What to plant in a 'wet' garden

Hippychick

We moved into our house 6 months ago and are complete gardening novices.

The back garden gets very wet and doesn't drain as quickly as we would like, we are installing a french drain and underground piping which should sort most of the problems out but I was wondering if there are any plants which flourish in wet ground.

I can think of hydrangeas but thats about it, I want to plant a border with shrubs and things which has colour/greens throughout the year, distance is about 50ft long so will need a few suggestions!

Thanks in advance.

dogstarheaven

hi there

bog plants would be ideal for you, altho' i haven't experienced growing these myself but these plants would thrive where there's a lot of moisture about. here's a list of plants that your garden will be happy in:

iris
astilbe
ligularia
alchemilla
geum
oxeye daisy
meadowsweet

these are not pond plants so they're only keen on water-retensive soils like what you have already.. a lot of these plants will attract lots of insects which are good for the environment..:j

chloecat_2

Gunneras love damp but can get enormous Beautiful plants though

conradmum

Trollius are pretty and like the damp



Hellebores for the spring if you have some shady areas

Niv

I had a similar sounding proble. Planted some bambo and now no problem. A patch of lawn that was alwaays moss is also now grass!

Bamboo can get quite tall though, but I now make my own canes too, real money saving!

Hippychick

Thanks for all the suggestions, i'll try and look all of those plants up

Yorkshire_Lavender

The following all will do well in wet conditions:

Weeping willow
Red Twig dogwood
Bald Cypress
Peve Minaret

Sam

Yorkshire_Lavender

Yorkshire_Lavender wrote: »

The following all will do well in wet conditions:

Weeping willow
Red Twig dogwood
Bald Cypress
Peve Minaret

To carry on from that last post: Most of these will need sun but do need moisture -
Astilbe, Geumrivale, Hemerocallis, Iris ensata, Iris sibirica, Iris psudacorus, all Ligularias, Primula (part shade), Schizostylis. These are all perennials. Some grasses look good too ie Miscanthus, Molinia.