Pics from Kings Heath Park gardens, Plant id pics

Tulips & perennials in the TV gardens, not part of our plant id this week but I took many pics as it was looking really good this spring. Behind the yew hedge are some gardens that famous designers have designed several years ago - by John Brookes and Bonita Betularis. Pics to follow!

Theres some interesting plant combinations in the tv gardens - this is Lysimachia cilliata 'Firecracker' & Euphorbia cyparissias 'Fens Ruby'. Also Tulips & dafodils amongst other things.

A chaenomeles (flowering quince) amongst other climbers.

Rheum palmatum 'Atrosanguineum' has lovely soft undersides of the leaves. It gets quite big (the leaves & the plant!) and looks good with ferns, Darmera peltata, Astibe, & Gunnera (the spiky giant 'rhubarb')

Trifolium repens 'Purpurascens'

Viburnum x juddii - gorgeous scented flowers

Spring catch-up pics taken about a month ago.

Magnolia stellata at the Winterbourne Botanic Garden

Unusual sandstone garden- part of Winterbourne Botanic Garden in Edgebaston

We've moved and the start of a new garden begins!

This update is a little late! I'd hoped to go to a snowdrop garden last month but what with a late cold winter & then sudden onset of spring, i've been mostly just enjoying the crocuses in Kings Heath especially around the parks. Highbury park is my favourite.
However, having now moved to our own house, I can finally get stuck in on a new garden project, which is very exciting!!!
C & myself are living in a 100 year old + house with a narrow and somewhat shady patch- not sure if you can call it a garden yet! The previous owners had 2 simple borders at the sides with many shrubs hacked back...I've found so far, a small Camelia, a honeysuckle, lots of Sedum sp. and a nice surprise: lots of crocus bulbs that came up in the bed outside of the kitchen.
Yay.
Plans for week are definately maybe a garden visit ..possibly Batsford Arboretum. I've been twice before and I'm hoping to see gorgeous Hellebores this weekend..It's a lovely place especially in spring.

Pictures to follow!

Gardens I want to visit next year...(day dreaming again)

1. Winsford Walled Garden in the north Devon countryside.. a renovated walled victorian flower garden, includes renovated glasshouses for collections of Bougainvillea & Hibiscus.
2. Dunge Valley Gardens in the Peak District, a woodland garden featuring many Rhodos, Acers, Azaleas, & Magnolias. Also has a Double Hellebore event starting on 1st March.
3. Cascades Gardens, Derbyshire
4. Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Famous winter gardens in Hampshire.
5. BlueBell Arboretum & Nursery in Derbyshire
6. Kiftsgate Court Gardens, an Arts & Crafts style garden in the Cotswolds, neighbour of Hidcote Gardens.
7. Westonbirt Arboretum, in Gloucestershire, a collection of over 3000 trees & shrub species in 600 acres!
8. Oxford Botanic Garden, the oldest Botanic Garden in Great Britain, founded in 1621
9. The Wagon House Gardens, in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. I've heard great things about this fairly new garden which has many brick follies & features, & of course plants!
10. Stone House Cottage Garden & Nursery in Worcestershire. Many unusual climbers & herbaceous plants.

There are many more of course! but this list is of local (ish)  gardens & some have winter interest which will definately cheer me up in the cold long months of the new year.  I must also revisit my favourite ones again- Batsford Arboretum, Winterbourne Botanic Garden,  & Bourton House.

Narcissus Xin

Sustainable water features?

Waterfall from Bliss aggregates
At the moment I'm working on my main design project at college & learning about design & construction & graphics in the process!

The 2 areas I'm concentrating on at the mo are 1) The water feature. 2) The raised semi-circle deck.

