Help needed with design.

[andy]

Got a fairly large area of the garden which has now been stripped out and will, in the new year, be ready for planting.

The area will get no sun from November to March and then only morning sun for a bit.

The soil is lovely...almost black as it used to have my compost heap on but there's a chalky subsoil about 18-24" down

It is planted up with a couple of mature, very large beech trees, a snake bark maple and a paper bark maple.

We want to turn it into a winter garden with the importance being on winter colour, form and scent







Ive done a rather crude diagram and this is basically my first design. The coloured sections 1-4 represent winter bark colour

1  Salix alba chermesina (orange)
2 Cornus midwinter fire (pinky red)
3 Cornus stolonifera flavaramea (green/yellow)
4 Cornus alba magic flame (bright red)

5 along the pathway would possibly be vibernum carleseii (highly scented but in may)
6 A taller grass of some sort...miscanthus zebrinus for example
7 big drift of fatsia japonica
8 Sarcococca hookeriana
9 One of the larger flowering daphnes



The public pavement is at the bottom of the drawing and the site is around 25m x 25m  

If you draw a line from the top left corner to the bottom right, top left is south, bottom right is north.

Just want your ideas, suggestions, critisisms etc.  I need the scent along the path to grab people's attention.  We might add a lovely Eucalyptus or a few Betula jaquemontii. We could go for a few Italian Cypresses in among the dogwoods to give some height.

Oh, and the whole site will be underplanted with snowdrops, blue anemone blanda and scented daffs.  No budget either :-)

So get your thinking caps on and hit me with it.

[Geranium]

Love the idea of Betula jaquemontii - a clump of them underplanted with blue Anemone blanda or Scillas would be a sight to behold!  Snowdrops and Cyclamen coum together are wonderful.  Are Hellebores an option? They'd grow happily there, I'd have thought. My H. niger is in flower now.  What about Viburnum bodnantensi as well? That's a good winter flowering scented shrub, and Lonicera purpusii is too...mine is almost evergreen and has its first flower. I also love my Prunus mume 'Ben-chidori' which flowers in very late winter/early spring. How about some Iris reticulata?

[Rosefriend]

Mmmmh - well I dislike Birches immensely as at no time in the year do they not drop something - they really are dirty trees. However for that piece of ground I can see that the white trunks would look lovely. I did think of somethings but when you said about the S & S troops it sort of put the kybosh on them..

I think some Helleborus would look very nice, especially white ones would lightened little areas up, planted in clumps (3's?) rather than dotted about..
Primroses perhaps..

What about Pieris japonica - Forect Flame has lovely red leaves to start with. There is a new one called "Passion" with lovely red flowers but a white one would possible stand out more.. Again in 3's perhaps?

Winter Clems on an obelisk.
Cyclamen
Chimonanthus praecox
Hamamelis

Something with berries for the birds would be good??


RF

[totp]

Would blueberries work in this spot? - they have something for all season. I love fatsias, especially when they reach a certain height and you can remove the lower leaves to leave the top canopy - they look like really exotic trees.
I am not sure about zebrinus - to me the stripiness only shows off when you get close. What about some (Miscanthus?) Karl Foerster? I think that is more dramatic - the plumes last through winter and give lots of interesting autumn colour.
Near me the parks dept have planted rows of pyracantha that look spectacular covered in berries. They are not grown as large bushes but are planted as almost individual stalks so they are tall but not bulky. The row runs for a few hundred metres (ie long and thin) and looks great. If I can get a photo I will upload it.

[andy]

Right, plans were today pretty much formalised with the boss. Slightly revamped, here's the new one



1) Salix alba 'chermesina'
2) Cornus stolonifera 'flavaramea'
3) Cornus alba 'magic flame'
4) Cornus alba 'widwinter fire'

5) Vibernum candissima 'farreri'
6) Miscanthus zebrina
7) Fatsia japonica
8) Sarcoccoca hookeriana
9) Daphne odora 'aureomarginata'
10) Small pennisetum, possibly P. villosum
11) Chimonanthus praecox

We'll also be getting

Eucalyptus dalrympleana
Prunus serrula
betula utilis 'jaqumontii'

Bulbs to be decided but i want dark blue hyacinths mixed in with the penisetum along the path for extra scent. We'll probably go for a mass drift of snowdrops, tommasinianus crocus and winter aconites (10,000 of each) as well as a later flowering Jonquilla daff (i like sugarbush) and a large drift of blue anemone blanda

What do you think ?

[theinsidegardener]

Sounds great andy. I'm no good at garden planning yet, but I'd add mahonia somewhere to your planting. It's one of my favourites at the minute. Possibly worth getting the soft caress version if it's close to where the public would be, but otherwise I'd stick with the original. I love the pyracantha as well.