Time for Gardening....

[Still Kate]

Spring is nearly here ... give or take a couple of months but already I have clumps of Snow Drops appearing. So its time to start working on the garden.

I live in the end cottage of a row of 6 little chalet style cottages in a small village. Every year there is a competition called "Gardens in Bloom".

I have garden at the front, side and back of the house and unfortunately the last owners allowed the garden to run wild for 6 years. Last year was our first year here so we cleared what we could and I had a few nice surprises in the Spring and Summer of what was lurking in the flower beds. There is a massive area of Lilly of the Valley, some beautiful Fushcias and loads of Crocosmia.

Now the time of year has come to cut back the Roses, trim the hedges, and generally tidy up and cut plants back ready for new growth. Because the garden's been so neglected the soil isn't good and the weeds are abundant and seem to grow faster then I can pull them up! So it will go with the theme of wild cottage garden for this competition. Unless I get the diggers in and remove 3 ton of old soil and start again. Something I can't afford to do.

With any luck and hard work, we will have a pretty, flower filled garden for the Summer.

If anyone can recommend some plants that are happy to grow in bad soil, please feel free to let me know !!

Have a great weekend everyone.
Blessings.
Kate. xx

[Labrys]

Nasturtiums actually grow and bloom better in poor soil.  And some artemisias do pretty well in it too.

I am ready to order seeds for the garden, but here, it really is too early to do much else.

[Lark]

I second the suggestions of nasturtiums.  And I would also suggest marigolds since they tend to be very tolerant of a wide variety of soils.  The nice thing about marigolds is that you can harvest the seed heads in the fall and resow them the following year.

Many of the Mediterranean herbs will tolerate poor soil as well, and having some fragrant thymes or basils in the garden is both nice to look at and delicious.

-Lark-

[Brijrian]

Surely your soil isn't that bad if the "weeds" thrive in it! It must have plenty of nutrients to make them grow happily.

I'm a beginner gardener myself (entering my second year), but in one of the books I've read on the subject, the author said that his first garden was a patch his grandmother picked out for him-full of weeds-because then he could be certain that plants would grow out of it!

*Brijrian