New garden advice / suggestions please

[Vince G]

Me and Mrs Vince noved into our lovely new house a month ago.

We're pretty much straight in terms of the house itself, so thoughts turn to tidying up the garden. It's a reasonable size, approx 40' wide and 70' long and we've got rid of 2 horrible big leylandii which prevented us from seeing the bottom half of the garden.

Question 1.

There is an unusual reddish coloured lilac at the bottom of the garden which is now finishing blossoming by the looks of it. Should I snip the dead flowers off and how do I prune a lilac to get a nice lot of blooms next year?

Question 2.

We have a beautiful rose which is covered in the most fragant large yellow blooms. It stands around 5' high, has a spread of around 4'' and must have more than a dozen flowers in blooms with plenty more buds. Again, how should I dead head and prune?

Last question

The garden faces directly south, but the neighbours at the bottom have a fence and some tall trees so it is quite shady for a lot of the day. Now we can see the bottom of the garden, it would be nice to get some colour to look at. The lilac is down there. There is also a lot of euphorbia which is nice enough but a bit plain. Any suggestions for some pretty shade tolerant plants? Also, the soil is quite clay, so don't really want to be planting annuals.

Thanks all

[Martin H]

Wow, no replies yet? In that case I'll wade in.

Pictures would help though, we all like pictures!

1. Lilacs are tough. If you leave them alone, they'll flower their socks off, although maybe rather high up.
If you chop them back hard, they'll regrow enthusiastically but you might lose next year's flowers. If you cut them back straight after flowering though you might still get flowers on the bit you cut the following year. Best plan if you want to keep the thing under control is to cut out a third of the branches every year (choose the biggest and oldest). It will shoot from where you cut it, in the meantime the other two thirds will give you lots of flowers even if the cut bit doesn't.
Otherwise just take the dead flowers off.

2. The rose... For the rest of this year just take the dead flowers off and hopefully you will get more nice flowers. If you want it smaller, wait until late winter before cutting it back as hard as you like, give it a good feed and a thick mulch in spring.

3. Clay is good. Put on lots of mulches to bring out the fertility, encourage the worms and make it easier to plant stuff. I'm into herbaceous type stuff of which there is lots that doesn't mind shade, including nice easy things like phlox paniculata, geraniums of all kinds, candelabra primulas, I could go on. But I think you're looking for shrubby type stuff, in which case the boys will be along in a minute to help.

[Vince G]

Thanks for your detailed reply Martin, much obliged. Regarding particular points:

1. The lilac is about 7 feet high and there are a lot bare branches down low, all the action is at the top, so I like your idea of cutting out around a third of the branches to encourage new growth whilst allowing the rest of it to flower. I think I'll go down that road

2. Happy with the size of the rose, just want to ensure it stays around that size and continues to bloom so beautifully next year. So dead-heading and a light trim in late winter will probably suffice, with a feed and mulch. How do roses flower? Do the flowers come on new or old wood?

3. Is it possible for clay soil to be acid?? Reason I ask is that we have a prolific if quite small (at the moment) rhododendron in one of the borders, a few hydrangeas and a load of very healthy white heather. If so, I'm thinking camelias for height, maybe a mahonia and some phlox at the front of the bed (there are some primulas there, I noticed). I've got a soil test kit coming off fleabay and can report back as and when.

Will try and get a pic on tomorrow, bit late home from work last 2 days.

[veggiechicken]

Congrats on your new house - and garden!!
I can't help with the first 2 questions but I'm a big fan of camellias. I have 2 at the front of the house that get very little sun throughout the winter (west facing) but have been flowering since January - and still have flowers
The more open type of camellia with exposed stamens is very popular with bees during the winter when there's not much else around.

[Vince G]

Cheers VC.

There does look to be a wide variety of very pretty camelias available and a splash of vibrant colour in the winter is always a bit special I think, and I'm always up for helping the bees.

Like to think I'm fairly competent at veg and (to a certain extent) fruit, but flowers and shrubs are a bit of a weak area for me, just had a couple of vibernum and a passion flower covering up the fence in our little garden at the old house, so they didn't need a lot of attention. Now I've got proper plants to worry about like fairly mature roses, I want to look after them properly, hence I need to be instructed!!

Would camelias be available now-ish or is it best to plant at another time of year?

[Martin H]

Good to hear your thoughts are taking shape!

Yes, clay soil can be acid, if you've got a healthy rhodo and heathers then it almost certainly is. If you plant acid loving stuff and it goes yellow, a dose of acid plant food once a year will probably keep them going.

Roses flower on current year's wood. The trick is to cut back hard enough in the winter time to promote strong re-growth which then flowers. If you go to formal parks and gardens in the winter you'll see the roses cut right down to about 6-9 inches, which gives smaller numbers of bigger flowers, but most of us aren't that drastic. As you say, just dead-head while it's still got leaves and only do the big cuts in the winter when it's asleep.

[Two_Sheds]

Wow, no replies yet?

There's something wrong with the Vine's "new posts" ... not all posts are showing up. For instance, today is the first time I've seen Vince's thread, yet I come on every day and click on "What's New"

[Indigo23]

There's something wrong with the Vine's "new posts" ... not all posts are showing up. For instance, today is the first time I've seen Vince's thread, yet I come on every day and click on "What's New"

It's not just me then?

[Martin H]

I did wonder why none of you lot had waded in...