Organic Perennial Garden from scratch in three months in Ireland

Derry Journal

Here's the progress three months in from when I started amending clay soil with compost and organic seaweed fertiliser and planting out some perennial seedlings, bulbs and bare roots to create an oval shaped mini perennial garden. Plants include Scabious Butterfly blue, Rudbeckia Goldstrum, Echinops, Billy Balls, Hardy Geranium, Potentilla,  Phlox Paniculata, Echinacea, Yarrow, Delphiniums, Latris, Dahlia, Astilbe, Michaelmas Daisy and Aruncus.

Transcript

00:30So here we have some billy buttons, these are native to Australia and New Zealand, really

00:42striking yellow globes and then over here we have some echinops and these are blue globe

00:56thistles and you can see there some of the flowers are popping out now, let me turn this

01:01italic blue colour just before they are about to flower and I am going to cut some of them

01:07and dry them and cut some, I am going to cut these today as well.

01:11Bully balls are both very good plants for dried flowers but you want to get them before

01:20they go over so now would be the right time to pick some of them and I want to leave some

01:27as well because they are very popular with the insects and there are a lot of butterflies

01:32around this perennial bed here in the last couple of days, there has not been many over

01:36the summer and let me just take a close up and you can see there some more and some of

01:49these I grew from seed, they are quite chunky they grow from seed, they are perennial, those

01:54perennials are quite difficult, they grow from seed compared to annuals and everything in

02:00here was either bare root or grown from seed months ago so I just created this bed in the

02:07spring and other things in there now that are starting to flower are the rudbeckia, these

02:13are the gold strung rudbeckia, come back every year, beautiful gold colour with a black centre

02:21flower.

02:22Comedelia is grown from seed, here are scabias, these are perennial scabias and these are an

02:32absolute magnet for everything, any kind of pollinator at all, I didn't realise just how popular they

02:39would be and a beautiful flower as well, you can see there's wee bee on there at the moment

02:46but they are just covered all day every day, since they started flowering, down here we

02:51have the first, I think it is an Ulster blue if I am not mistaken, it is a veronica or veronicastrum,

02:58these are quite small, shrubby, they form little shrubs, come back every year but beautiful

03:03little money plant there at the moment, here we have, and these have been quite slowly grown

03:10actually, these are hardy geraniums, so they should over the years spread out, I have

03:16got 4 of them in here, only 3 of them are really coming up, the other one is tiny here,

03:21it hasn't really done anything, that is a flax beside it coming up, and some of the flax

03:27are starting to flower as well, I will just show you, these are perennial flax, you get

03:37annual flax as well, these will get very tall, or won't get very tall at the front, there's

03:43ones at the back that should get a lot taller over the years, there's a little pink and white

03:48one, they have all different colours in here, there's more that haven't opened yet, this

03:53is another one here, this bushier one, that's done much better than the others, and we have

04:00a pink and white chrysanthemum, which should flower in the next month, along with a mickelmast

04:05daisy, a purple dome, mickelmast daisy, you can just see the head starting to form on that,

04:12but that will branch out, so everything in here should fall out the bed over the next year

04:16too, these tall spikes are, these are liatris, and you can just see the first of them, they're

04:24also known as gay feather, and they have these bright pink, kind of, better boa effect really,

04:31and more of the goldstrom here, I really like the red beckias now, and because these are perennial,

04:41these come back every year, they're not the prettiest, but they are the most prolific, and you can

04:46see the many heads there, that are coming out, then just down here for ground cover, I have a

04:52potentilla, which I really, really like, it's branching out, you can see the habit there,

04:58branching way out, but the little flowers on it are really pretty, like a peach colour, with a red centre,

05:06you can see all the branching that this is doing, so that will keep grasses and things

05:16at bay, you have to be constantly at the weeding for these things, then more dahlias up the back,

05:30the first of the echinacea here at the open, these were mostly from seed, a couple of bare roots

05:37as well, there's others at the other side, but they take a few years, they develop fully,

05:42so I'm not expecting, I'm expecting that might be the only one that we do get this year, that flower,

05:48there's delphiniums in here, again, will probably not come the next spring, and the estalbes are

05:55all going over now, so, and there's one little, those are false gold speared, and there's one

06:02down here, which is aruncus, which is gold speared, and they're smaller, and you can see there,

06:09it's just, there's two of them actually on here, there's another one there, so they're much smaller

06:14foliage, but, I have a few of them in the other patch as well, delighted now, they see so many

06:22pollinators in the garden, and, just how this patch has come along, it's been brilliant, gladiola

06:30going over here, as you can see, these are all the same type gladiola, and then, oh, lastly

06:39as well, we have the Jarl, the Achillea, which will come back every year too, this is a mix

06:49of colours, there's like a light blue there, a pink there, and there's like a more reddish pink

06:56here, and a white, these self-seed as well, you have to be careful with them, they could

07:01go everywhere, again, just grabbing the weeds, and the grasses, and what they take root, and

07:08take over, but, it's coming on brilliant, and, for some reason I put a white annual chrysanthemum

07:15in the middle of it, by accident, probably thought that was, the leaves look kinda like the scabious,

07:21when they're young, but, a lot of weeds in here too, right now, but, it's just keeping

07:28on top of that, a lot of them look like flocks as well, like, so you have to be careful what

07:37you're pulling out, but all in all, extremely happy with how the first year of this went,

07:44and, hopefully now that's, that's that, they'll not have to plant anything more on it, it should

07:49just come back itself now every year, just keep it weeded.

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