What should I be adding to the front of house flowerbed?

This is a front of house flowerbed with a few plants, one of which was a bloody geranium/cranesbill that my wife recently cut back to barely nothing. The flowerbed is mostly in the shade during the day, gets a bit of sun first thing in the morning.

There is landscape maintenance guys in the estate who come around once a year and trim everything back.

It looks like some sort of woody mulch was added previously by them. I know some larger wood chippings can entice the birds to come and flip it everywhere in the morning seeking food.

Anyway, is there anything I should be adding just to improve the quality of the soil/keep weeds at bay, feed the rose plant etc.
Random little weeds appear all the time and they are very easy to pull out, it is more just the volume of them.

Some pics attached. Thanks

 

The Cranesbill will soon grow back even though its been chopped right down, its a hard plant to kill as it roots so easily under the soil.

For that size we would put remove the bark and replace it with some shingle/gravel/pebbles etc over a weed control membrane which should reduce the weeds and the birds and animals scattering the bark.

 

Weeds will still grow through a membrane eventually, and it's bad for soil health. I do have some under 2 gravel areas myself, but I wouldn't have it within a border. The main reason for having it under gravel is to stop dirt from mixing with the gravel, rather than weeds. It is also referred to as "landscaping fabric" or "landscaping membrane", which I think are more apt names. That's not to say it doesn't reduce weeds, but overall it's not worth it in my opinion - unless in cases where there are health issues making weeding very difficult.

Gravel and pebbles can get quite hot, so are not really the best option I think as you would need to have a bit of clearance around each plant.

I believe you should consider 2 things:

1. Adding more mulch
2. Adding more plants, which would leave less room for weeds to grow.

In reality you can combine the two. Plants would need some time to grow and fill up the area anyway.

 

Give the cranesbill a good soaking with a watering can (just once should be enough) and new leaves should start to appear within a couple of weeks.
Personally I would add more plants to fill the space, that will also help to keep the weeds down as @CostasK says. Would save having to worry about mulch as well.

The simplest thing might be to add more of the same, then you know those plants are happy there.
I'm not 100% certain, but they look like hypericum, rosemary and hellebores to me. I'm sure someone can confirm .

 

The main plant on the right does look like a rosemary. There also seems to be a rose. Both are surprising options if the border is mostly in the shade. Are you sure about that @NoviceGardener2023? Could you have underestimated the amount of sun? (Which is easy to do by the way, as things change over the seasons and you can't constantly be monitoring that).

If it is indeed a shady border, there are some lovely plants for that e.g. brunnera Jack Frost, heucheras for colourful foliage, hellobore, or carex if you want something that looks like a grass.

 

I like this suggestion, keeps the same theme overall. What type of mulch should I be looking out for in the garden centre? Mini bark or something?

I just went out and threw a good amount of water over the cranesbill.

Good shout, I only know some of them because of the plant identifier apps.
From left to right there is:
St John Worts (Hypericum as you said) - What is the correct name to use?
Rose
Behind the rose and very hard to see is Baneberry (which I don’t particularly like)
Cranesbill x 3 but as they have been cut to within an inch of their life they look barely visible
Rosemary
Hellebores/Lenten Rose

I think if to plant something ( assuming the cranesbill grows back) it would maybe be behind the cranesbill and maybe swap out the baneberry.

It definitely doesn’t get much sun as it only gets sun first thing in the morning and it is north facing but maybe it does get more than I think. These plants are in the ground over 2 years now.

The main reason for my post was to see should I be adding something to the soil/bed to improve the quality of the soil, but some good suggestions around adding another plant or two.
I like the rosemary as easy to manage, the rose when it flowered and the John Worrts and Cranesbill add lovely colour too.

 

Bark is a good option for mulch, yes.

Rosemary is said to require 6+ hours of sun. The same applies to most roses, otherwise they get sickly and don't flower much. On the other hand, hellebores are regarded as a plant for shade (though if they have enough water, they can deal with sun as well). It's a very unsual combination.

If you find that the rose isn't performing very well, you could move it to a different area carefully, when it is dormant (e.g. in the winter). In the photos it looks possibly a little too close to the hypericum (?) Just a thought.

 

Again, this is just my personal take on it .

Moving the rose is a good call, possibly to a more central/rear location. This would have to wait though until later.
Alternatively you could replace it with another rose in the Autumn and just dig it out.
As it's been in for a couple of years you may find it has quite a long tap root, so you may have to dig a fair way down. (Give the soil a really good drenching before you begin).

Hypericum is the "proper" name, that should be easy to find at the garden centre.

As for the cranesbill, there are loads of varieties to choose from and again there should be a reasonable variety at the garden centre.

Around September time should be a good time to visit one for a good choice of plants.

One of my go to plants is Nandina. There are several varieties and it seems happy in sun or shade. Just remember to give it a really good watering in exceptionally dry weather. It may lose some leaves in really cold weather but bounces back.
It will also give you year round interest.

Hope this helps .

 

Good tips @AnniD

@NoviceGardener2023 if, against all odds, the rose is doing fine, you don't have to move it. If you do move it to a sunny spot, it would be wiser I think to not choose a rose as a replacement. Even the ones that claim to be shade tolerant, that's only in comparison to other roses. Even they will require at least 4 hours of sun (the hours of sun are measured in summer by the way, in winter they would be fewer). If you definitely want a rose, do choose a 'shade tolerant' one e.g. Dannahue And if you want to save a bit of money (as David Austin roses are rather expensive) you can get a bareroot one in late Autumn. There will be cheaper roses which are "shade tolerant" out there as well, it doesn't have to be a David Austin one.

