When you remove the gravel, remove the weed cloth as the plants and weeds will root into it and be a mess. It will also prevent improving your clay soil. Much better to put down multiple layers of newspaper or a layer of corrugated cardboard and then organic mulch such as chopped leaves or bark mulch for weed suppression. If you doubt this, do a search for weed cloth on this forum. It has a few uses, such as under paths or in places you don't want soil washing away such as behind an unmortared wall, but it isn't good in gardens.

Where are you generally (coastal Maine, Utah desert, DC area . . .) What advice you get will vary with where you are. Some of your plants aren't fond of poor drainage (the lavender in particular), so you may need to add a lot of compost to the whole bed and then plant the new plants in low mounds of soil from the bed rather than flat so that they never sit in water.

I agree with nhbabs, get rid of the weed cloth. It's a mess and the weeds grow above it anyway.

Perhaps do a search on lasagna gardening to get some ideas of how to improve your soil.

I tried many of the ideas I read about here on the gardenweb, but finally found that mixing some sand into the soil loosened it enough so I could work with it. All the organic matter I mixed with the clay was so quickly consumed by the soil, that it was right back to being compacted in a season.

If you have the energy or the will, you could mix the compost with the clay soil, and that should be okay for your lime hating plants.

I live near Oxford in England and many thanks for all your advice.

I dint think any of those perennial are lime adverse (or require an acidic ph) so the compost you have is probably fine.

If your soil is heavy clay though, you risk creating a poor draining bowl when you remove just enough to plant your plants. If removing to weed barrier across the whole area is more than you want to tackle, I would still try to dig a fairly large hole and only amend it sparingly. For the lavender I'd try to make a mound of soil--at least one ft diameter--and plant the lavender with the crown of the plant flush with the top of your mound. This is in order to try to minimize crown rot. If you have that much gravel mulch, then you could make the mound about 5 inches tall.

i am more concerned with you planting them in late july/ august ...

i would.... prep the soil in the entire bed... and hold these over until about 9/1 .. to plant them ... though i dont know where you are .. so that 9/1 might be off ...

just because you buy it.. doest mean its the best or easiest time to plant ... except for the most perfect aftercare ...

ken

ps: if you are in the PNW.. with gal.. and it rains every 45 minutes.. go for it ... its never hot there ...

I think in England you are pretty safe planting them out now. Just provide some shade if the temperature is going to be much over 80F, and make sure they don't dry out for too long. All of those are quite drought tolerant and I agree with everyone else that too much moisture is more likely to be your challenge.

Martha

Ken, IâÂÂm a spontaneous gardener not in the best of health and closing in on 80 years of age. Recently I have entered a spell where I feel as fit as a fiddle and decided that the borders needed tidying up. There is a specialist Perennial Garden Centre a mile or so away with a very helpful horticulturist. I forgot about the hot spell we are going through and just went out and bought some plants. I know that if I just left the plants until the Autumn the chances are that they will never get planted so I soaked the plants, dug holes large enough to give a couple of inches of space all round, soaked the hole, put about three inches of compost in, dropped the plant in and surrounded each one with more compost.
What do you mean, âÂÂIf you are in the PNW.. with gal.âÂÂ

Docmom
In England we are going through a most unusual period of 80F, I do so enjoy the use of F rather than C which I donâÂÂt understand and donâÂÂt use. I will indeed keep them well watered and when they are established I will start to ask about things such as, âÂÂDo these plants need cutting back or should one just let them die back.
Many thanks all for the advice.

Balliol - I sort of surmised you were an Oxford based Brit from the name but your member page says US. I would also recommend removing the weed cloth and gravel. They work for one, possible even two years and then you will have a weedy mess as leaves and debris build up on top and you end up with weedy soil on top of the plastic. Imo there is absolutely no substitute in UK conditions for properly preparing a perennial border and by that I mean digging. I wouldn't use newspaper and cardboard methods advocated by US gardeners here partly because they do not produce the crisp edged turned earth beds which are our style and the materials do not break down well in our wet non-freezing winters. You end up with sodden papier mache over compacted soil. I know it's annoying but I would keep those perennials in their pots somewhere in a corner while you get the soil properly ready for them. Not because you can't transplant in summer but because their home is not ready for them. Unfortunately it is hot and dry here at the moment by our standards and the ground is hard to dig. If you leave the plastic down until the Autumn it will kill off annual weeds and weaken perennials. Then I would lift it and dig thoroughly removing every scrap of weed root. You can then plant your perennials any time throughout the winter. The compost you have bought is really totally unnecessary as you almost certainly have perfectly good soil. Bagged compost for use in the open garden (as opposed to containers) is just another way of parting the gardener with his/her money in my view. There is pretty good soil almost anywhere you care to mention in the British Isles, except moorland, and certainly where you are. However, none of the plants you have will be fazed by alkaline compost. Your soil may well be quite alkaline already. Your Salvias and Lavender need very good drainage and I would be inclined to mix your gravel into the soil. S scabra is quite tender and may well not survive the winter, especially if damp. S curviflora is hardy but needs sharp drainage and full sun. S x jamensis is half-hardy and may come through if it has perfect drainage. Same applies to Mystic Spires.

