New House/Garden 100's of lovely plants need some TLC, Advice please.

Hi Everyone:D
This is my 1st post so please be gentle.

Im a complete begginer in the garden and just know to water well and feed now and again seems to do the trick usually. However, my daughter has just moved into her new house and its has a fantastic little garden with literally hundreds of plants in the borders, which luckly have little plant identifiying tabs amongst the leaves and foliage left by the garden caring folk before her.
Looking around the garden there are a few plants that are in flower right now but lots that should be in flower and are not, i think that this is due to the fact that the house has been left empty over the winter and only moved into 2 weeks ago so not been looked after or watered over the dry summer.
Our 1st job in the garden was to pull out any weeds and give it a good watering with some wondergrow in the water.

Heres a list of some of the plants in the garden

Anemone Pavonina
Osteospermum
Digitalus Vertuoso
Heuchemela
Lavender
Veronica Inspire Pink
Salvian Nemorosa Gust Friestland
Brummera Jack
Tiarella Pink Skyrocket
Crocosmia Lucifer
Arabis Rose
Clematus Florida Sicaboldii
Clematus Sylvia Denny
Scabiosa Ritz Blue
Lobelia Fan Salmon
Hotlips
Peonia
Penastenon
Concera Fasonica Hallicana
Verbian Bonariessus
Assortment of Poppies

(might not be the correct spellings)

Lots of others too, which i cant find any ID tabs for.

Whats the best way to get the best of these plants in the future, as like i mentioned a few of these have no flowers at the momment and it would be almost criminal to loose these over the winter.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me to get the best out of this garden, as i said its my daughters garden but she has a fear of spiders and frogs in fact anything creepy-crawley but ive told her she's going to have to get over it.

 

The lavender can be cutback when it finishes flowering, it can be cut back quite harshly, but make sure you leave some of the 'alive' part of the stem (dont cut back into the 'dead' part of the stem). Saying that though, there's a lavender in our new garden, and it's been left to get too "leggy" with a lot of white stems before the leaves, so I'm tempted to yank it out next year ...

If the poppies still have heads in them, I'd be cutting them off and saving the seeds for next year. I'd leave them another month or so then yank 'em out (unless perennial as above, ofc !!)

I believe the digitalis are biannual, so they may be there next year or they may just disappear I'm going to try and take some seeds off mine soon (not quite ready yet) and I'm going to try growing more from seed ...

Finally, clemetus I have a nasty habit of hacking back quite harshly in late autumn ... not sure if thats the right thing to do or not !

All just my 2p worth of course and probably tosh

 

Hi Urban Cookie

Just a reminder that as you have so many lovely flowers growing you can see , please remember there are probably loads of spring flowering bulbs you will not be aware of.:happydance:

Daffodils don`t poke their heads through until November earliest ,and there are loads more spring bulbs .

So it would be wise to just watch and wait with regards to any digging

 

I agree with Pam - give the garden a year to reveal all its secrets. Whereabouts in the country is it? In my area most osteospermum are not hardy, and you may lose that over the winter, though if the house and garden were unattended through last winter and it survived it will probably do so again. Most of the other plants seem hardy. How exciting to have such a treasure trove! And as for your daughter's fear of frogs, spiders etc, once she gets into the gardening she'll get over it. Buy her a good pair of gardening gloves - most of us can deal with most crawlers with gloves on!

 

Its definately best to wait untill you have seen a full year in the garden before any major changes are undertaken, but there is still plenty that can be done in that time.

Firstly, take lots and lots of photo's from all different angles now and in the future because at the end of Winter its very difficult to remember exactly where a particular plant is, especially as many of the plants will have died down completely and will be readying themselves to regrow in Spring. The Photo's will be a reminder of what was where and the different angles will help pinpoint the exact spot. You can also deadhead now too, remove old flowers and put them on the compost heap, you can also turn the compost heap too.

At this time of year you can also watch out for and collect seeds from your plants for future use. If you have lawn you may want to tackle that too by raking out thatch and making any repairs that are necessary. There is still plenty to do whilst you wait for that full year to go full circle, it sounds like you have a lovely garden already, probably mostly full of perrenials if the house has been empty since last winter.

Incidentally, if you do go ahead and take lot's of photo's...posting them here will allow many of GC's members to further help and offer advice.

Hope this helps.

Steve...

 

Now that's a darn good idea, taking photos ! Job for the weekend methinks ...

 

I think we all keep a visual diary nowadays , I have photos of my garden from when we moved in 4 years November new build.:happydance:
I take photos in all the seasons so you can see the empty spaces available in various seasons, Also my hanging baskets so I can see what worked best.:yess:

 

Sounds lovely!

I wouldn't worry too much about the plants not flowering right now as late August is a time when most perennials have already done their stuff for the year, and most of the colour now comes from bedding and half-hardies like dahlias, which your daughter has not got.

I'm sure that most of the plants you named will do perfectly well next year despite the shortage of water and feed this year.

I've listed the things that will in all probability have flowered earlier in the year - i've changed a few of the spellings for you, I hoped you wouldn't mind .

Anemone Pavonina
Digitalus Vertuoso
Heuchemela
Veronica Inspire Pink
Brunnera Jack
Tiarella Pink Skyrocket
Crocosmia Lucifer
Arabis Rose
Clematis Florida Sieboldii
Clematis Sylvia Denny
Scabiosa Ritz Blue
Peony or paeonia
Oriental, Welsh and opium Poppies

These are the things that might still be going strong or producing some flowers:

Osteospermum - the lilac/whitey version seems perfectly hardy
Lavender
Veronica Inspire Pink
Salvia Nemorosa East Friestland
Lobelia Fan Salmon
Hotlips
Penstemon
Verbena Bonariensis
Poppies -a few strays or late annuals



Concera Fasonica Hallicana - not sure about this one - is it a honeysuckle?

A fantastic lot of plants, what a brilliant garden to be left, I'm envious!