In the concept plan, its more about working out the design solution overall than detailing everything..however I'll need detailed construction drawings for the design in the future... what looks good on paper is just a starting point & many things need to be considered (more & more I'm realising!)                                                              
Firstly, design considerations for the water feature in my concept design, it's a slate edge that protudes from a brick wall & a cascade of water will fall into a pond below:

• A cascade of water into a pond from a fair height is going to be really noisy...what height & flow rate is acceptable (& hopefully pleasant?!)
• what pumps to use- power (gallons per hour), direct-drive pump, or magnetic driven, or solar driven?
• Materials. I've already decided on a brick wall & slate pieces, but there may be other materials.
• Filtration system 
• Water quality
• It's on a boundary wall (which is actually hedging at present!) -party wall agreements etc. & hiding the tubing for the water feature within the wall.
• I'd like ideally to make it sustainable,  run-off water from houses that would normally go into drains could be diverted to the pond..making it better environmentally!  Storm-water can cause overflow & flooding problems in mains drains (& leaching chemicals into drains?) A Very important future design concern considering the flooding in the U.K- could better design limit the flooding we've seen hit areas recently?- rain gardens (technically an Infiltration pond but also known as a bog garden) & could potentially be used for a formal pond? see this page on Garden Visit 
• & this page on Irrigation Irrigation systems
• By using a sustainable water source for the pond & cascade it will not use mains water which is costly & un-environmentally friendly. Use mains electricity or could use solar power? 

'Some small pumps can be connected directly to solar panels but it is better to use the solar panel to charge a car battery and then use the battery to operate a 12 volt DC submersible fountain pump.'

Read more at Garden Visit on the above solar power link.

So for ultimate sustainability I'm aiming to design it so that the water-run off can be gravity fed to the water-fall with a solar-powered pump to circulate it...
More on this later as I work through these considerations.
There seems to be a lot of scope for things to go wrong, so designing a water feature needs to be carefully thought out.

Autumn colour in the Birmingham Botanic Gardens

Verbena bonariensis in the grasses area in the Botanic Garden ,I think its a history of horticulture garden but its mostly filled with grasses now. This was taken a few weeks ago but considering these plants come from Buenos Aires its amazing how long they flower for here in Brum. They are now grown in most gardens but still look fab, they are not long-lived perennials but they self-seed around the garden & thats great because the more you grow the better the effect. Plus they have that see-through look so they don't obscure everthing else.

Hydrangea quercifolia

Combination of Heuchera micrantha var. diversifolia & Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum'


Acer ssp.

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'

Phygelius ssp. is on the right with tubular pink flowers, I'm not sure of the full name but it looked fabulous growing with grasses) semi-evergreen, native to South Africa, needs a sheltered sunny position as its slightly tender in the U.K .

A Cleome with possibly a Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)?

First 'real' border design finished & planted up

On a rainy saturday the sun finally came out in the afternoon & I was able to finish planting up the pink (& purple & white) border (my first real design bought & planted woo hoo!).

The shrubs, perennials & weeping cherry tree, Prunus kiku-shidare sakura (Cheals weeping cherry) are all planted & today saw the final stage of planting cyclamen around the cherry tree & bulbs- Crocus 'Pickwick' & dwarf white narcissus (from Kitchen garden cafe in Kings Heath woo hoo!) Hopefully it'll have bags of interest all year round as well as a strong pink flowered theme in the summer.

Its a raised bed & with free-draining alkaline soil (a blended loam top-soil the landscapers tell me), the sunny position suits perennials such as Verbascum chaixii 'Album' & Salvia nemorosa 'Ostfriesland', Salvia officionalis Purpurescens', & Salvia 'Rose Queen'...& many more

Pics to follow, have so many now to upload as I've had fun going to a few great gardens recently, as well as the border design..although the proof of the pudding is in a few years time when I'll know whether I've really left enough room for every thing to grow & look good!. just need to find the cable that connects my camera to the computer. ..aah technology is great..deep breath.. stay calm & carry on...(thank goodness gardening can't get all technologised - although I have CAD to learn this year which will be fun, ha ha ha )