The Plotting Shed

How can you create a beautiful garden design if you haven't got a clue about gardening?
Welcome back to the first of this season's podcasts. This week Rachel talks about prepping your garden thought process.  Understanding what you need your garden to do. It's all part of the 5P's.... proper planning prevents poor performance. The problem is what do you plan for?

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The buzzword for many gardeners is low maintenance - but we have the wrong concept of what low maintenance should mean. The best low-maintenance garden is one where the plants look after themselves.
This week, Rachel looks at the wood-wide web and how it can help you create a low-maintenance, well-balanced healthy garden - for free.

This week is the last in this series of the Plotting Shed. We will be back in Spring 2023. Thank you for all your donations this year, they have been appreciated. 

Dr Elaine Ingham - soil food web
Charles Dowding - No dig gardening
How bedding plants are bad for the gardens. 

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Gardens don't exist in a photograph or a moment in time. 
Picture-perfect gardens are not real, all gardens create work. Large gardens create a lot of work, so how do you ensure the design itself doesn't create unnecessary maintenance or build in additional costs to look after it?

Can a large garden really be low maintenance?

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Large Garden Design Tips
This week Rachel details those useful questions and design tips you need to ask before you embark on any large-scale garden redesign.  What questions should you ask and what are the simple tips to start the process off?

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Gardens are not outdoor rooms, you cannot apply interior design principles to a garden. Nature does not exclude certain colours or shapes or plants, the landscape is merely a reflection of the plants that thrive in the conditions that prevail. So if you try to micro-manage the garden style and planting colour themes, the overall effect begins to look too sanitised.

The best approach is with a few guidelines - read the article

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I discovered a new word this week - Xeriscape, which means to grow plants whilst reducing the need for irrigation.  And ornamental grasses are very good plants that don't require much water, which makes them an ideal choice in many gardens, 

But often growing these ornamental grasses in the garden can lead to disappointing results; so this week Rachel discusses how you can grow them better.  

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Have you ever stared out into the garden and wished you knew a bit more about garden design?
You know that garden border that's looking a bit dull, but how do you work out what to change and how to replant it.

Well here are 5 easy tips that will help you make your garden borders better
read the article at PlantPlots

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We all want to learn from the garden design pros's - after all they should kow what they are doing! But not every desing tips is worth adding to your garden.

In this weeks episode Rachel lets you know which ones you should be following, and which to leave in at the RHS Garden Shows

Read the article at PlantPlots.com

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I was very fortunate to be able to attend all the 3 main RHS garden shows this year. So, Chelsea in May, Hampton Court and Tatton Park in July. All three shows have very different flavours, but there are themes that are common to all.

Now, not all the elements in these garden shows are worth copying, these are shows after all. But some are; so what are they?

Read the article at PlantPlots.com

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Welcome to the new series of the Plotting Shed.  Have you missed me?

SO, did the experiment work? If you remember last season Rachel started a garden experiment to see whether it really works for the average gardener.

Does not mowing the lawn help reduce the maintenance and still make the garden feel like a garden.  And what about the weeds; how did that go?

Tune in and you can find out - or you can pop along a see the video evidence
Let me know what you think - good or bad....  on our facebook page or email [email protected]

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