The Garden Community for Garden Lovers

Suggestion for planting?

c2itken

By C2itken

Derbyshire, United Kingdom Gb

I have a 15 ft+ cliff face opposite my cottage I have finally removed most of the brambles and most of the ivy and now for some colour? any suggestions for planting a rock face?
Plants that will last and not take over.



Ladder_garden

Answers

 

snowdrops - buy them in the green now and plant straightaway.
primroses - the real ones,
bluebells, proper English ones...
maybe some nice ferns too, like hartstongue, but I don't know much about those, sorry.
It looks shady here, or is that just the season or time of day the pic was taken perhaps?
You've certainly been hard at work to free that area of brambles and ivy.
Our garden also has too much ivy, though some is good because the birds enjoy the berries, but it is a bit too vigorous.

23 Mar, 2009

 

I'm intrigued now though - why get rid of the raspberries? they are yummy, and not as bad as brambles, surely (but good blackberries also yummy, my favourite fruit)

23 Mar, 2009

 

Thank you "weeding" for your ideas, there is not much soil up there and as you noticed it is shady (North facing) I think the bulbs would need some depth of soil as for the hartstongue and other wild ferns, they are available from the quarry, next job to transplant some onto the rock face! I also found some wild strawberries, the raspberries are very small!! just three or four beads of a berry and the blackberries also!
The really amazing thing is the trees! they are just hanging over the cliff and they seem to be holding leaf mould and bits of moss that make up whatever soil there is?

23 Mar, 2009

 

There are some fab alpines - they do well on rocky mountainsides so I would imagine they'd also do well here. They have beautiful delicate flowers too, so you can make it look really pretty.

23 Mar, 2009

 

Yes, i had been wondering about lack of soil, that must be a problem. Have you looked on the section of this site that suggests plants for shade?
Did you see last weekend's Gardeners World about "vertical" gardening?! That could have been an inspiration for you. Sedums seem to grow almost anywhere (I'll stand corrected if a more knowledgeable person rushes in now and disagrees!)
Mind you, there was a lot of buddleia on that programme, and as you say, you don't want stuff taking over.
Those alpine strawberries are great, because they spread fast and are not fussy or a pest. We have quite a few.
I think your GOY name is brilliant!

23 Mar, 2009

 

Thank you "Greenfingers" now there's someone who should know?
Sedums and Sempervivums? (ice plant and house leek?) just need some where to anchor, a bit of gravel I think, I did see a programme once where someone drilled holes in a rock face to get an anchorage for some plants?
I wonder if there is a selection of perennial hanging basket plants that will be happy in a shady spot?
I did see the vertical gardens and don't they look great! I think the whole idea was to cover up a wall rather than what I want to do, enhance the rock face?

24 Mar, 2009

How do I say thanks?

Answer question

 


Not found an answer?