Small Garden Design - Backyards

I’m letting the hedges grow a bit larger this year. By this time in June I have normally given the escallonia and leylandii a good trim so they don’t get out of hand. As much as it is irritating me, I can’t bring myself to do it. Mainly because it’s so good to see fresh healthy growth as opposed to the brown tinged leaves on most of the trees, still hanging on after last month’s cold winds. If the grass is kept short the garden still looks moderately tidy so I will be able to put up with it a bit longer. One thing that a larger hedge does is to draw the size of the garden inwards. A large hedge can make even the most sprawling urban garden look small. This brings me loosely onto this week’s topic.

Making the most of a small back yard
A lot of houses both in the past and recent present have been built with very small gardens. Some older houses that are in high density areas such as Derry city have only got tiny back yards surrounded by six foot walls, blocking out both the neighbours and most of the light. These areas can be very unattractive and once the oil tank is fitted into place and the wheelie bin pulled through the gate, there doesn’t seem to be much you can do with the place other than keeping the green mould from climbing up the walls. That’s what we would think, but there are some steps to take to brighten up the yard and make it a place that doesn’t make you shudder every time you go into it, even if it is too small to put even a small lawn in.

Nothing hidden
Nothing much is hidden in a small yard. The wheelie bin can be covered with a screen maybe but apart from that there won’t be much mystery and intrigue. This need not be a disadvantage as careful planting can give a feeling of calm and wellbeing.

Mimic
If you are lucky enough to have patio doors onto the small yard, the area can be made into another ‘room’ of the house by choosing paving or decking that is similar to internal floor. This will give a feeling of space.

Boundary
Painting the boundary walls or fences black can effectively make the boundary invisible, giving the yard more depth. If the yard is dark and doesn’t get much sun you might like to paint the walls/fence white to reflect the light. The colour green will also push the boundary back. Other screening could be used to prettify the yard made from bamboo or heather.

Living fence
Try growing vertical ‘green walls’ out of narrow climbing plants that can secure themselves to wire mesh fastened to the boundary.

Planting
When planting near the walls put narrow leaved plants next to the wall then put plants with larger leaves in front of them. This will give the garden more depth and a feeling of perspective.

Minimal
Keep the design simple. Too much clutter in a small space will look like you are setting up a car boot sale.

Enlarge
Have a look over your boundary to see what the neighbours inadvertently have to offer. They might have some lovely climbers, shrubs or trees showing themselves or coming over your wall. You can use these to your advantage. If the neighbour has variegated leaves, you can do the same to keep the flow and continuity going onto your own garden. This will give the garden a much larger feel to it.

Planters hanging baskets
Planters and hanging baskets will be a quick and easy way to brighten up the yard in the summer months. Both of these methods of planting can also be used for growing vegetables, although the baskets are more suited to tomatoes, they can be planted up with strawberries or even herbs.

Have fun with large accessories
Just because the garden is small it doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun picking ornaments and furniture. Sometimes one large piece can set the garden off beautifully.

Mirrors
A few mirrors carefully placed on the perimeter walls can give the feeling of space. Grow plants around the outside of the mirror to give an impression that there is something beyond the wall and your eyes will fall into the distance.
Plant choice
Remember that a lot of shrubs can grow very big-very quickly. Check the labels in the garden centres to see the growing habit before you choose or the yard could soon become overgrown.

Vegetables.
Mould raised beds around the shape of your garden for growing vegetables. They need not be very big, or tall. The inclusion of a couple of beds will break up the harshness of a rectangular shape and add a flowing feeling. You might not be self sufficient with the crop but a few tasty treats of fresh peas and salad plants will make it all worthwhile.

Lighting
Don’t forget to add some soothing lighting around the yard. Solar charging would save you any bother putting in cables. Highlight areas near the perimeter for a feeling of depth or have them so they reflect into the mirrors. The further away the lights are from the mirrors, the more the illusion of depth .

Water feature
Adding a small moving water feature would give the feeling of movement and serenity. There are small features that could take up less than 1 square foot on space.

Check out the John Brookes book: Small Garden

Keeping Blackspot on roses at bay

It looked like autumn last week as the dead leaves damaged by the winds floated down to the ground. Don’t let this fool you into thinking that things are slowing down in the garden. Quite the opposite. Everything’s shooting up. There’s a new problem coming to light, blackspot on roses. I have asked the help of James Kilkelly from Gardenplansireland to give us some help at combating this perennial problem... organically.

