Forum home Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Small border\hedge in wet conditions

Hello all I hope you can give a little of your wisdom and advice.

We recently moved into a house that is approximately ten years old. The house suffers from the usual builders solution for soil in that a lot of it is a very poor covering of inferior topsoil over subsoil, areas of solid yellow clay, bricks, tiles, concrete waste along with a smattering of cans left over fro their lunches etc. Added to that the house was built on a brownfield site.

The front gardens lawn had been removed by the occupants, a weed membrane put down and then it was covered by a lot of slate scrapings so they could park a third car on the front (which had compacted the area even further).

I have dug all this out, (along with some areas in the back garden) and lots of work and 7 tons of new topsoil later we are ready to turn it back to a garden. A lot of it will be lawn, a border against the fence between us and next door, a big border in front of the living room and a border along the small strip at the front against the public footpath.

The problem is that the area slopes towards the public footpath and it narrows to this point being bordered by our driveway on one side and next doors driveway on the other side. This means that water is channelled towards this point, I could not dig all the rubbish away that was underneath, and so the soil is very wet at the point we want the border\low hedge (we want a separation between us and the public footpath).

This border is not very long at approximately 3.5 feet due to the narrowing effect of the property boundary with the neighbour on that side, however the wet conditions also affect the border between us and next door which will also have a border against the fence, this border being about 18 feet long. This border gets progressively better drained and will then merge into the bed in front of the living room which has no drainage issues. The front garden is south facing, the fence is a low solid panel type approx. 3 feet high, the border is on the west side of this.

Sorry for the long post but that is the information.

The question is does anyone have some suggestions for the badly drained border at the front for either a very small hedge or other collection of perennials that will suit the conditions, also any suggestions for the border against the fence.

All suggestions and advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

Posts

  • Thanks for the replies.

    Mike, I knew deep down that a sump might be the ultimate answer, I will have to investigate further. The material we cleared out was so hard we had to hack it out at a very slow rate and it got harder the lower down we went!

    Edd, I can try for a photo, it will take a long time to do as it is dark when I go to work and when I get at home during the week, so hopefully next weekend.

    Cheers

  • If you've got boggy conditions  you could do worse than try bog plants. Things like astilbes and bog primulas would give some flower colour. Alchemilla mollis will grow anywhere so could add a bit of repetition all along the border, as would yellow loosestrife (this one is a thug but looks quite handsome if kept to occasional clumps).   Some ferns like moist soil while some cope with drier conditions so could do the same using different varieties, and some of them are semi- evergreen too. Dogwoods like wet soil - Midwinter Fire is less vigorous than some others and can be kept in check by cutting back in early spring if it does get too big for its boots, but would give wonderful winter colour with its bright twigs. Other things that enjoy reliable moisture, if not out and out bog, include hostas (with slug protection!) monardas, hemerocallis and siberian and japanese iris and pulmonaria, but all of these can cope with drier soil too as long as it is not too hot or dry. If you look up plants for damp places I'm sure you'll find even more things and could come up with a really good looking border and have fun doing so. Happy hunting!

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445

    Those coloured stem dogwoods are very tolerant of poor drainage

    https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/details?plantid=2520

     



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • Thank you for those ideas. Much appreciated.

    We fancy the red coloured Dogwood plants. Especially as they can be cropped back hard and kept in check. Possibly with some Hostas mixed in.

    Cheers

Sign In or Register to comment.