Kristen's Blog : Jungle Garden - Year 2 - Enjoying!

[The Codfather]

Looking great, there is alot of winnter tender stuff there ?????

[Kristen]

Looking great, there is alot of winnter tender stuff there ?????

shush! Mrs K might hear you!!

[GoggleboxUK]

If you had a couple of dense clumps of bamboo about 2-3ft apart it would be fairly easy to create a forward leaning cliff face from a large single obelisk of cheap rock and just run a hose up the back of it to a holding tank hidden by planting. Tilting the tank 5 degrees would create a thin spill of water that would just plunge into the pool below.

You could even go crazy ape-shallot bonkers with a lump hammer and chisel and create some nice little hollows in the rockface to plant into.

Alternatively, biard out and make a big upright concrete slab, distress it then stain it with the Tekstain I used on the back wall of my feature. Either way it would soon attract moss and lichensnaturally, probably look like it had always been there by the time the bamboos framed it properly.

[Yorkshire Kris]

Viewing on my phone so will comment properly later but from what I can see I am very excited about the space you have created.

[Kristen]

Viewing on my phone so will comment properly later but from what I can see I am very excited about the space you have created.

Thanks YK, much appreciated

[Yorkshire Kris]

Had a proper look at the photos and everything looks set up for a wonderful summer display. You have a great shelter belt of conifers which will buffer the winds and avoid the bananas from shredding too much. The paths looks good and likethe way you can walk through/around the tender plants. It's my kind of planting!

[Simba]

It is going to look truly amazing when those bamboo start to grow and fill out...

[Kristen]

You have a great shelter belt of conifers which will buffer the winds and avoid the bananas from shredding too much.

I hadn't properly considered the benefit of that when choosing the site for my Jungle, but looking out of the window the other morning I could see the surouding tree tops swaying and the Bananas not moving at all although everything was waving around in the high winds we had a week or two ago. I've thought about putting fencing panels behind the hedge to provide a good 6 feet solid barrier at the bottom (the hedge is thick, but it is also somewhat hollow off course). Time will tell ...

[GoggleboxUK]

Adding solid fencing may actually make things worse there Kristen.

When wind hits a solid barrier it creates eddies that roll and tumble over the fence and pick up speed on the other side. A natural barrier is always prefereable as the wind is buffetted and dispersed much better.

[Kristen]

I was thinking of "burying" the fence into the [back side of the] existing hedge so that the bottom 6' was solid and then the hedge above could take care of the eddies? Or is that wishful thinking?

[GoggleboxUK]

That should work

I panelled off the bottom of my fence to protect the Trachycarpus that got damaged the winter before but I left the top part slatted as before and it seemed to avoid kicking up eddies at the base where I left some remnants of zebra grass so I could see how they were affected in wind.

[Kristen]

Update 01-Aug-2012

Cycas flushing:



Entrance:


View from North End looking South:


South view:


Looking back to the North:


North exit:


Ensete and T.Rex at North End:


Ensete, Paulownia and Fatsia (with polythene windbreaks) at South end:






Brugs in need of better support:

[GoggleboxUK]

You're getting some good growth there Kristen, nice!

[Yorkshire Kris]

Very colourful. The mass coleus planting is inspired. Looking really good.

[Kristen]

Thanks chaps.

The mass coleus planting is inspired

Since the photo I have planted some more to fill the gaps along the edges. I bought 2 each of 6 varieties from www.dibleys.com which didn't arrive all that early in the Spring (fair enough) but in enough time for me to get one round of decent cuttings in, so I got about 30 rooted cuttings from them

I haven't taken any more, but I could take some today and they'll be "potentials" for the 12th if anybody wants some?

Autumn Rainbow
Illumination
Pagoda - massive leaves, relative to the others.
Pink Chaos - narrow leaves, and it has been a bit more fussy, but different to the rest. Presumably similar to Inky Fingers?
Saturn
Walter Turner

Pictures on my Blog to avoid clogging up this thread.
http://kgarden.wordpress.com/projects/e ... n/#Gallery