Small border - soil mix and planting ideas?

tizerbelle

So this year after 3 years of neglect I am finally getting round to sorting out my back yard. It's a typical terraced house brick walled L shaped yard, east south east-ish facing.

So far I have spent the past few weekends and bank holidays repointing the walls and preparing them for re-painting -which hopefully will be done today.

At present the yard is covered with pavers many of which will be going when the whole yard has been redeveloped but tomorrow I want to take up 4 pavers down the long side of the L by the french doors from the dining room to make a border there.

This border will be 45cm deep and 180 cm long backed by a 6 foot brick wall and gets the sun early morning only.

The soil in the yard is full of stones and seems to be clay based from my prior investigations so how do I improve the soil in this border area. I am assuming I am going to have to dig out much of the existing medium but what do I put back in it? Just top soil or a mix of top soil and compost (shop bought). I'll be using the border for plants and flowers rather then veg - if that makes a difference!

I was also thinking of putting trellis up behind the border but am worried that if I plant a climber it will damage the walls? Am I being daft or are there climbers that will use the trellis but won't damage brick work?

splodger_seedswapper

do you know what plants you would like to put in that area? as that would make quite a bit of difference to how to prep the soil in that border - it's a small area - so should not take too much effort to improve the soil for planting

as a general order that would suit many plants - i would suggest the following:
do you have a riddle? (that's a garden sieve basically)
if so - i would riddle out the stones etc from the bed and put the clean soil back in the bed - especially if it is a clay based soil - then just add compost (homemade is better than anything you can buy) - but if you don't make your own, try and get some well rotted manure from a nearby stables and add that to the bed - mixed in with some top soil or something

if you want to grow a climber on trellis then i would suggest a non invasive clematis

if you don't want to prep the area - just plant things that will survive happily in those conditions

tizerbelle

splodger_seedswapper wrote: »

do you know what plants you would like to put in that area?

LOL! I haven't got a clue! I have tried deciding a few times what to put in that area but then I just get competely over-awed by the thousands and thousands of plants available that I lose the plot and start looking at power-tools or garden storage or something else instead.

Although I will definitely have a look at clematis for the back of the border going up a trellis and then something to go in front of them.

Mind it's not going to be tomorrow now, took 5 hours to get first coat of paint on the walls so will have to finish that tomorrow so guess I'll be at the nursery on Friday rather than watching the wedding!

splodger_seedswapper

to help you decide on what plants might do best there ask yourself:

do you want flowers or greenery?
do you want something of interest all year round?
do you like bulbs?
do you want herbs?

is the area in shade all day except first thing in the morning?
does the ground dry out or stay moist?