Halt the rise of black spot, organically.

Its back! Black spot has once again raised its ugly mottled head to infect the roses of Ireland (including mine), causing leaf loss, and die back of the plants stems. Black spot (Diplocarpon rosae) is a fungal disease encouraged by much the same conditions that encourage potato blight, which are warm, moist locations with stagnant air. Most Irish roses especially those grown in areas of high rainfall are destined at some stage of their growing life to play host to blackspot.

Maybe you are lucky enough to have never had a run in with blackspot, and therefore you require an introduction to help you identify this plant ill. Blackspot is aptly named, initially appearing as purple or black circular spots with yellow-fringed halos. Over a short period of time these halos spread and join up causing the leaves they appear on to yellow and shed prematurely.

Although blackspot will rarely kill a rose outright, it will however leave you with a sickly, twiggy rose, which flowers poorly due to a lack of its life-giving leaves. Now, there are many combined chemical products available in your garden centre for the control of blackspot, for example Rose-clear, Benlate or Multirose, to name a few. But you may actually have all the raw materials already within your kitchen to create your own homemade, organic and most importantly safe black spot spray.


Method 1, Milk.
Walk across your kitchen as far your fridge. Mix equal parts milk and water, then apply this each week with an atomiser or a sprayer to the upper and lower section of the roses leaves. This milky solution causes an invisible and friendly fungus to form, which will help prevent the formation of the dreaded black spot.

Method 2, Baking soda.
Mix one tablespoon of baking soda or baking powder into one litre of water and add a drop or two of washing up liquid for stickiness. Again, apply this each week with an atomiser or a sprayer to the upper and lower sides of the roses leaves. The baking soda (Sodium bicarbonate) causes the rose leaf surface to become exceedingly alkaline which again prevents the blackspot from thriving. Both method 1 and 2 are effective only if used at the first sign of symptoms.


Method 3, The rake and clippers.
It is important to rake up the withered rose leaves and petals that litter your beds and borders, as these can act as a breeding ground for the blackspot fungus. Also, pick or snip off any live leaves that exhibit black spots, as well as looking unsightly they aid the spread of the disease. All infected rose leaves and clippings should be burnt not composted.


Method 4, The shovel.
When all is said and done, probably the best method of organic black spot control is to plant roses resistant to the disease. And there are quite a few.

Black spot resistant roses include...
Amber Queen (golden yellow),
Iceberg (white),
Trumpeter (red),
Electron (Deep pink),
Helmut Schmidt (Golden yellow),
Just Joey (Creamy peach),
Keepsake (Dark pink),
Las Vegas (Dark peach with yellow highlights),
Peter Frankenfeld (Dark pink),
Polarstern (White),
Precious Platinum (Medium red),
Silver Jubilee (Salmon pink),
Voodoo (Orange),
Love (Crimson red with white backs),
New Year (Orange),
Tournament of Roses (Rose pink),
Bonica (Rose Pink),
Escapade (Mauve-pink),
Europeana (Dark red),
Impatient (Orange-red),
Liverpool Echo (Orange),
Matangi (Red),
Orangeade (Orange-red),
Play Girl (Bright pink),
Playboy (Reddish orange),
Redgold (Golden yellow edged in dark pink),
Regensberg (Pink and white),
Sarabande (Orange-red),
Sexy Rexy (Rose-pink),
Showbiz (Scarlet red),
Viva (Red).

Top Tip
Gareth Austin from Newtowncunningham has a good tip for us too.
“I have another practice on keeping roses disease free, and it comes from the old method of preventing blight on potatoes.

Use Sulphate of Potash in Spring and early summer as a feed for the roses. The growth which develops is less soft and more disease resistant. Also as the foliage is harder they are less prone to pest attack. This method can also be used on your spuds. Mulch in Autumn with Turf or wood ash as a soil improver.”

Photo: Wild roses (dog rose) don’t seem to suffer from blackspot although the leaves did go brown after the cold winds recently.

The Rose Expert check it out....

Wildflower meadows

 

I’m still trying to find ways of disposing of the 25kg bag of barley that I have. I tried making the ill fated heat pads that burst into flames and even throwing handfuls of seed in the dogs dinner (cooked of course) don’t really get through it fast enough so I thought “Why not just sow it outdoors?” The young shoots are supposed to be really healthy juiced like you would wheatgrass, barley grass if you like. I threw out handful after handful in the hedgerow and onto an area of rough ground near to the house at the end of March and left it alone for a while to become established.

