Hey guys! I'm new to this gardening thing and looking for a bit of advice. So here's the plot I'm working with: It's about 220 square feet, photo was taken at about 3pm - the east side (left) gets a good amount of sun, the south (front) is quite shady and the west side (right) gets some partial sun. I recently amended the ground, so there's about 5-8 inches of nice garden soil to plant in. There's two clumps of bamboo as well as some sort of spindly tree in the center, and I have a few greens & peas already started on the east and west sides. I'm going for a mixed vegetable/ornamental garden, for veggies I was thinking simple & hardy stuff - peas, lettuce, chives, anything that's able to survive my very un-green thumbs. ;) For more ornamental plants I was thinking some rhododendrons, azaleas, etc basically colourful and easy to grow perennials on one side and some Pacific North West forest style greenery for the shadier areas, ferns, goatsbeard, that kind of thing. If anyone has any ideas for plant selection, positioning, anything like that it would be much appreciated!
Unless it's contained by a solid rhizome barrier (doesn't appear evident in the pic, ought to be protruding a couple of inches above grade), the entire area will be bamboo in a few seasons. I'd do that before anything else.
I agree with the above reply in regard to the bamboo. That stuff spreads like lightening and will ultimately overcrowd anything that you work so hard to achieve. It is worth the time and effort to deal with that issue before doing anything further. You know that saying 'your mother is always right'? ...well, in my own gardening experience I had moved into a little place in South Delta and immediately planted ivy and periwinkle as a ground cover as it was so bleak looking and I wanted quick results...my mom had said 'you'll be sorry'...fast forward to my now gorgeous English style flower garden being strangulated by these very same things planted 13 years ago. I have done battle with them pretty much from the second year onwards. They will probably be there until the end of time.
Dykhof in North Vancouver have Pacific Rhododendrons which are native and we got a False Azalea from there last year which is also native. Some other good places for native plants are U.B.C and Van Dusen.
Thanks for the advice guys. I dug under the bamboo but the roots seem to be mostly cordoned off by some wood planks under the garden but I put in some thick plastic from Rona where I could anyways just in case (edges covered over slightly with dirt as it looked ugly just sticking out). Here's how it's coming together, a few months later: On the left have rosemary, thyme, tomatoes, 2 banana trees. Center some tropical leafy plants I cant recall the name of at the moment, basil, and a few exotics. On the right an assortment of not so healthy ferns, baby sunflowers, lemon mint, onions, a rhododendron and an azalea. Once I get some mulch down I have some big chunks of quartz I'm going to put in with some glow in the dark stones ( http://www.coregravel.ca/core-glow/ ) surrounding them for a nice night time effect. Some ski boots I found outside my place I fashioned into sunflower pots by drilling a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Hopefully I haven't planted them too late and they'll eventually bloom. So few questions: Are the ferns on the right doomed? I was originally planning tropical on the left side, Pacific NW on the right but I think I miscalculated the amount of sun the right side gets and most of them have withered. Will they spring back to life once it's not so sunny, or should I replace them? Are there varieties of ferns that are more sun tolerant? Any advice for the artistic use of mulch would be great. I find most mulch to be pretty ugly by itself relative to ground soil, but I loathe weeding.. I was thinking a rough gradient from some darker mulch to a lighter variety over the length of the garden might be visually interesting, anyone have experience doing something like that?
