Buddleia or Dwarf buddleia ? other varieties ?

Mountainsandh

I have a circular ... "flower bed"... at the moment it's more a heap yellow clay rubble than flower bed really (but I can work on improving the soil).

I'm more interested in planting shrubs and perennials in this one than cottage flowers and such as I have these elsewhere.

I have a buddleia elsewhere in the garden (a rubbley yellow clay ditch !) and it's thriving and I love it, so I'm thinking of planting buddleia in this new flower bed, several varieties, and keeping them at a small shrub size this time (the other one is tree size really).

Should I go for the dwarf varieties, or just get ordinary buddleias and prune them yearly ? other similar shrubs ? would the roots be a problem ?

Any suggestions for good colour and hardiness (it's a bit exposed) of anything else ? Just this year I bought an Astilbe and have it in a pot, I'd love that in there too but I'm not too sure how it would like the more exposed location of the ... "flowerbed".


pic of the _ ahem_ flowerbed attached. :)

macraignil

Buddleia would normally grow much bigger than the space available so you would need to keep them trimmed but I would guess that would work better than the dwarf varieties which would probably not do as well in the exposed position. I have one dwarf variety buddleia and it is inclined to stay to a reasonable size but looks to be less robust and I think appreciates being in a sheltered spot in my garden. I've seen buddleia growing out of building roofs so would think any soil would be fine for them. They can grow back well from fairly severe cutting back in winter.

Astilbe from what I have read like damp conditions so the flowerbed in the picture would probably get too dry for them.

The lilac tree/syringa vulgaris would be fairly hardy and might provide similar flowers to the buddleia earlier in the year. There would still be a gap in the flowering in the flower bed from the lilac tree flowers in spring and the buddleia in late summer so I'd also consider adding some lavender, rosemary, thyme and sage if you have the space.

wildwillow

Lavender would be perfect there. Mine self seeded in the tiny spaces between the slabs on a stone patio this year despite getting no water. Too small and too difficult to keep watered for trees or shrubs especially if the centre piece is to remain. I grew the munstead variety easily from seed and it is smaller and longer lived than the varieties you find in garden centres.
Total cost a few euros and great satisfaction.
I would bury some dwarf bulbs there also to get spring cover.
Also maybe put some rockery plants, arabis and aubretia in the spaces between the bricks to soften the look.

Mountainsandh

Thanks for the replies.

I went to the garden center today, and I realize now how the buddleias wouldn't look good. There was no dwarf variety in the garden center, but the small specimens they were selling were too leggy and not bushy enough really.

I saw a lot of plants with similar flowers (to buddleia) and shorter, but they do look a lot less hardy, and like they'd completely die out in winter.

I would love lavender or rosemary, but for some reason they don't do well up here, I'm about 190 meters up from sea level so maybe that's what it is. They survive alright, they just end up looking bedraggled, or half the plant dies out...

I love the idea of shoving a few bulbs in there.

I think I'm just going to go with hydrangeas for the main part. I figure I might get nice colours with the rust, and it just feels like a safer option. I do love them too so it's not a big disappointment.

I got seeds for a buddleia globosa online so attempting to grow that will be a bit of fun, and if it works I can find it a home (elsewhere) later.

Not sure if it's possible, but I might try and take a few cuttings of the existing buddleia and plant in other spots.

acai berry

I love buddleia too, but agree it would not be suitable for your most impressive bed. I'm no expert in these things, but I'm thinking a fairly hardy (tough) ground covering type of plant would be good, in that it would not take away from the lovely feature /sculpture you have. I'm thinking of the kind of thing you often see in planters in Shopping Centre car parks and beds surrounding poles in the middle of roundabouts. The people responsible for these things generally have a good idea of what works, so could be a source of ideas.

You may find some interesting choices in the following site.

https://www.seedaholic.com/flowers/planting-schemes/groundcover.html

Best of luck. Enjoy the experience.

macraignil

Lavender and rosemary do a lot better when kept trimmed well. I like to use rosemary in cooking so no difficulty keeping that trimmed. Lavender should be cut back hard once it finishes flowering so new shoots have time to harden up before winter. I've had similar experience with both becoming a bit bedraggled looking when I did not prune them properly.
Hydrangeas like water so not sure they are ideal for the position in the photo.
I agree with the point that your flowerbed could be a bit small for trees but lilac/syringa can be kept trimmed and grown more like a shrub to help avoid it getting too big.
Buddleia does well from cuttings and I've at times used the branches I was cutting off existing buddleia shrubs in the Autumn to keep them someway tidy and got new plants from just sticking these in the ground.

