Category Archives: raised bed

Colour in the garden in early June

07/06/2021pond, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

Now that we have had a bout of rain, we are now getting some lush new growth – not just the plants but also the weeds. June has started with loads of welcome sunshine and in the stumpery area the golden coloured plants are absolutely glowing. I have lots of different ferns all around the garden but the Dryopteris crispa congesta in the stumpery are sporting the their bright green, upright fronds. The ivy along the stumpery side wall, Hedera helix Goldheart has mainly reverted back to dark green as it is pretty shady over there, but when the sun does fall on the Acer Shirawanum Aureum, it picks out the gold hearts in the ivy leaves in the background. Just in front of the Corylus avellana contorta is the very bright Oregano vulgare Auereum. The oregano makes pretty good ground cover which can brighten up the somewhat shady stumpery.

Dryopteris crispa congesta


Acer Shirawanum Aureum

Oregano vulgare Auereum

Newly planted in the stumpery is the very pretty Primula Japonica Apple Blossom. I usually like to plant in groups of 3 or 5 but I had also bought the primulas for pond side so just bought this one and hope I can divide it soon to get a nice clump. I like it beside the old log (there are pink aquilegia to the left and blue ajuga to the right top).

Primula Japonica Apple Blossom

The other acer in the garden (in the raised bed) is looking fabulous right now, flowing over the side walls down to the ground. I will need to pull out a few of the London’s pride as it is getting pretty over grown now, and give the acer a wee trim later in the year.


Acer palmatum Dissectum Garnet


Raised bed

The pond area is taking a while to get going this year. The marsh marigolds have gone over but the cotton grass ( Eriophorum angustifolium) looking nice. I am still waiting for the newly planted primulas to flower.

Just now we are getting lots of sunshine and very little rain so my main jobs just now are keeping things watered, pond topped up and staking some of the tall flowers.

Eriphorum angustifolium

Not quite spring yet.

22/02/2021raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

This was the first time in months that I have been able to do any gardening outside as it is fairly mild and not raining. Hooray! It was mainly cutting back old, dead bits, or rotting, damp foliage from perennials. Some of the evergreen ferns are looking a bit bedraggled so some of them were cut back too. The huge fern in the raised bed I just left for the time being as it still looks fine. Later on I will take the old fronds off ready for the fresh new ones to appear.

Everywhere looks rather brown and flat at the moment but there are bulbs already through like the snowdrops, and a few hellebores up and flowering (although they are still not quite at their best. Other bulbs are pushing through, such as narcissi and tulips. The verbena is still flowering sporadically, the witch hazel is in full flower, and there are signs of little catkins on the tortured hazel. It is not quite spring yet.

snowdrops in flower and a tulip pushing through

We are still waiting for new neighbours on the stumpery side ,therefore still waiting for the adjoining wall to be fixed before we do any new planting in that bare, shady patch.

I do love all the twisty branches of the tortured hazel or corkscrew hazel (Corylus
avellana contorta). Now and again, I have to take out the odd branch that has reverted to just plain straight branches and leaves in order to keep the twisted look of the shrub.

corkscrew hazel, tortured hazel, Corylus avellana contorta

tortured hazel, corkscrew hazel, Corylus avellana contorta

The raised bed will soon be overflowing with periwinkle, tulips, ferns, bluebells and geraniums. The snowdrops are flowering away happily under the main shrubs, and I planted a hellebore there last year but it is still rather small and getting used to it’s home.

We haven’t seen the fox family for a few days but there was a pile of feathers in the stumpery. Could have been either the foxes or the sparrow-hawk. Harry is still in the middle of dismantling the old trellis and it may be some time before the whole lot is done. He haste DIY. I hate the way it looks just now: it should either be all up, or all down, in my opinion. It is so frustrating not being able to do these jobs oneself.

The stumpery and raised bed in May.