Not one seed has germinated. Well, I presume they haven’t germinated, I can’t find one anywhere. They all seem to have disappeared. There are a lot of extremely fat, happy looking pheasants roaming around though. Maybe they have something to do with it. The gun club will have a great time this year.

Wildflower Meadows

My wildflower meadow hasn’t fared much better this year either. I cleared and area about the size of a snooker table early in early spring. It was an area of poor stony soil and thought it would be ideal as it was in full sun most of the day. I raked it over and firmed it down ready for the seeds. Paul Blaker, my friend from Nottingham was here in March and he managed to pick up some “bargain” boxes of wildflower seeds on his travels. The instructions were simple: “Open the box and throw the contents onto the soil then enjoy the abundance of flowers that appear in summer. Paul got the three boxes for 2 euro, which should have told us something. The contents of the box were manly sawdust and a lot blew away in the wind as we opened them. The only seed I saw after the wind dispersal were nasturtiums which plopped heavily onto the soil and a few specks we assumed were also seed.

Checking the area today all I see is one tiny flower, all alone in a sea of annual weeds and masses of coltsfoot (why didn’t the pheasants eat these seeds?). Coltsfoot is classed as an invasive plant in some places, but it does have its uses, namely Coltsfoot rock. There’s a company in the UK that make sweets out of it that are good for bad chests, coughs and tickly throats. Certain countries have banned it though as it can cause liver failure if too much ingested. I doubt I’ll do much with mine other than strim it down occasionally as a marker to where my wildflower meadow could have been.

Why not try your own wildflower patch in your own garden?

There are many benefits to planting wild flowers. They re-seed themselves and the flowers are very beneficial to wildlife. The other great advantage is that the meadows only need cutting once or twice a year when it is established. Throwing wild flower seed on to your existing lawn will probably end in failure as some preparation work will be needed to give the seeds chance to germinate. The favourable time to prepare an area is now and autumn, however most wildflower seeds will germinate in summer if they are kept moist. Here are a few pointers to get you started.

What type of wildflower meadow?
It is important to choose the meadow that will be most successful on the site you have to offer:
Perennial: Perennial meadows thrive best on poor soils because the grasses compete less with the wildflowers. Varieties include: Columbine, Greater Knapweed, Field Scabious, Wild Carrot, Hedge Bedstraw, Meadow Clary, Perennial Cornflower, Perennial Flax,

Annual: Annual meadows, usually of cornfield annuals, need rich soils. These are a good choice where you are converting an existing border. The mix includes plants such as cornflower, corn poppy, corn marigold and corncockle. Some barley and wheat seed will add an authentic touch. Additional sowing might be needed over the years to get the ground established

Choosing seed
Wildflower seed merchants supply mixtures of wildflowers and grasses suitable for various soil types and situations. Choose one that suits our climate. Prices vary when you are looking for seed. The price for native Irish seed might be higher than UK varieties. Get good quality seed and not boxes of sawdust!

Converting a lawn to a meadow 

• Lawns can be converted into wildflower meadows, but it can take a number of years for the balance between grass and wildflowers to be established.
• Grasses attract butterflies so it’s an important addition to a wildflower meadow.
• Stop feeding and weedkilling the turf.
• In the first year, continue mowing weekly to weaken the grass.
• Raise others from seed, introducing them as one- to two-year-old pot-grown plants planted into holes in the turf.
• Many wildflower suppliers offer plug plants that are ideal for planting into an established lawn. For a natural look, plant in small groups of the same plant.
• In general once established the Wild Flower meadows can turn what is often a neglected part of the garden into an attractive area that needs little maintenance.

Book choice.. Making a Wildflower Meadow

Prevailing Wind

Up in the Air

Congratulations to Diarmuid Gavin this year for getting the gold at the Chelsea Flower Show with his Irish Sky Garden sponsored by Failte Ireland and Cork City Council . It couldn’t be more deserved.
The design is bold and totally impractical with no flowers, and I love it. I’ve always had a soft spot for ornamental grasses and formal trees and the two blend together seamlessly. The design was inspired by a lot of factors including the begonia carpet bedding outside the Grand Palace in Brussels, a pattern of water circles in Venice Beach in California, the rock formations on the Giants Causeway and the floating islands of Pandora in the Hollywood movie Avatar.
The most striking feature though is the floating pod that can lift people into the air by crane, which he calls the “Launch Pad” taking eager gardeners 25 metres up in the air to get away from it all and survey the area around them Diarmuid commented that from the pod at the Chelsea show he could “nearly see my house from here.”
Following on from London’s Chelsea Flower show, the Irish Sky Garden will be transported to Cork, and set within Cork’s Mid-Summer Festival from 11-26th June 2011. The pod along with certain elements of the garden will then be relocated and re-built alongside the River Lee as part of a 2m Euro development project to create a new park for the city, which the public will be able to visit free of charge from early July. Well worth a visit I think.

