Garden: Planting up a Clay Bank.

Now that we are in that little lull between getting the vegetable plot up and running for the year and starting to deal with the inevitable gluts, I'm taking time out to plant some pretty stuff.  We are slowly turning a bit more of the field into a garden, working from the house out!.

When the house was built in 2009 a steep-sided and unstable bank was left where the platform was cut out, 2m at the highest point, dropping to about a 1m at the lowest.

The bank in early spring 2010

Over time this once bare clay slope has slumped and moved before finally stabilising and we are now seeing some vegetation regrowth.  This is going to be a long term project; we don't have the cash to buy enough plants in one hit and there aren't enough hours in the day - or water in the butts - to keep too big an area watered should we have a decent summer.

The plants chosen could be best described as cheap and cheerful, robust and hopefully up to the task of poor soil, dry summers and potentially periods of water-logging in the winters.  And snow and cold, of course.

Plant list:
Echinacea Purpurea (2)
Geranium Sanguinium (3)
Gaura Gaudi Red (3)
Geranium Johnson's Blue (3)
Geranium (un-named variety) (3)
Hardy fuschia (2)
Tree mallow Breedon Springs (3)
Golden Rod (3)

Already in:
Philadelphus
Grevillea Juniperina
Honeysuckle Tatarica

My approach is as usual a bit unconventional.  Normally when starting a new bed or border, all the weeds would be cleared, compost or manure dug in to the soil, maybe some grit added to improve the drainage, and then the plants planted.  Well, we don't have the advantage of much soil into which to dig any compost or horse muck, no money for grit, and the sloping nature of the site means the lot washes down slope when we have torrential rain.  And it is now firmly torrential rain season.  So, as elsewhere, the plants are going to be popped in among the weeds and I will spend the summer using shears to keep the weeds very short.

Looking up the steps; the new planting area is straight ahead at the top.  The area on the right was planted up two years ago.

Looking back towards the steps from the new rose arch.  

Looking back towards the arch; the ground slopes down to the right.

I spent ages trying to decide where to actually put the plants.  I'm aiming for naturalistic drifts.  A drift of two plants may be tough to achieve, but if nothing else I don't want to end up with an area with twenty-odd plants scattered around.  First of all I made a rough paper sketch and then lugged the plants up and placed them on the ground.  I then looked and thought, walked around and moved pots about before thinking on it overnight.

Lay-out from bottom of the steps.

Lay-out from above; the steps are to the right.

Work in progress.

Tree mallow planted.
Nice lump of blue clay at the top and the stones came out of the clay.  Lovely creeping buttercups - well, they do stop the soil creeping down the slope when my back's turned!

The next phase will be to turn over and remove the weeds and and add a deep mulch of chippings or shreddings made from the trees around the boundary.  Maybe in the autumn when I could add some spring bulbs, or maybe in the spring.

Job done.  Honest!