For Dry Gardens

Plants:

Dry Shade

All growing at the back of the garden, between a holly hedge and conifer hedge, shaded by a pear tree and sycamore) It doesn’t get drier. A hole might be darker.

  • alchemilla mollis – grows anywhere, surprisngly pretty with raindrops caught on it’s leaves
  • aquilegia vulgaris – elegant flowers
  • aster Gertrude Jekyll (white) & Monch (purple)
  • brunnera macrophylla (Jack Frost) – cheerful blue flowers in the spring & lovely leaves through the summer
  • Clematis montana var. rubens – climbing up my conifers
  • corydalis – shouldn’t work but it does
  • cyclamen hederifolium – cheer me up everyAutumn
  • cyclamen coum – and then in the spring

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  • digitalis purpurea – native purple foxglove is the toughest
  • epimedium versicolor (sulphureum) – lovely green leaves spreading everywhere, small yellow flowers
  • euphorbia amygloides var robbiae – a thug, growing under my conifers and holly, which is useful but needs the rooters weeded out every Spring

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  • gallium odoratum – for the really dry bits between the conifers and the hedge
  • geranium maccrorhizum (bevans & spessart) – lovely later spring, early summer flowers
  • helleborus (Ushaba)  – providing you give them some water through the summer, these cope well

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  • liriope muscari (big blue) – useful foliage
  • lonicera henryi – honeysuckle scrambling up the confiers
  • fern: asplenium scolopendrium (cristatum & muricata) – stuck in a very dry, shady wall
  • fern: polystichum aculeatum – evergreen
  • fern: dryopteris cristata – I have these in the ground and in pots around the garden. Lovely structural plants

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Dry Sun

Alpines

All growing on my garage roof, watered very infrequently

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  • aster ericoides prostratus – lovely flowers & spreading habit
  • anemone appenina Petrovac – sping flowers inbetween the stones under the holly

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  • aubrieta macedonia – falling over the edge of the trough
  • campanula x pulloides – lovely blue flowers
  • cyclamen coum – beautiful fuschia pink flowers in the winter
  • dianthus Gold Fleck & Whatfield magenta – lovely intense colours
  • dodecatheon pulchellum Red Wings – very like cyclamen flowers but late spring/early summer
  • draba rigida var imbricata compacta
  • erodium x variabile Bishops Form – again, bright pink flowers
  • genista pilosa – bright yellow flowers, spreading slowly
  • gentiana acaulis – blue sping flowers
  • geranium sanguineum striatum Splendens – pink, invasive thug
  • leucojm autumnale – like autumn snowdrops
  • narcissus “tom thumb” – very cheerful in the spring
  • osteospermum Irish – long lasting pink flowers
  • phlox douglasii Crackerjack – pink & spreading
  • pulsatilla vulgaris – purple easter flower
  • satureja spicigera – white flows on a small spreading shrub
  • saxifraga Sofia – bright yellow flowers, v slow to grow
  • sedum cauticola – beautiful autumn foliage
  • sedum sediforme – indestructible, loose mat with yellow flowers in the summer
  • sedum sexangulare – spreading mats with bright yellow flowers
  • tulipa saxatalis & sylvestris – will come back year after year

Other beds (all under hedges):

  • allium sphaerocephalon
  • alyssum
  • cistus pulverulentus Sunset: A  pink rock rose
  • erysismum Bowles Mauve – perrennial wallflower
  • geranium rozanne – beautiful blue, lasts forever
  • lavendula augustifolia hidcote – a beautiful hedge, dry as a bone with allium spiking though
  • lysimachia  nummularia Aurea- creeping jenny, a great useful thug with beuatiful yellow flowers spilling over my walls

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  • perovskia (blue Spire) – gradually planning to replace the lavender with this and cycle around every 4-5 years
  • rudbeckia fulgida
  • sedum herbstfreude
  • triteleia Corrina A blue grass nut plant for June/July
  • viola odorata – one smells beautifully, the other is a thug. I have the thug
    lychnis coronaria – campion, cannot be killed no matter how hard you try
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On-Line Suppliers:

For alpines and bulbs:                     http://www.pottertons.co.uk/

For shady plants (&advice):          http://www.plantsforshade.co.uk/    LongAcre Plants

For structural plants                         http://www.silktree.co.uk/                 (& especially large ferns)

For geraniums:                                     http://www.woottensplants.com/

For roses:                                                 http://www.davidaustinroses.com

For everyday plants:           http://gardenshop.telegraph.co.uk/plants/

For everyday seeds:                          http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/

For gardening stuff:                           http://www.greenfingers.com/