Tall ones with green leaves at the base are Bears Breeches. Green foliage most of the year then sometime through summer and autumn they will put out tall stems with lovely purple/white flowers. A bit on the spikey side but a pretty edition to a flower bed. I always cut mine down when they get to that stage and leave the leaves 👍🏻
Willsagain2 on
Pic 4 looks like hardy geranium, with the flat open purple flowers. The tall spikes with the spear shaped leaves is Acanthus (bears britches).you can cut the spikes off now
Bothe these may die back in winter but will come back next spring.
Not sure what the shrub with grey- green leaves is.
Abquine on
Although there are undoubtedly some weeds among that, I’d not do anything too drastic until you get the first Spring under your belt and see what you have. Also be careful when you start weeding in the Spring as you may take out something that will flower in the summer. Undoubtedly won’t hurt to tidy up a bit and take out some obviously dead foliage but I always leave some for the insects to overwinter. Once things start to come back to life you can see what you have, identify them so you know when to prune etc and decide what you want to keep and what you want to change. A garden is a long journey and there are a lots of diversions along the way, 37 years in and mine looks nothing like when I started out or even what it looks like when I laid my first planned beds out. Often nature decides what’s right and what’s not and plants you like that are already thriving there are keepers. I hope you enjoy it.
Additional_Net_9202 on
Hi. I’ll give my advice. There’s things that I would do, that are the recommended things to do etc. but you said your new to it so I’ll give advice from that angle.
First, don’t get overly sentimental with your plants. Use what works for you. You learn by trying thing out, so if you have some lanky awful half dead thing that you’re struggling with, just let it go. Take a kinda Darwinian approach, everything has to earn it’s place and have what it takes to compete in the tough fast paced environment of your garden.
Don’t be afraid to weed your plants. Some things make great cover and are easy but pop up everywhere, so keep things in check. Imagine each plant has it’s foot print, where it’s planted and it’s spread. Let these areas overlap, but don’t plant in others plants footprints.
Look at the plants you think you want to keep, and decide if there’s anything you just want rid. If it looks weedy and pathetic, take it out.
Cut back lightly you could give the whole space there a bit of a hair cut, take out the big brown stems and seed pods.
Apply the 3 Ds concept. It’s always appropriate to remove the three D’s so it’s an easy pruning rule. Anything Dead, Diseased, Damaged. You can’t go wrong. I would also add “Inappropriate”, (are there two plants in one foot print, should that rose really be growing out of the bricks?)
Buy a hoe, a narrower one is better. Use it to run just under the surface of the soil. It will break the ground, loosen weeds, improve the soil. Takes 90% of work out of weeding. Use to to keep the surface between the plants open and loose. Around the crowns of the plants and between the plants footprints. It’s actually a quick and easy job, but just needs done regularly.
Do it on frosty, hot or dry days and just run it through to disturb weed roots then let the weather kill them off.
Dont overplant. Be patient and allow room for things to grow in. Allowing that space will make the hoe work easier. Read the height and spread.
Be careful of easy to grow or quick growing plants. They’re often very weedy and a little invasive. Quick impact usually means more work. Slow growing things, like an azalea, are very little work but requires patience to see them fill their space.
Good luck
pothelswaite on
The grey/green shrub is a Cistus commonly known as rock rose. Flowers in mid summer, usually pink or white. They need a gentle trim each year after flowering to stop them getting too leggy and collapsing under their own weight. You can do it now and it will still flower next summer.
l-m-88 on
I cannot recommend enough the app ‘PictureThis’. The icon is a green flower vector. You can take a picture of a leaf or a flower and it will identify it. Some iPhones have this functionality built-in now in the Photo app (not my ancient model sadly but PictureThis is fantastic)
Snakepliskin08 on
I agree you’ve got perennial hardy geraniums. These are great fillers & easily divided. Hard to tell from the leaf which ones, but worth leaving in until May time.
Other have named other perennials….
They recommend not going too crazy for a year as you won’t know what bulbs & corms you’ve got until a full year has passed…
Another think to do is a soil test to see what type of plants you can grown, but looking at what’s there you’ll be neutral to alkaline so have plenty of scope.
