refreshing a garden border with Mediterranean style planting
Current situation
In this recent garden border renovation in Great Totham in Essex, I was asked to re-design the planting scheme of an irregular shaped border situated within a large patio area. It was previously planted with large shrubs of Euonymus and trellis covered in Lonicera periclymenum (honeysuckle) and Akebia (Chocolate vine) set into a gravel base of white chippings on top of a membrane cover to the existing soil.
The whole ensemble of plants covering just under 8 square metres was surrounding and encroaching on a centrally positioned ancient olive tree set in a wooden planter, which was once the ‘focal point' of the arrangement but had now lost some of that status. The plants had been there sometime and out grown the space and the trellis holding the vine and honeysuckle was starting to break up and fall over.
The original collection of plants was extremely dominant for this space and it was blocking the view to the remainder of the garden. In addition, the surrounding wooden sleeper edging was rotten in places and breaking up so parts had to be removed and renewed entirely.
The design brief
The brief was to renovate the whole raised planter, introducing a fresh planting design of more aromatic, mediterranean, plants that were drought tolerant in order to complement the ancient olive tree, and open up the view to the remainder of the garden.
Renovation work
The first job was to clear the planter of all the existing, chippings, membrane and root material of the old plants. This was quite a task, as initially the white chippings had to be skimmed off the top and saved in 1 ton compost bags so they could be re-used. This wasn't as straightforward as it sounds, as the membrane that had previously been laid had broken down, so had to be removed by hand in pieces. This was made more complex by the existence of a lighting system that was no longer functional.
Then the old soil and root systems of the previous plants needed to be cleared, this included quite few plants not initially identified, as they had been overwhelmed by the more ancient shrubs. Some of the more salvageable specimens were taken up and moved to other parts of the garden. At this point it was established that within the border was also a great deal of builders' rubble that was waste from the patio installation. This had combined with the old root material of the existing plants. Once all this was completed the border had to be repaired.
Once the Oak border making up the raised bed was repaired the soil was re-energised with a great deal of organic material, dug into the base material. To ensure the drainage was sufficient horticultural grit was also added.
New membrane was then added to cover all of the earth to help mitigate any weed growth in the future and the new plants laid out according to the design.
Planting
For the planting I chose drought tolerant mediterranean style plants consisting of; Calamagrostis × acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Euphorbia characias subsp. Wulfenii as the backdrop with Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote, Salvia rosmarinus, Santolina rosmarinifolia filling most of the remaining border and then Erigeron karvinskianus to eventually spread and tumble out over the edging.
Unfortunately, due to demand I was unable to obtain mature plants in every case, so had to used 9cm samples of the Santolina and Erigeron
Final Result
The border was then planted up and the old chippings spread over the surface and washed with water. A top dressing of new chippings was then added to give the final sparkle.
In just its first summer even the 9cm specimen plants have started to develop and it has already established itself as another successful renovation design project.