03/06/2020plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

The view of these areas from my (wheelchair user’s) eye height must be quite different from my Husband’s who is over 6ft tall. He would be able to see over some of the plants and see what lies beyond, whereas I, being closer to the ground, see more of the weeds, slugs and snails. This April and May have been extremely hot and sunny, with very little rain so most of my time has been spent keeping things watered well (young, new plants especially). In 2014 we put a lot of paving in the stumpery area for me to be able to access most of it, but in doing so it looks quite bare and brown during the winter months. Come spring however it becomes lush and awash with colour.
Along the back of the garage there are 2 small apple trees with a few crocus and iris reticulata bulbs, and cyclamen. I have tried a variety of plants to brighten that area without adding too much competition n to the apple trees. This year I was looking forward to a tulip and wallflower combination from Sarah Raven. Hmmmm it didn’t quite match Sarah’s website image. Beautiful tulips and wallflowers, but, the Tulips Menton flowered way after the Tulips Sarah Raven, and were very tall – 32 inches (81.5cm)!
The old curling stone had blue ajuga all around it, but it started to look very straggly in places so I added a little white saxafrage (unknown).
The purple knapweed is doing well but the plant has a habit of keeling out to the side leaving the middle bare, and also getting mildew so doesn’t look too attractive at times. But it is flowering and the bees love it. Also the forgot-me-nots and the brunneras, and some of the honesty are covered in flowers. The stumpery is left to go a bit wild and I have left a lot of nettles all along the side wall. Other so called weeds are more or less tolerated here, and just get dead-headed before they seed everywhere.

Stumpery looking to back wall.

Stumpery looking towards bench.

Stumpery from the brunnera side.

Curling stone with blue ajuga reptans and white saxafrage.

Purple centaurea (knapweed)

Tulip Sarah Raven

Tulip Sarah Raven, and Menton with the Ruby wallflowers.

Very tall Tulip Menton.

Tulip Sarah Raven, and Menton with the Ruby wallflowers.

What it should have looked like. (Image from Sarah Raven’s website)

The raised bed is looking pretty full and overgrown, but I love it like that. It isn’t your typical raised bed for disabled people. I have filled it with woodland plants so I can get that feeling of being right inside the woodland. I can see, feel and smell the plants up close. The syringa is in full flower and smelling gorgeous. Shame the flowers are all at the top now. It will have to have a good prune so that it can produce flowers slightly lower down so that I can experience them more.

The combination of the bright green of the saxifrage against the deep purple of the acer is fabulous and these delicate flowers just flutter and quiver in the breeze.

My favourite fern had been chopped back as usual and is looking scrumptious right now and it will continue to billow out over the next month or so. There is a lovely purple aquilegia growing far too close to it and kind of spoils the look of the fern, so the aquilegia is going to be howked out once it has finished flowering.

And it isn’t just the big plants that I adore – have a look at the mosses on the wall. The furry moss is so tactile and I stroke it every time a go past. The tiny sporophytes of some moss species are just as beautiful and fascinating.

Now that the rain has come – so too have the slugs and snails. Back to the early morning and evening slug patrol to keep these blighters at bay.

Raised bed from the back corner.

Raised bed looking from back towards door.

Raised bed from right side.

Raised bed, Saxifraga umbrosa and Acer palmatum ‘dissectum garnet’

Furry moss on the raised bed wall.

Tiny moss sporophytes on the raised bed wall.

Sunshine and ninja showers…

24/05/2019flowers, plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

are more usual for April not May. However, it does make everything grow pretty fast. Keeping on top of the slug population by doing a morning and evening slug patrol has helped enormously, especially with the problem of the huge, so called Spanish slugs. They did get my Primula vialii so I have covered what is left of the plants with a 1/2 plastic bottle as a cloche so we shall see if they can still come through. The Aquilegias are fab at the moment, flowering away, but some of them keeled over in the ninja showers. I found bright orange aphids on the Mahonia out in the front garden, so hubby gave it a prune and that got rid of some of them. Aphids are everywhere just now and most of the time I jet them off with a water hose, or squish them as I check the plants (if I can reach them). The cactus in the conservatory have nice magenta flowers out now. I love the mahogany of the sempervivum , also in the conservatory. There are a few nice plant combinations that I have quickly taken a few snaps of (bit windy out there). Some I like for the flower colours together, and others have the same colours but different foliage forms. I have taken a few snaps of the raised bed from different angles as it is a kind of triangular shape. The Erica tree heath is covered in flowers, but just now it is a strange shape due to the pruning it had last year, so this year I won’t prune the spent flower heads off at all so that all of the branches will flower next year.