9 Comments
Tall ones with green leaves at the base are Bears Breeches. Green foliage most of the year then sometime through summer and autumn they will put out tall stems with lovely purple/white flowers. A bit on the spikey side but a pretty edition to a flower bed. I always cut mine down when they get to that stage and leave the leaves 👍🏻
Pic 4 looks like hardy geranium, with the flat open purple flowers. The tall spikes with the spear shaped leaves is Acanthus (bears britches).you can cut the spikes off now
Bothe these may die back in winter but will come back next spring.
Not sure what the shrub with grey- green leaves is.
Although there are undoubtedly some weeds among that, I’d not do anything too drastic until you get the first Spring under your belt and see what you have. Also be careful when you start weeding in the Spring as you may take out something that will flower in the summer. Undoubtedly won’t hurt to tidy up a bit and take out some obviously dead foliage but I always leave some for the insects to overwinter. Once things start to come back to life you can see what you have, identify them so you know when to prune etc and decide what you want to keep and what you want to change. A garden is a long journey and there are a lots of diversions along the way, 37 years in and mine looks nothing like when I started out or even what it looks like when I laid my first planned beds out. Often nature decides what’s right and what’s not and plants you like that are already thriving there are keepers. I hope you enjoy it.
Hi. I’ll give my advice. There’s things that I would do, that are the recommended things to do etc. but you said your new to it so I’ll give advice from that angle.
First, don’t get overly sentimental with your plants. Use what works for you. You learn by trying thing out, so if you have some lanky awful half dead thing that you’re struggling with, just let it go. Take a kinda Darwinian approach, everything has to earn it’s place and have what it takes to compete in the tough fast paced environment of your garden.
Don’t be afraid to weed your plants. Some things make great cover and are easy but pop up everywhere, so keep things in check. Imagine each plant has it’s foot print, where it’s planted and it’s spread. Let these areas overlap, but don’t plant in others plants footprints.
Look at the plants you think you want to keep, and decide if there’s anything you just want rid. If it looks weedy and pathetic, take it out.
Cut back lightly you could give the whole space there a bit of a hair cut, take out the big brown stems and seed pods.
Apply the 3 Ds concept. It’s always appropriate to remove the three D’s so it’s an easy pruning rule. Anything Dead, Diseased, Damaged. You can’t go wrong. I would also add “Inappropriate”, (are there two plants in one foot print, should that rose really be growing out of the bricks?)
Buy a hoe, a narrower one is better. Use it to run just under the surface of the soil. It will break the ground, loosen weeds, improve the soil. Takes 90% of work out of weeding. Use to to keep the surface between the plants open and loose. Around the crowns of the plants and between the plants footprints. It’s actually a quick and easy job, but just needs done regularly.
Do it on frosty, hot or dry days and just run it through to disturb weed roots then let the weather kill them off.
Dont overplant. Be patient and allow room for things to grow in. Allowing that space will make the hoe work easier. Read the height and spread.
Be careful of easy to grow or quick growing plants. They’re often very weedy and a little invasive. Quick impact usually means more work. Slow growing things, like an azalea, are very little work but requires patience to see them fill their space.
Good luck
The grey/green shrub is a Cistus commonly known as rock rose. Flowers in mid summer, usually pink or white. They need a gentle trim each year after flowering to stop them getting too leggy and collapsing under their own weight. You can do it now and it will still flower next summer.
I cannot recommend enough the app ‘PictureThis’. The icon is a green flower vector. You can take a picture of a leaf or a flower and it will identify it. Some iPhones have this functionality built-in now in the Photo app (not my ancient model sadly but PictureThis is fantastic)
I agree you’ve got perennial hardy geraniums. These are great fillers & easily divided. Hard to tell from the leaf which ones, but worth leaving in until May time.
Other have named other perennials….
They recommend not going too crazy for a year as you won’t know what bulbs & corms you’ve got until a full year has passed…
Another think to do is a soil test to see what type of plants you can grown, but looking at what’s there you’ll be neutral to alkaline so have plenty of scope.
The large green leaves are acanthus!
There are geraniums in there too