While repetition is a good thing, for such a border I would look to do that with smaller plants. I don't think I would add another hypericum for instance, unless I decided to also move the rosemary and put it roughly there, so that it balances off the hypericum on the other side. But then I would want to have something with a bit of height in the middle.

Another thing to consider is that it's good to have contrast in a border - not just in height but also in leaf shape/size. That's one of the reasons I thought of a brunnera Jack Frost, as the large leaves and different tone of green would differ from what is already in the border.

A different option for part shade is a hydrangea. I am not really a fan personally, but they do add colour. Most of them are not pollinator friendly, but some are.

Hebe, carex and lonicera nitida are evergreen (I think so is nandina) so would look good for the whole year. Heucheras are semi evergreen.

Here is a photo of one of mine that I took this morning to show you. My garden is North-West facing by the way, so should be similar to yours in relation to sun.



And here is one of the carex that I mentioned - it's technically not a grass but it looks like one and is very easy to look after and tolerant of shade:



Another option for a shrub instead of a nandina, would be a hebe. The pot in the photo below has one called "Nicola's blush". Next to it is a heuchera "marmalade". Heucheras are also a nice way to add some softness and colour to that border and they like partial shade. If you do go for something that colourful though, I would suggest getting more than one e.g. 3 and dotting them around. Hostas (front of photo, on the left) are also good shade loving plants, however slugs adore them so if you don't want to keep fighting slugs, they might be best avoiding.



The shrub on the right is lonicera nitida "Baggesen's Gold" which is also tough and easy to look after. It's often used for hedging. I find it rather boring as a hedge but looks lovely for creating contrast with other plants in a border. It's a good do-er, I have four of them.

Another easy to care for plant for shade is ferns, but I'm not sure ferns would look right in that border. Though that of course is down to personal preference.

P.S. You can't tell from the photo but there is clearance around the base of each plant and the slate chippings. It's a considerable gravel area rather than a border, I still wouldn't recommend stones as an alternative to mulch.

 

Firstly, I want to thank all those who have replied and contributed to this thread, it is so helpful. So, thank you!

@CostasK this is the first of your two posts on this thread since I last replied so for ease I will reply to both but only quoting this post.
The rose definitely seems to have been doing fine over the last two years. There were a large amount of roses that bloomed on it over the last few weeks but poor effort on our behalf meant they started to die off and we didn’t deadhead them in time. In response I posted another thread on here seeking advice on how best to manage a rose plant and passed on the advice to the OH who proceeded to deadhead the dead blooms and prune a bit to the point there may be one bloom left and I’m wondering will it bloom again or do we need to prune it back further. Pics attached.
I think the suggestion of moving it more centrally is a good suggestion and maybe September as suggested by another poster is the time to do it. It will move it away from the hypericum.

In terms of adding another flower to the bed, I like the idea of the hydrangea - I can see some hydrangeas in neighbours gardens which would be facing the same way as ours. They look nice.
I wonder if we move the rose central and either front centre or rear cente in September do we plant a hydrangea behind it or in front of it? Or do we place it where the rose was previously beside the hypericum? If going central behind/front of the rose it would effectively mean removing the bloody cranesbill which I’m agnostic about.

Very helpful, I’m liking the suggestion of moving the rose more centrally in September. I just wonder do ai need to manage it better in advance of then. I can see that the maintenance guys in the estate added some pole to the middle of the rose and seem to have tied some hard to see green string around the pole holding up some of the branches, I wonder have we let it get to big and need to prune it back even further to make it neater?

 

Hi @NoviceGardener2023

I believe that when Anni mentioned September, it was for looking at plants in garden centres, not moving the rose. Roses are better moved when they are dormant and that doesn't happen until we get close to winter.

My idea of moving the rose was for it to go to a completely different border, one which isn't North facing, if it wasn't doing well there. Unless you really hate its placement, making it go through transplant stress just to move it a few centimetres towards the middle is probably not worth it.

It you were to move it (to a different border), you would be able to have a hydrangea centrally and at the back of the border, with the cranesbill in front of it.

There are things that you can do to tidy up roses. Now is not the time for a hard prune, but one trick that I use to is this: when deadheading, if all blooms on a branch are spent, the recommendation is to trim it down to a set of 5-leaves. That doesn't have to be the very first one however, I use the opportunity to reduce the size. And gradually the whole of the shrub has less volume.

If it is drooping too much for your liking, there are indeed lots of options for supports. Just try to achieve a balance between that and allowing air flow around the leaves. If you secure all of the branches too tightly together and there isn't enough airflow, the rose is more likely to suffer from fungal diseases.

 

Thank you for your detailed reply. To be honest I am fairly content with the rose being in the flowerbed at the front of the house, so happy not to move it to another border. Your point on the transplant stress just to move it a few inches to be more central I have noted and that makes sense.

It is quite close to the hypericum so that was maybe the reason for also moving it slightly more central.

There is still that gap at the back middle of the flowerbed where I may look to plant a hydrangea, while some of that space may be vacated when the cranesbill grows back I may make more of an effort to keep the cranesbill in check.

 

No problem @NoviceGardener2023

Your garden, your choice. Also, often it's worth doing something if a situation is bothering you, even if it comes at a cost.

Last year I did exactly what I advised against - I moved a climbing rose just a little bit to the right, for better placement against a pergola. That's why I said "unless the placement of the rose really bothers you".

If I were you, I would try tidying both plants first and, if it still bothered me, I would probably go for it even if it's not in theory the smartest move. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

P.S. Most hydrangeas can get quite big, so just try to avoid duplicating the issue you have with the hypericum.