Mountainsandh

Just what I wanted to hear !

Hmmm lavender and rosemary do sound tempting... I'll give myself another while to think.
I have one plant of each in pots, and I put a gorgeous little pink rockery type daisy with them and it's really nice ( in spite of straggly looks).
I have a lilac already, I like it but when I prune it the branch stops flowering and it grows another branch to flower on, and that whole rigmarole annoys me

Acai berry, you're speaking wise words with the car park bushes, but I'm a bit silly and stubborn that way, straight out I'd think they're car park-y and would hate looking at them.

acai berry

IMO, buddleia looks very well as part of a wild untrimmed hedge, or against a wall at say, the bottom of a garden, where it can do its own thing. It's generally recommended it be pruned right back to about a foot and half high, once it's gone over after flowering at the start of Autumn. Cutting it back is not so difficult as the wood is quite soft. It grows very well from cuttings, so a cutting from a well-estalihed bush that has a mass of flowers is a good bet. The miniatures you get in the nurseries, don't seem to bloom as well as the wilder full-size versions, I find.

acai berry

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Just what I wanted to hear !
Thaks,
Hmmm lavender and rosemary do sound tempting... I'll give myself another while to think.
I have one plant of each in pots, and I put a gorgeous little pink rockery type daisy with them and it's really nice ( in spite of straggly looks).
I have a lilac already, I like it but when I prune it the branch stops flowering and it grows another branch to flower on, and that whole rigmarole annoys me

Acai berry, you're speaking wise words with the car park bushes, but I'm a bit silly and stubborn that way, straight out I'd think they're car park-y and would hate looking at them.

Thanks, Mountainsandh! I know it sounds almost insulting to suggest something like car parks. You wouldn't have to reproduce a car park lookalike, but you often see maybe a single plant that's very well chosen in these type of planters. It's just an idea where maybe inspiration can be found, because you can see the plant in situ - and get an idea of how it behaves.

looksee

Cutting buddleia hard back only encourages it to send out even longer, glorious flowering branches, controlling it in a flower bed, as has been agreed, is a non-starter. It took me to this year to believe and act on the fact that lavender needs to be cut back hard, I was always too tentative with it and it went straggly.

I would love to see that feature awash with nasturtiums, some of them would even start to grow up the wheel.

acai berry

The bedding plants you get in sections on the stands in places like Woodies, Homebase, etc. such as lobelia, would be an almost instant solution. They are strictly seasonal and would have to be replaced with something else once they go over. You get a lovely show while they last.

Of course it's coming up to bulb planting time now for Spring blooms. The bulbs for daff, tulip etc. can be planted under the seasonal bedding plants that will show now and the bulbs will come up in early Spring.

Mountainsandh

All great ideas, thanks !
I got 4 hydrangeas in the garden centre today...

I'm not quite sure where and how exactly I'm going to arrange them though, and there will be lots of space left. There's about 4 square meters I think.

Looksee, I was thinking something climbing would be lovely alright, but nothing permanent so as not to damage it. With the colour of hydrangeas nasturniums might be a bit odd though. Morning glories ?
I completely get what you're saying about the buddleia, that was a silly idea, I pruned mine before and it's like 3 metres high now ! It's lovely where it is in a ditch, but if they all respond that way, there isn't a hope I could keep some "dwarf" looking ones in the flowerbed.


The rusty thing is a furze shredder/musher (I made up that word ).
In the olden days when there wasn't enough to feed cattle or horses, and for bedding even, furze could be used thanks to this implement.

When we bought the house and sheds, it had been used as a farm, and this machine was left behind, along with another more simple one.
This one is a 2 in 1 : there is a set of top+bottom "teeth" at the back which presumably would have removed the spikes and mushed it up, then the branch would have popped out through that front wheel, on which 2 blades were attached, and it would have been chopped up in shorter segments.

edit: it's a called a Chaff cutter, as visible in the pic, but we were told the above about furze by local farmers.
[IMG][/img]chaff cutter by Anne L., on Flickr

acai berry

That's an extraordinary implement, Mountainsandh. Worth holding onto, IMO. It probably takes a fair bit of elbow grease to operate. Would probably do a great job on shredding some buddleia trimmings, as that's relatively soft wood.

