No matter how skilled a landscape gardener you are, every garden comes with its fair share of surprises. Last year, Charlie transformed a shady corner of his garden that never receives much sunshine… or much love. A year and four seasons later, some of the plants are thriving, others didn’t work so well.
WATCH: Charlie fixes up a shady patch in his garden
A stubborn patch in your garden that just refuses to be as glorious as the rest of it can occur for any number of reasons. Try as you may, nothing seems to work. But it’s more than an aesthetic problem. Plants that struggle invite pests and diseases that can then spread to your healthy specimens. Here’s how to work with what you’ve got, turn that stubbornness into co-operation and take it from drab to fab!
Plant for success
For your plants to thrive, here are six things to bear in mind so you can select varieties to suit your conditions.
1. Soil type
It’s either clay, sandy or loam. Clay soils are rich in minerals but don’t drain well, while sandy soils have fewer minerals because excellent drainage means minerals flow out of the soil with the water. Loamy soils are just right. Digging in organic matter improves drainage in clay soils and helps retain minerals in sandy soils. Organic matter is your garden’s saviour!
2. Aspect
Full sun, full shade, part shade, dappled – they’re all features of your garden somewhere. Watch how the sun settles on your garden during the seasons.
3. Climate
Tropical, sub- tropical, temperate or cool. You know where you are, so plant accordingly. TIP Your local nursery stocks plants suitable for your climate.
4. Rainfall
This can be erratic, and you should consider times when restrictions limit your hose-watering regimen.
5. pH level
Soil acidity or alkalinity can affect your plants’ ability to take up minerals from the soil.
6. Seasons
The sun gets very low and thin in winter, and high and hot in summer. This especially affects lawns, which can struggle in shade.
Common reasons plants don’t thrive – and simple solutions
Problem: Your garden is north-facing, but shade cast by a tree or building gives it a southern aspect.
Solution: Add shade-loving plants.
Problem: Certain garden corners are microclimates at odds with your overall patch, such as mass plantings that lift humidity.
Solution: Mass plant only in areas with good air flow.
Problem Plants on one side of a path thrive while those on the other side fail as they’re under eaves and don’t get the same rain.
Solution: Hand-water plants under eaves.
Problem: Tradies have tipped leftover lime from cement mix into your garden, changing the soil pH levels.
Solution: Get a soil pH tester from your local nursery, then add sulphur if the alkalinity is too high.
Problem You’ve mixed thirsty plants with abstinent ones.
Solution Put like-minded plants together.
Go from barren to beautiful
A tall-growing magnolia ‘teddy bear’ draws you deeper into the garden, especially as the velvety brown underside of the leaves reflects the colour of your mulch.
When parts of your garden don’t get the same light as the rest, rethink and reconfigure – a clear path line helps, then line with rounded, shade-loving plants of varied heights to create year-round interest.
Light up shady spots in your garden with strobilanthes’ silvery leaves, which hold up soft lilac flower spikes in spring and also introduce their gorgeously purple neighbours – the long- lasting african daisies (osteospermum ’3d’).
Light play
Your garden is full of microclimates, often caused by shade. Here, a tree threw shade until a trim let in some sun. Follow suit with these plantings.
- Sun – daisies, grasses and hardenbergia.
- Full shade – ferns and hellebores.
- Part-shade – Chinese fringe flower and lamium.
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