The prevailing wind

The lorry housing the crane mechanism for Diarmuid’s design was neatly tucked out of the way in and hidden by large trees; hopefully they drowned out the engine noise too. Trees for use as screening in the garden are a topical point this week too, especially as their ability to reduce wind damage. Anyone who doesn’t have some form of shelter belt around their gardens will be scouting around for their compost and wheelie bins and pots that were sitting near the doorway.
Wind can be one of the gardener's worst enemies. It can impede plant growth severely, stunting trees and shrubs, and it stops young seedlings in their tracks. Salt spray in the wind can exacerbate its effects, leaving plants looking burnt, with scorched leaves and blackened branches.
Shelter belts are the obvious solution, and planting wind-tolerant trees and shrubs is a sensible starting point. The major drawback, of course, is that you risk shutting out the view.
The direction from which the wind most often blows will influence your garden’s character, and what you can grow. As a general rule, northerlies and easterlies are cold, while westerlies are warmer but stronger.
Diarmuid’s garden design incorporated mounds of shrubs on a slope, this idea combined with some larger trees on the garden boundary would be an extremely effective method of slowing the wind down in the garden and reducing any damage. Swirling tall grasses also help and look fabulous as they sway around. When the wind isn’t blowing the dips in the mounds can be a place to relax and enjoy the views. I've seen smaller, curved mounds work just as well planted with fragrant, creeping thymes and chamomiles that thrive in the good drainage that such a bank provides.

Wind Problems

• Long term, winds can cause trees to grow sideways, especially in coastal areas like ours.
• Sudden gales snap branches and stems, especially if we have had gentle weather for a long time like this year.
• An unexpected cold wind may ‘scorch’ tender new growth, leaving it crispy brown
• Even gentle winds can scorch plants that naturally live in sheltered woodland, for example, Japanese maples.

Prevention

• Use canes to support plants
• Surround the garden with a ‘shelterbelt’ Open fences, screens and hedges are always preferable to solid barriers, with several lines of defence the best policy, provided you have room.
• In exposed locations, evergreen hedges such as escallonia, laurel and griselinia provide more shelter in winter, while deciduous species such as beech and hornbeam are good in that they hold onto their dead leaves until the spring.
• Instant rubber fabric strips stretched between poles are an excellent stop-gap until hedges grow sufficiently tall. These shelterbelts all work because they are porous; they slow wind down but allow it through. Solid walls and fences force the wind over them causing more damage to plants compared to porous windbreaks.
• Coniferous trees like sitka spruce and Scotch pine are effective but only in a large garden. They will suck all of the moisture from your small garden and be a menace to the neighbours otherwise. Native trees like Whitebeam, hawthorn and birch are deciduous alternatives. These trees have the added advantage of more open canopies that will not totally obscure the view.
• We have no shortage in the local garden centres of wind resistant shrubs; ones with dark leathery leaves such as mahonia and hypericum are effective. Shrubs and perennials with hairy leaves like santolina and lavender do well at resisting the sea breezes as they trap moisture in the hairs. For small ground cover plants, hardy geraniums and periwinkles are excellent.
• Living willow screens can also help to filter the wind, while creating an ornamental feature at the same time. A woven "tunnel" or bower, for instance, could have an opening from which to enjoy the view in shelter, while the area behind it would benefit from protection from the wind.

Go with the Flow

Sometimes, however, it pays to go with the prevailing conditions, rather than against them. Some plants, such as bamboos and ornamental grasses, not only put up with the wind but look at their most beautiful and exciting while bobbing about.
Creating an effective wind break in the garden takes time. I was talking to someone this week who has taken fifteen years getting a shelter belt together. It’s well worth it though, not just for the plants, but also the time it’ll save you looking in the fields for your compost bin.

More Reading

Diarmuid Gavin Autobiography

Outer Spaces