What to do with lawn borders?

honeybee1234

Hi all

My smallish garden is a work in progress. After moving in, I've grown a decent lawn on clay soil from seed, and sown wildflowers along my bottom border.

The left border is empty and covered up with a tarp, the right border needs weeding. I have a handful of plants and some bulbs to put in, but apart from that I don't yet have a plan for the borders and am feeling slightly overwhelmed at planning what to put in them and what I need to do before winter!

So, questions!

1. Lawn - I was going to aerate and treat now, and then fill in sparse patches with seed in spring. Is this correct? The soil is heavy clay. 

2. Borders - I'd planned on weeding the right border, digging up the soil , maybe mixing something in, then planting what I have, then covering the soil with wood chips where I don't have plants. Then plant some more in spring? 

Is this a good rough plan? Is this still doable now? I'm on quite the budget so all of the above are things I already have.

Any help or pointers appreciated! 

Slinky

If you've got heavy clay, you might want to read up on products called Clay Breakers which you can apply to your borders and make working with clay soil a little easier. Our previous garden was a trial to garden in as most of the time the soil was either too heavy to dig without clay getting stuck to the spade, or too solid when baked like brick, to get a spade into

Brie

I've got quite heavy clay soil which I keep trying to "lighten" but after 7 years it's had little effect.  What I've noticed though is that some plants seem to love it.  Lavender, rosemary, both of which are easy plants to deal with and the bees love them.  For some summer colour I like to tuck some in bulbs of "gluck glee" (oxalis iron cross) which will stay hidden until June when their 4 leaf clovers pop up, followed by nice pink flowers.  They love to be ignored.  

fyi - south coast and a sheltered garden.

-taff

Can't help with lawn, it's not my forte...

Borders, I have clay soil, what I usuay do is chuck all spent compost from the tomatoes on it, then whatever comes out of the kitchen or i chop down and is soft. Wors will come and dig it in for you [eventually]. One thing I will be doing next year is avoiding the compost bin if I can and just digging a hole in whatever soil is not planted and chucking the kitchen waste in there, covering over and leaving it. not too much at a time [ more holes may be needed and remember to crush eggshells and not too much citrus] but about four double handfulls is enough in one holes I reckon. 

If you want it now immediately, dig, weed, add something to break it up, grit, compost, shredded materials, etc, plant your bulbs and think about the rest next January or february. Think about bare root plants and perennials rather than annuals that you can either divide or propagate from for free plants to start with, that way you'll always have something to look at. Wood chip will work, but i wouldn't dig it in until it starts rotting a bit. Don't sweat perennial weeds either, just keep on top of them, most of them have roots to China so you won't be able to dig them out fully anyway [ bindweed, mares tail] etc.

-taff

Or, and this wil solve some problems, dig, weed, grow a green manure and dig in in the spring.

twopenny

Green manure is a good idea.
See if grit is cheaper in a local builders merchant. Sand also. Research online what sort you need then go in and ask for a price.
I've bought so much small stuff from the local builders merchant they gave me a members card for discount 😉

Your plan seems a good one. 

Rosemary and lavender are easy to grow, smell lovely, can be used and attract bees.

Next spring the supermarkets sell plants cheaper than the garden centres. 
But what you can try now is taking some cuttings from plants like rosemary and lavender. A non flowering shoot 3 - 4 inches pulled downwards from a brown branch which should leave a heal on the end.
Or just a shoot from ripe (brown woody) and pull off the bottom half leaves.
Stick in the soil and leave till spring. If they are growing you will see some new growth.

honeybee1234

Slinky said:

If you've got heavy clay, you might want to read up on products called Clay Breakers which you can apply to your borders and make working with clay soil a little easier. Our previous garden was a trial to garden in as most of the time the soil was either too heavy to dig without clay getting stuck to the spade, or too solid when baked like brick, to get a spade into

It's a nightmare! I was weeding the border earlier and kept hitting huge chunks of clay that just stuck to the fork. I haven't heard of Clay Breakers before, I'll have a read. 

