowsy flowers, open now, which will come back year after year.

If I ever buy a house with a garden I'm going to have a Goodreads Gardening Party. Rosemary will be able to make it no bother so no excuses (so long as the house is in Scotland)

Lindsay wrote: "What about poppies? Are they any good?"

I hear good things about milk of the poppy.

I really like the bright red ones, such a nice colour

You can get the bright red perennial poppy. There's one out in my front garden now. It gets very lax and floppy as the season progresses though, but you can just cut it back a bit.

Can't have floppy poppies!

I assumed you were in the states. So American of me!

I like the blue poppies...the Himalayan or the Welsh ones.

Blue are Himalayan, Vanessa. I never had any luck growing those. I have the yellow Welsh poppies though. So cheerful!

Kath wrote: "Blue are Himalayan, Vanessa. I never had any luck growing those. I have the yellow Welsh poppies though. So cheerful!"

I get the yellow poppies, they self seed and I quite often will pull loads of them up. I sometimes get orange ones. Mum tries to grow the orange ones but doesn't have much success. This year we both got some red poppies that were sold as part of WW1 remembrance.

You guys are all so incredibly knowledgable!

Thank you awfully for your help!

I didn't know you could get non-red poppies

The cornfield type poppies, though they're annuals, will self seed. The only problem comes if you're a tidy gardener and pull up all your seedlings or hoe them off. I always give things a chance which is why my garden looks like a wild-flower meadow at this time of year! Loads of red campion which I adore.

I used to dry the seed heads and give them away when I had a garden back home.

They were the tall red ones.

Are pansies perennial there?

They seed freely so they keep going but they can get knocked out by a bad frost. We haven't had one this year though.

So many plants there that I never thought of as perennial. Everything but the most hardy gets wiped out back home.

I even had evergreen trees die on me.

Jud (Disney Diva) wrote: "I didn't know you could get non-red poppies"

Here you are Jud. They really are a beautiful blue.

http://wp.macfusion.org/wp-content/up...

Wow! I did not know flowers came in that colour!

Iceland poppies come in the most fabulous array of pastel colours. Don't know if that link includes them. I'm the kind of old-fashioned gal who doesn't click links!

Oh those are gorgeous!

You should, Kath.

You may learn something new.

I may learn how to get a virus on my computer. :)
Being suspicious get me to this age!

Erm

It's usually only spammy links that have viruses on them and you don't know the sender (although sometimes they pretend to be from someone you know). Most links like that are actually phishing though and want you to type in personal details like passwords and stuff.

Usually in emails. Ones from people on here that you know will be fine. Unless one of our members is actually an evil genius intent on taking over the world by infiltrating our ranks lulling us to a false sense of security before BAM!!!!! hitting us all with a nasty link. It's you Ignite isn't it.

And I'd hope you've got anti-virus on your machine.