Mountainsandh

It's too rusty to use unfortunately ! When we moved in first, the blades were still attached, but they disintegrated and fell since.
I was turning the soil and removing stones and dried out weeds today, and I broke a thin long strip that was hanging down from the machine, the rust was such that when I tried to lift it out of the way gently, it just came off. The metal just tore off like paper

What's left of the machine is sturdy enough though, so hopefully we can hold on to it for another while.
My husband reckons the rusty look is nicer than painting it, so we'll just leave it like that and come what may !

acai berry

Mountainsandh wrote: »

It's too rusty to use unfortunately ! When we moved in first, the blades were still attached, but they disintegrated and fell since.
I was turning the soil and removing stones and dried out weeds today, and I broke a thin long strip that was hanging down from the machine, the rust was such that when I tried to lift it out of the way gently, it just came off. The metal just tore off like paper

What's left of the machine is sturdy enough though, so hopefully we can hold on to it for another while.
My husband reckons the rusty look is nicer than painting it, so we'll just leave it like that and come what may !

Ahh!

If you ever get tired of having it, you often come across roadside farm machinery museum-type diplays. I'm sure they'd love having it. I think I came across one of these displays once outside of Athlone.

macraignil

Mountainsandh wrote: »

All great ideas, thanks !
I got 4 hydrangeas in the garden centre today...

I'm not quite sure where and how exactly I'm going to arrange them though, and there will be lots of space left. There's about 4 square meters I think.
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This hydrangea in my garden at the start of linked video clip is over a metre in each direction and is only planted about 4 years. The neighbor who gave me a present of it when it was still fairly small has similar ones about 4 square metres in size.

Most of my hydrangeas this year look very bad because of the dry weather and it is only because of this one being near the percolation area from the house and being lower down the slope from the rest of the garden that has kept it healthy. Your flowerbed is raised above the normal level of the garden so will be further away from whatever ground water level is in your garden so planting them there will give you a lot of watering to attend to in dry weather.

looksee

I would suggest OP that you remove a good bit of soil in 4 holes from the flowerbed, put in something made of wool or cotton (not syntho) in the bottom of each hole, along with a bucketful of water, put back some soil then put in the plant. Then water again, bucketful. I had a shrub in similar conditions do really well on a woolly jumper!

Mountainsandh

Thanks for the tips ! A great way to dispose of old woolies Looksee, plenty to be clearing out, I'll definitely be doing that.

This flower bed is within very easy reach of the garden hose.
I have another few to water when it's dry anyway
This is another newish flower bed I set up earlier in the year, the hydrangea on the left was already there, struggling a bit on very little soil, but with the addition of compost and soil around it, it flourished. There are two small new ones beside it, and I hope they'll grow to peep over the wall too.

I went on holidays for 3 weeks during the drought, and the small ones were more affected than the big one, but they're doing fine now. The big one's flowers were just shrivelling when we came back and plumped right back up so all is good.

I don't mind the bit of watering for a few weeks here and there. I'm French and it reminds me of the matter-of-fact watering over there, it was just the obvious thing really, a good watering in the morning, and another one when sun was down. Here in Ireland, it'll never get to the point where it's a real chore because it's so rarely needed !
Sorry about the blurry pic, my phone's camera is acting up.
edit : I should add too that we have our own well...

Mountainsandh

macraignil wrote: »

This hydrangea in my garden at the start of linked video clip is over a metre in each direction and is only planted about 4 years. The neighbor who gave me a present of it when it was still fairly small has similar ones about 4 square metres in size.

What is the bush with the little red berries/flowers ? I remember seeing it elsewhere but I don't know what it is, it's lovely ! The leaves are like hawthorn sort of ?

macraignil

Mountainsandh wrote: »

What is the bush with the little red berries/flowers ? I remember seeing it elsewhere but I don't know what it is, it's lovely ! The leaves are like hawthorn sort of ?

I think you are asking about the gooseberry. I'm not sure what variety it is as I got the original plant years ago. Berries are nice when red but not great to taste when they are still green. The birds spot when they change colour and are ready to eat them fairly quick so once they are red they only last on the plants a couple of weeks. The flowers are white and small. They propagate easy from cuttings and have gone from a handful of plants to almost a hundred by just sticking the branches I prune off in the Autumn in the ground. Thorns are sharp though so I will be cutting them back hard this year.

Mountainsandh

Flower bed update !
I am working pretty slow as I have psoriatic arthritis, and everything is/gets sore, but I have planted the 3rd hydrangea today !