Brie said:

I've got quite heavy clay soil which I keep trying to "lighten" but after 7 years it's had little effect.  What I've noticed though is that some plants seem to love it.  Lavender, rosemary, both of which are easy plants to deal with and the bees love them.  For some summer colour I like to tuck some in bulbs of "gluck glee" (oxalis iron cross) which will stay hidden until June when their 4 leaf clovers pop up, followed by nice pink flowers.  They love to be ignored.  

fyi - south coast and a sheltered garden.

I've been selecting plants that thrive in clay so one of my plants is lavender. Also love keeping the bees happy!

I did have to look up iron cross and then realised I have some in the wildflower border I think! 

kimwp

Raised bed and plant fruit bushes- they pretty much look after themselves (unless you want to optimise production, then you'll need to put some work in) and you get free fruit!

honeybee1234

-taff said:

Can't help with lawn, it's not my forte...

Borders, I have clay soil, what I usuay do is chuck all spent compost from the tomatoes on it, then whatever comes out of the kitchen or i chop down and is soft. Wors will come and dig it in for you [eventually]. One thing I will be doing next year is avoiding the compost bin if I can and just digging a hole in whatever soil is not planted and chucking the kitchen waste in there, covering over and leaving it. not too much at a time [ more holes may be needed and remember to crush eggshells and not too much citrus] but about four double handfulls is enough in one holes I reckon. 

If you want it now immediately, dig, weed, add something to break it up, grit, compost, shredded materials, etc, plant your bulbs and think about the rest next January or february. Think about bare root plants and perennials rather than annuals that you can either divide or propagate from for free plants to start with, that way you'll always have something to look at. Wood chip will work, but i wouldn't dig it in until it starts rotting a bit. Don't sweat perennial weeds either, just keep on top of them, most of them have roots to China so you won't be able to dig them out fully anyway [ bindweed, mares tail] etc.

Good advice esp. about the plants, I was going for mainly perennials. 

-taff said:

Or, and this wil solve some problems, dig, weed, grow a green manure and dig in in the spring.

I may do this actually 👍🏻

twopenny said:

Green manure is a good idea.
See if grit is cheaper in a local builders merchant. Sand also. Research online what sort you need then go in and ask for a price.
I've bought so much small stuff from the local builders merchant they gave me a members card for discount 😉

Your plan seems a good one. 

Rosemary and lavender are easy to grow, smell lovely, can be used and attract bees.

Next spring the supermarkets sell plants cheaper than the garden centres. 
But what you can try now is taking some cuttings from plants like rosemary and lavender. A non flowering shoot 3 - 4 inches pulled downwards from a brown branch which should leave a heal on the end.
Or just a shoot from ripe (brown woody) and pull off the bottom half leaves.
Stick in the soil and leave till spring. If they are growing you will see some new growth.

I do tend to avoid buying from the garden centre, much as I do enjoy browsing them! I'll give the taking some cuttings a go. 

twopenny

Roses like clay......well not solid clay but you know what I mean 🙂
That is one thing I do purchase by name or garden centres because I like scent. Old varieties like Felictia are closer to disease free and flower all summer.
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/63683782203441761/
And Gertrude Jeykll is a strong scent and you can make rosewater out of the petals. Mine is growing in dry silt and builders rubble out front. Flowers all summer.
Both look lovely with lavender 

honeybee1234

kimwp said:

Raised bed and plant fruit bushes- they pretty much look after themselves (unless you want to optimise production, then you'll need to put some work in) and you get free fruit!

Now, I was thinking about raised beds for ease of gardening and to add a bit of interest - do you mean plant fruit bushes *in* the raised beds, or two separate things? Also, do you know what fruit bushes would be good to stay fairly contained, there isn't loads of room 🤔