[Eblana]

Hi all,

I recently had a circular koi pond built that has a bit of a wall at the back and a waterfall coming from the wall.  This sit out from the boundary wall of the house and I now have a nice sized triangular bed which is fairly shaded.  It looks to be dry shade and I was just wondering if anyone could recommend some nice plants that I could use in it.  Unfortunately the builder who was doing the work for me took away all my lovely top soil, he was supposed to be storing it off site for me to return when he was finished but what I have gotten back is absolutely rubbish and definitely not the soil he took away from my garden - he keeps swearing it is but it doesn't even have the same pH as the rest of the garden.  I am thinking of either digging it back out and getting some good quality topsoil in or else just putting manure and compost into it to try to improve it - any advice?

 

[New shoot]

I know its a huge amount of work, but digging that rubbish soil out and replacing it with decent topsoil will pay off long term.  If the bed is dry shade, you could add manure as well just to beef it up and give you more options for plants.

As for the plants, you could try Mahonia, Aucuba, Lonicera nitida or Euonymus as the shrubs for height.  Then there are quite a few perennials which will cope - Brunnera, Bergenia, Alchemilla mollis, Aqueligia, Epimedium, Acanthus, foxgloves, Liriope, quite a few of the Euphorbias and hardy Geraniums as well, plus ferns 

[Eblana]

Thanks New Shoots - I had a proper look at it over the weekend and it really is awful stuff, it is pure grey with bits of dried cement in it so out it is coming!!  I have to get him back anyway as it is like a bog - there is a 'blade water fall' in the wall and the pipe going to it is leaking badly (was wondering why the level in the pond was dropping so dramatically).

I am off to a plant sale next weekend so I will keep an eye out for your plant suggestions. 

[Silkychicks]

Pulmonaria is nice and colourfull, attracts bees and bumblebees and needs little.
Your soil sounds like very little. I can't say wether that will be enough.

Otherwise to save money you can mix some soil out of you garden with compstsoil and the soil that is present there. If you have weeds that you don't want transported to other parts: fill buckets (one third of what you will be needing and top it of with water. Let it stand for 3 weeks: it will kill seeds but keep the good bacteria.

Good luck.

[Eblana]

OH and myself dug out most of the soil at the weekend.  I know it is cold and not much is growing but it was sooo poor that even weeds weren't growing in it.  At a guess we reckon it was soil from some building site as it was full of broken up pieces of cement, brick etc.  The guy who owns my allotment site that I am on is creating a car park at the moment he gave me two trailer loads of good quality top soil (from the area where the carpark is going) in exchange for some freebies I got at work and he also took the dodo soil off me and backfilled it into where he had given me the good soil from!!:D

The bed now looks really well and much larger than I thought it was so I am starting on the planting plan.  Thanks for all the ideas so far - I found some Pulmonaria poking its head up in another part of the garden so I will transplant a piece into this bed.  I will put a nice Mahonia in at the back to cover the wall and then will do a bit of a scour of the garden as I know I have lots of self seeded fox gloves, Alchemilla mollis, and Aqueligia which I can move over there to fill it up a bit.

[Silkychicks]

This sounds like this things are going to be nice and colourfull 

Enjoy