I have changed my mind and I'm going to leave it at 3 hydrangeas, as the 4th one would be at the front, and while I don't mind the ones at the back and sides spreading and becoming really bushy, I don't want one at the front obscuring the machine.

I will keep them trimmed anyway, and if they turn out too big, I'll be glad to have the conundrum of finding another spot for them in the garden (plenty of space !).

The yellow clay is so hard to break, but I have mixed a little sand with it, and some compost. I put in the woolies.
All the stones under the machine came out of the flower bed, I think I'll clear them and put a permanent long flower pot there, and will grow morning glories or sweet pea to climb on the machine. I'm weary of sweet pea as mine always ends up like a giant jungle, and no matter how much I seem to pull them out at the end of the season, they pop up again the next year.

At the front, I don't know yet exactly, but there will be lots of bulbs anyway, and maybe if I can find a green and low plant that could provide a little ground cover while allowing the bulbs to come through, that would be good.

I expect the hydrangeas to bush out well to the sides, so whatever I get will have to be ok with mixed shade/sun.

I suppose the hydrangeas, if they do well, should provide a good bit of shelter for the front, so it might open up some possibilities.

The back of the machine is oriented South West, and the front is facing North East.
We tend to get more wind from the South West, but the occasional North East wind is colder.

macraignil

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Flower bed update !
I am working pretty slow as I have psoriatic arthritis, and everything is/gets sore, but I have planted the 3rd hydrangea today !

I have changed my mind and I'm going to leave it at 3 hydrangeas, as the 4th one would be at the front, and while I don't mind the ones at the back and sides spreading and becoming really bushy, I don't want one at the front obscuring the machine.

I will keep them trimmed anyway, and if they turn out too big, I'll be glad to have the conundrum of finding another spot for them in the garden (plenty of space !).

The yellow clay is so hard to break, but I have mixed a little sand with it, and some compost. I put in the woolies.
All the stones under the machine came out of the flower bed, I think I'll clear them and put a permanent long flower pot there, and will grow morning glories or sweet pea to climb on the machine. I'm weary of sweet pea as mine always ends up like a giant jungle, and no matter how much I seem to pull them out at the end of the season, they pop up again the next year.

At the front, I don't know yet exactly, but there will be lots of bulbs anyway, and maybe if I can find a green and low plant that could provide a little ground cover while allowing the bulbs to come through, that would be good.

I expect the hydrangeas to bush out well to the sides, so whatever I get will have to be ok with mixed shade/sun.

I suppose the hydrangeas, if they do well, should provide a good bit of shelter for the front, so it might open up some possibilities.

The back of the machine is oriented South West, and the front is facing North East.
We tend to get more wind from the South West, but the occasional North East wind is colder.

Thanks for the update. I got the impression form the original photo you posted that the flowerbed was much higher than it actually seems to be now that I see it from other angles. Its not as far above ground water as I had thought so I would be hopeful the Hydrangeas would grow fine. Something I would have considered as a low growing ground cover for the front of the bed would be Ajuga and there are a number of varieties available with different leaf colours. Just did a quick search on google for ajuga and bulbs and some site was saying they could work together but I have not tried this myself.

Mountainsandh

Oohh thanks, ajuga looks very nice indeed !

I did a search for woodland variegated ground cover, and what came up that I like too was Asarum, and I think I read in one of the links that it didn't spread too quick. That would go well with the ajuga too I'd say, so I'll have a look around for these types of plants next garden centre visit. I suppose if they spread too well, I could always clear them back a bit each year before the bulbs are due to come out ?

edit : just remembered, I think it said asarum spread by rhizomes, would that be a problem with bulbs in the same ground ?

Mountainsandh

macraignil sorry about the question earlier about the gooseberries, I watch most videos without sound and didn't realize there was a commentary !

macraignil

Mountainsandh wrote: »

macraignil sorry about the question earlier about the gooseberries, I watch most videos without sound and didn't realize there was a commentary !

No worry!

I've no experience with growing asarum. It might be right as you were saying to think a bit more about the asarum, as if you do decide to get rid of it the underground rhizomes could mean you would need to dig up everything else in the flowerbed to get it all out. The ajuga does spread but by over ground stems that start new plants as they spread so it would be easier to remove and keep trimmed back. I think the bulbs should be able to shoot up through the ajuga without much problem anyway as they could grow through the ajuga ground cover.