heavy clay frost pocket

Hi Kezsmum

Here is a link to a thread I started on my garden:- http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/forums/p/15358/104976.aspx#104976

I am just coming up to my 10th summer and am still trying to get the garden 'right'!

A garden is always evolving and it is best to work with the garden you have than constantly trying to make it do things that are just not going to be successful.

I too am on a tight budget so have to watch the pennies!

I have found that annuals are a dead loss in the ground so now have them in containers.

I am also putting in more shrubs as once established they do very well.

You just have to be patient and enjoy yourself!

Rachel

Thanks Rachel, I have used the annuals in pots ploy too and find it works very well. I like putting in corn field annuals, each variety in a separarte pot so they don't compete and when grouped together they look lovely. My David Austin roses should like the clay, at least I hope they do. I've been dragging them around in pots for a while and they heaved a great sigh of relief when they finally got into the ground last year - I just hope they've survived the winter. I do take cuttings and collect annual seeds to keep the costs down. The pond is in. Some cowslip seeds I collected from my last garden are coming up well in a pot, so now it's a question of potting them on and seeing if they can get to a good size to go into the beds, not sure how they'll take to the clay however, it least it's on a slope. I think mice have eaten the sweet pea seeds I planted in my cold frame. Someone said try peppermint it puts the mice off, but I think the poor things were so desperate they ate the peppermints and s.pea seeds too. I'm wondering if field scabious will do in such heavy soil or whether they'll need pots too, ditto toadflax?

We moved into a new build house last year and the garden is mostly clay soil! We put down some drainage and mixed in compost where we could but would cost too much to do the whole garden, so we decided to try and concentrate on planting plants and trees that like clay soil. I found the BBC plant finder very useful in finding suitable plants as you can search for clay soil / shade etc, and I read a good book called 'Gardening on Clay' by Peter Jones, which lists various plants that grow well in clay. Still early days yet to see if my plants are going to thrive or not, but so far everything is looking healthy! I can definitely say that hawthorn, gorse, rowan, birch, oak, poppies, red campion, foxgloves, comfrey, and dog rose have no problems growing in clay soil... the patch of land behind our fence is covered in them and a wide variety of wild flowers i've yet to identify, and the soil is very clay... so sure you'll have no problems creating a native wildlife garden!! :)

Hi Kezsmum

I believe you're in Devon like me & on exactly the same sort of soil & ground rock. My Dad developed this garden over the last 35 years & it is doing very well. Attracting over 20 species of birds every day + hedgehogs, field mice, butterflies, moths, squirrels bats, etc. The thing that is growing best in the garden is the Torbay Palm. It is quite old now & very tall. It has survived all the tough winters, including '78, 2010 early & late. Every year it produces little dates, which never ripen as we don't get enough sun, but the blackbirds, starlings, redwigs, fieldfares & song thrushes go mad for them. we've even had a mistle thrush on them.

Apart from that the things that are doing very  well & popular with birds/wildlife are, yew, lilac, ceonothis (sp?), catoneaster, flowering cherry, crab apple, rowan, buddleia, clematis, lavender, jasmine, holly, old fashioned roses, various varigated shrubs, & hostas.

Hope this helps !

tHANKS EVERYONE.:)

Hi Kezsmum,

I moved last February to a garden which is really heavy clay and as we are situated near the Somerset levels we are dry and cracked in the summer and really wet and boggy in the winter which is quite a challenge!

Like you I couldn't afford to do the whole garden so concentrated on a couple of really 'lush' borders with a view to increasing planting as the years go on.

I actually bought in a dumpy bag full of sharp sand  and mixed this with a bit of compost and 'free' horse manure to break down the clay a bit and help drainage a little. When I was topping out some trees I also 'chipped' the smaller branches adn threw them in the mix also. The two borders actually turned out really well and I am now so looking forward to this spring to create a couple more! (you can see a picture of these borders by looking at my blog below)

As said elsewhere concentrate on getting a couple of areas right and then when time and money allow do a couple more. Also have a hard think about what you can actually start composting now to give you good supply of compost as the years go on.... As I have a reasonable size garden I compost all sorts of my rubbish such as shredded paper, chipped branches, leaves etc....(all cost me nothing!) As this compost matures mix it with some (course) sharp sand and some horse manure and you will be surprised how it mounts up.

I also discovered that if I visit my local garden centre last thing Sunday or even better first thing Monday morning I could buy up all the broken bags of compost from the weekend at a vastly reduced rate (generally worked out about 3 or 4 bags for price of 2 which if buying quite a few works out as quite a good saving) 

The other thing I did was look at the free adds in the local paper and asked around at work and I was amazed how many people actually had a pile of topsoil or some old bags of pea gravel (helps the drainage) hanging around that they were only too happy for me to take away for free! you will probably also find that you can source pavers, old bricks any other materials which might want to use for landscaping or the break up for hardcore etc...

When I planned my garden I wanted to try and use materials which had been recycled to some extent and I have to say I have saved myself a fortune this way and allowed myself to actually do more than my initial budget would allow...

Just an idea?

Hi Higgy,

Lots of great ideas, many thanks. Sadly no free manure - people are very cagey here about manure. Tried to ask the two 'veg men' where they got there's and was fobbed off. Asked the farmer's daughter, she kindly said she'd get me a few bags but I notice they haven't turned up yet so she's either forgotten or was just being polite. Get the feeling it really is gold dust here. Anything I get will have to be delivered as himself doesn't drive and I don't get far for boring health reasons.

I used to live near Clevedon, at the tail end of the levels.

Chatting up the local garden centre for broken bags sounds like a plan, although I suspect the small one will use theirs but there's another that doesn't look as if they propogate anything, so they may well help me out.Himself has banned another compost heap, think he got tired of turning them and to be fair, there's nowhere to tuck it away out of sight. However, I have subversive plans!!! It's silly to keep buying it in.

Many thanks again Higgy.

I'm sure there is a type of plant you can get for improving soil, I've seen packets of it in garden centres (and I think it is also good for wildlife).

Google is great lol Check this out - http://hubpages.com/hub/Dynamic-Accumulators-for-Better-Soil These are all for heavy clay soils and many are good for wildlife too!

Thanks KatTai, I've just looked at the link and it looks very promising. :-)