Selection of Aquilegias


Orange aphids on Mahonia leaf

Phlox and chives

Erigeron (and peony in background)

Cactus in flower

Sempervivum Reginald Malby

Raised bed end on

Raised bed curved side

Raised bed back end on

white Aquilegia and Primula snowflake

Stumpery (part of)

Veronica and Tierella

Osmunda regalis purpurascens

Rodgesrsia leaf

Rodgersia, fern and Polygonatom

Hebe and Heuchera

Erica tree heath (part of)

Feeling blue…

09/06/2018flowers, garden, plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

what a week! Suffice to say we have had the builders here for a few days and the less said the better!! Scaffolders grrrrrrrr!!
I don’t have that much in the way of blue in the garden but I may add a few more blues over the next few years. The brunneras are still going strong, as are the veronicas, but the forget-me-nots are looking a bit straggly so I have been pulling some of them out. They will have self seeded and will pop up all over the place next year. My mecanopsis Willie Duncan and Susan’s Reward are doing fine now. The slugs really went for them when they were first planted last year (or was that 2 years ago?) but they are now looking good. I moved the blue iris (Jane Phillips) from the middle bed to a sunnier spot last year, having only had them a year, and although they appear much happier the slugs got them too! The centauria blue is flowering away but it looks like something has sat in the middle of it, it is just not able to hold it’s own weight. (the white one got eaten by the pigeons!!). The pale blue aquilegia is still flowering away. My proper blue bells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) that I have in little pots didn’t flower again this year so that has been 2 years now with no flowers. There are a few blooms on the blue geranium but maybe I should thin it out a little as it is spreading just a bit too much and is coming up through other plants now. I had to cut back the Jacob’s ladder as it was being used as a slug nursery and was being completely decimated. That was right next to the fennel (which was also decimated by slugs) so, now that I have dealt with the slugs they might get a chance to grow. This time last year the fennel was over a meter high! There has hardly been any rain over the last 6 or 7 weeks and I have had to keep on top of the watering which takes ages. And the poor pond too needs topping up, and with no rain water about, I have to spray tap water into it. The tadpoles don’t seam to mind. Anyway the garden on the whole is looking ok and the wee sparrows and tits have started to fledge so there is a lot of cheerful chirping about.

Aquilegia pale blue

Centauria blue

Iris ‘Jane Phillips’

Mecanopsis ‘Susan’s Reward’

Mecanopsis ‘Willie Duncan’

Raised bed

garden from patio

stumpery right side

stumpery left side

Rain, rain, rain…

07/04/2018conservatory, flowers, plants, raised bed, stumperyJackie Elwin

sleet, and then more rain! My goodness when will we ever get into spring proper? I am not venturing out over the grass in the garden as it is like a very soggy sponge at the moment but there is a bit of sunshine and some sturdy plants flowering. Before the Acer (palmatum dissectum Garnet) are clothed in leaves, creating dense shade, there are a few Chionodoxia in bloom but they are taking a very long time to naturalize so are looking a bit sparse at the moment.
I moved the Dens-canis (Erythronium) from the raised bed to the stumpery area as the large fern in the raised bed completely smothered them. They look really pretty in front of the drumstick primula and I hope they will make a nice clump fairly soon.
I am trying to dig out all of the Ornithogalum out of the small bed out the front where my lavender is as the leaves have a similar habit to bluebells , where they fall to the sides and cover up anything under them and, as they go over and turn brown, look very tatty coming through the woody stems of the lavender. So I potted them up in the conservatory for the time being just to make sure all the little bulbs were indeed Ornithogalum and not mixed together with snowdrops. They were sold to me as nutans but I think they may actually be umbellatum instead.

Chionodoxa luciliae

Dens-canis snowflake and Primula denticulata

Orinithogalum umbellatum and violas

Lush spring 2008

13/12/2017raised bedJackie Elwin

The garden in spring 2008 was looking great. The tress and shrubs were all doing well – some a little too well and bulbs and spring flowers all blooming and looking lush. Trouble was the Lily of the valley were beginning to run rampant and some of the shrubs had been planted too close to the wall and too close together, so for the next few years we ripped out all of the Lily of the valley and took out a few of the shrubs. The ivy was looking great over the right arch but it was swamping the Zephrine Drouhin rose so we took the ivy out to give the rose a chance. We took the black Elder out as it was going to get huge and there wasn’t really enough room for three large shrubs in the raised bed. We also tried to get rid of the bluebells as they were the Spanish type and not our native ones. This is an on going project as they keep popping up (as is the Lily of the valley).