1 acre landscaping project

Diy starter

Hi All,

A Newbie for my sins. I am 3 months into a large landscaping project down in the Sunny Sth East where we moved last year.
The large & heavy work is pretty much complete with pathways / raised beds / summer chalet / fire pit area all done or almost done.
At least half of the area will be in grass, with a small hill which I plan to sow with wild meadow flowers.
I will shortly be starting the planting of areas and was looking for ideas with what to plant in a large rockery area ( about 3 x 6 m ) with already established silver birch within it. The ground is well drained and has a somewhat sandy texture.

The next big part with then be a garden pond ( for plants & gold fish ) All of the research tells me that the larger & deeper the pond the better, I’ve planned for about 3 x 4 metres & a metre deep at its core.
I have not purchased anything for the pond yet but have priced & earmarked roughly what I need. I’ve budgeted an initial €2.500 but I assume it will expand.

Any and all ideas or advice welcome on both sets of plans

looksee

In terms of planting the rockery, you need to look at most importantly, which way it faces. Is it exposed - are you at an altitude or on a slope? What overall look are you going for, and how much care do you want to give it. Rockeries do take a good bit of work, weeding can be a bit more fiddly than open ground. Are you thinking in terms of a general cover or specialist plants? I'd be slow to put expensive specialist stuff in a new site, wait a bit and see how it does.

I planted up a slightly similar site last year - kind of semi-rockery facing mostly south-east, which sounds great but it gets the full in your face blast of wind coming straight up from the coast about 30 km away. Plants get blown to bits in this area. Some of the stuff has done well, but some of it was not suited to that kind of robust treatment. I am currently weeding it and its hard work getting the deeper rooted weeds out of the shale soil, without digging everything up.

I am putting in some prostrate conifers and lots of very straightforward stuff like geranium (perennial), heather and aubretia, just to cover the soil. They are all suited to that kind of soil, the geranium maybe less so, but its fine. If I then want to plant something more choice I can sacrifice something to replace it. Bulbs seem to be doing ok too, smaller, interesting stuff. Last year I grew a pack of sweet williams as a filler. They were planted in two to three large, close patches and they did very well, they flowered last year, looking lovely (they are a biennial so should not have flowered until this year). I cut them back and now they are looking perky and promising more flowers, they also did a good job of keeping the weeds down.

Diy starter

Thanks very much for the quick reply.

The rockery area is s/e facing and gets a lot of sun, and it backs onto a small raised stone / rock area but it is in a lower part of the plot so is protected from the wind to a large extent. I had intended for this area to be as low maintenance as possible given the overall garden size and the work that will be involved. My plan was to have the pond adjacent to the rockery area so as to try and avoid too much leaf litter if poss. Conifers are a great idea, and something I will have a look at. I have been thinking the same re heathers and some grasses also.

Again thanks a mill for the ideas

wildwillow

The pond will heat up to unexpected temperatures if it is in full sun. It needs to be at least a metre deep everywhere but with shallower shelves and a slope somewhere to allow animals exit it.

If you want goldfish to breed they need a section which is shallow and stony/sandy.

Herons and mink will steal your fish so use a net if want to keep them. We used chicken wire stretched across a more formal pond and just gave up on fish in a much larger one.

Make a section deep enough to take water lilies in pots. They provide interest and shade.



Use lots of flowering and fragrant shrubs to give structure and attract bees. Planting some perennials in between fills the spaces until the shrubs grow.

Enjoy the project and maybe update us with some photos of your progress.