Help all my plants die!

snugglepet20

I have bought loads of plants for my garden over the past few years and they all seem to have either died shrivelled up or just stayed the same size as when I bought them. These are the shrubs and hardy perennials. The bedding plants I buy almost never flower or they just die.

I have dreams of one of those lovely cottage garden borders but instead I have a strip of mud with a few half-dead sticks in it. What am I doing wrong? Please help, I do not want to waste any more money buying plants that die.

Horseunderwater

Do you dig the borders over and add in organic matter to improve the soil at all? Do you know what soil type you have? If clay and claggy it will need some organic matter to help it to drain and some grit/sand to further improve it.
In general when planting bedding plants, you need to dig a good hole and hold the plant in it while you back fill it in and then water them each and every day for a while after the sun goes in a bit, never in bright sunlight as that will burn the leaves.
When planting hardy perennials you should dig a nice deep hole add some sand or compost if you can - loosen the soil/ roots a little and plant the root ball so that it is just covered and water them in well. In all the years I gardened it never failed me at all.

Mollymoonlight

snugglepet20 wrote: »

I have dreams of one of those lovely cottage garden borders but instead I have a strip of mud with a few half-dead sticks in it. What am I doing wrong? Please help, I do not want to waste any more money buying plants that die.

It definitely sounds like soil issues. You can have a cottage garden, try not to fret too much. Firstly I would stop spending money buying plants if they're just going to die. If your ground is waterlogged as has been suggested, you can still have beautiful irises, hostas and a whole host of others. You can also plant bedding in pots and intersperse them through your borders to fill in the gaps. Why don't you take some photos?

snugglepet20

Thanks for the help, I think my garden is quite wet a lot of the time so I will try boggy plants and pots. It is just a long thin rectangle at the edge of the lawn near the fence so there isn't much point taking a picture!