Hardy Tropicals UK

I've got an area in mind for an exotic garden. What I'm not sure is if the hedges and trees will block too much light. Sorry about the scabby drawings, but hopefully you will get the idea. North is Up

The bit in pink is the intended area. I would remove the trees in Red to provide more light from East and S.East, but there is still a tall, but quite slender (at present) Cedar tree to the South.

There is a decent shelter-belt of trees to the West and North. They cast shadow from the setting sun, although perhaps in Summer the sun is high enough to clear them. I might take a protractor out tomorrow and do some nerdy angle-checks.
The terrace we sit out on is to the right of the plan. So we look out onto the pond and trees.

On this "detail" plan I've indicated the trees as-if removed, and:

1 = Laburnham. Its not very big, not terribly grand, and I could take that out. The "entrance" is through there.

2 = I thought in order to narrow the opening, and make it a bit more "secret" I could put some tall grasses, or Bamboo.

3 = Similarly, take out the Leylandii at the end of the row and put in Bamboo instead.

4 = The main growing area

Light blue arrows show the Entrance and Exits. The path joining them can be meandering, or something else.

Here's the view from an upstairs window (above the terrace where we sit out in the Summer)
The two main trees to be removed are indicated, and the arrow for the "entrance".

The cedar on the left is the one I would like to keep.

This picture is looking towards the West (from the right of the plans above)

View at eye-level from the terrace
The entrance - on the Right I could remove the end Leylandii (behind the Viburnum that is ringed), and there could be some bamboo on the left(or more tall grasses) to narrow the gap

Here are some views "inside" the pink area of the plan
Facing South.
Facing North

Possibly slightly less crabby plan:

That little pink blob is bigger than my entire garden! In fact, I think your greenhouse is probably bigger than my entire garden,

Don't worry too much about light, there's plenty of really goregous exotics that are shade tolerant and I don't think there's anything more exotic looking than a palm bending its trunk to get the best of the light that's available.

What are your ideas for planting? Are you going for the snaking path with borders either side or a succession of planted 'islands' that can be wandered between whilst being enclosed inside the larger area?

Wow! That`s a massive area to fill. And there`s me putting up a post asking peoples advise on filling an area 4 metres square!
Anyway - i`d first remove all the plantings you don`t want and then review the situation. Where gets the sun and where doesn`t. From there start to build up a picture. I`d be planting some huge palms and bamboos in there.

GoggleboxUK wrote:What are your ideas for planting? Are you going for the snaking path with borders either side or a succession of planted 'islands' that can be wandered between whilst being enclosed inside the larger area?

When we went to Great Dixter I rather liked having to squeeze between the plants that were falling over the path - except that it had rained and we got wet pushing through them!

So I think a "jungle path".

But I don't know if that would enable one to be able to see, and enjoy, some Palms

Looking with Google Satellite the Exotic Garden at Great Dixter looks to be about 20M x 10M. I certainly don't need any bigger than that, so I think I need to just constraint to that.

(East Ruston is about 30M x 20M - that's the only other one I have seen)

The horrid Leylandii hedge can just be shelter, and I can then plant inside that so that the plants grow to touch the hedge, rather than being planted close to it.

Sounds like a grear plan to me Kristen but noy something you can put together quickly without spending a lot of money.

The great ting about palms is that for every foot of trunk they grow (some can do this in a year under the right conditions) they give you more space beneath for new underplanting.

Have a look at Junglenuts' garden, it's one of my favourite Jungle-effect gardens but just browsing members' blogs here will give you some inspiration

Junglenuts Garden and also HERE

You might also find Heligan an inspirational garden:

It's a great plot Kristen and like has been said already don't worry about the light too much, I'm north facing so the gardens pretty much in the dark half the year . Like yours, mine was also flat so to try and create a bit more interest I've used raised beds and even dug a sunken walkway http://www.hardytropicals.co.uk/forum/v ... en+walkway

This has great potential but it does look shady. You could create a lush green exotic glen, tree ferns, bamboos and so on - sort of like Heligan. But I think the colourful sun lovers such as cannas, dahlias and so on would not grow well there. So the Great Dixter effect would not be successful. Depends what results you want. Do also remember that trees as well as casting shade, denude the soil of nutrients and will make it dry, so an irrigation system may be needed.

Where is Lord Nelson when a chart needs reading.

I do think that the tree roots, and the <spit!> Leylandii roots are going to be most of the problem. I don't want to chop down a couple of tress just for the hell of it - if nothing else they are the main backdrop to the view from the terrace - but the North-most cedar is multi-stemmed, and will be hopeless as it grows bigger, and the South one, whilst better, will be completely lopsided if not given more room to develop all around its trunk.

I'm confident that this will help with roots, and light. Just a bit uncertain how "stark" it may look from the terrace ...

I was wondering about growing Bamboos around the back of the pond, so that from the terrace it is not obvious that there is a secret garden behind - hopefully bananas and Ferns won't be poking over the top of the Bamboos to give the game away.

I figured planting a nice Yew hedge, a-la-Dixter, was a bit of a 10 year wait !

But I'm lacking courage to get the tree surgeon in. Actually, typing that, he may well have a view on the matter having done that sort of thing all his life.