This post was edited by floral_uk on Thu, Jul 17, 14 at 16:44

In the long run, you will regret a rock mulch in a garden bed. You will also regret a weed fabric, even if it seems like a good idea at first. I've had bad experiences with both. Consider your objectives in a place where you want to grow plants, flowers, shrubs, etc. Healthy plants definitely demand healthy soil, and through the years you want to be able to add organic matter to the soil and mix it in. As well, most plants, including evergreens, go through cycles where they die back for winter or drop leaves. At my last house there were established flower beds with perrenials (mostly iris, liriope, daylillies) that apparently had never been divided (the house was only 10 years old when I moved in). Although it wasn't apparent when looking at them, there was 3" to 6" of "soil" on top of a rock mulch that must have been applied when the bed was installed 10 years earlier. Under the rock mulch, the soil was as hard as rock. It was horrible. In order to separate, thin, and replant the perrenials, as well as dig into and improve the soil with additional compost and mulch, I had to pick out many buckets full of these white rocks by hand. Even a wood mulch is better, since it will eventually break down and improve the soil. Rock mulches may look stylish right when installed, but it is not a desirable environment for the plants you put in, it is not good for the soil, and it doesn't take too long for a great deal of organic matter is mixed in with the rocks, providing a great place for lots of new weeds to grow.

I have found the weed fabrics cause some of the same problems. Once installed you do not have good access to the soil underneath to improve it, and as the organic material on top of the fabric breaks down into new soil, you get weeds there. And weeds that will continue trying to grow out from under the fabric, will reach their way to the holes you cut for putting in plants. Those weeds become very difficult to remove.

When I start a garden bed, even if I am unable to remove lawn ahead of time, the most I will do is lay down a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, and then cover with a very thick layer of organic mulch. A few weeds do try to poke through, but because the soil is improving (lots of worms working it), it is usually easier to pull the weed, root and all, from the moist soil covered deeply in mulch. My current yard, I moved into only a little more than a year ago, was mostly a field bordering trees, covered in weeds and grasses. I've converted large portions of my yard to garden beds just by doing this. I have very few weeds in garden beds over large portions of my yard, and those that do sprout up are easy to pull. I haven't gotten around to planting things in all the beds yet, but I know that just by piling on the organic matter my soil is improving while waiting on them.

drmbear, i think it depends on what you mean by a rock mulch. I use chicken grit (small pebbles) as a mulch around my lavender and dianthus. Using a wood mulch around those plants where I .live would cause crown rot. The pebbles helps drainage and does help suppress weeds to some extent.

balloil, I have an area that has weed cloth covered with thick gravel. Its a large unplanted area where we removed the lawn years ago, its been problem free for years. When weeds try to germinate, they are easy to pull out of such deep gravel and it sounds like your gravel is also deep. There's not that many weeds that come up really but when I'm out there piddling and not in the mood to do heavy garden work, I pull whatever new ones I see, its much easier than pulling the ones that come up elsewhere due to the deep gravel.

Down the road, I decided to plant some things but still leave wide unplanted areas of gravel between the plants. The dirt under is "crap" a bit on the clay side. So, what I did was rake away the gravel to expose a 2 ft circle approximately, then I took a large serrated knife and cut out a circle the same size removing the entire cloth in the exposed circle. Throw that piece in the trash. Then I dug down deep with a shovel and amended the soil after which I planted the plant and replaced the gravel up to it over the newly planted hole. It was pretty easy. The result is clean and the plants have done just fine. I use sand and organic matter which I buy by the bags at a box store to improve my clay soil.

I know some people are saying to remove all that gravel and cloth and dig it proper but thats quite a feat, not to mention a lot of weight to deal with and it sounds like you are not exactly some strapping young kid rarin' and ready to do such a massive undertaking. I wouldn't be either. Anyway thats how it went for me, it worked fine and I think you could make yours work in the same way. Its worth a try.

I would not try the newspaper/cardboard deal myself as a "shortcut" as I always think its best to dig it properly to loosen the compacted soil and amend it in the process unless maybe in a very large area like if you were doing a meadow. But even though I did this gravel planting in America and not the UK, it still seems to me that it should work for you too. Six inches of gravel? Thats deep. I wanted to share this similar situation.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Thu, Jul 17, 14 at 22:26

TexasRanger - having seen your fantastic dry gardens I think your situation is about as different as it is possible to get from Balliol's. S/he is gardening in a climate with frequent rain and lush plant growth. Gravel soon becomes covered in leaves, dirt,twigs, moss, algae etc. It's a nightmare to maintain. The 80f s/he referred to counts as a heat wave here. There've been warnings on the BBC to take extra care! Today it's 70f where I live with 89% humidity and rain storms. Perfect weather for weeds to flourish....and they do.

However, having seen Balliol's personal situation the weed barrier and gravel might keep things tidy for a couple of years longer.

floral, From what I read, the gravel was already in place. The amount of gravel removal to re-work the area as you proposed is not always doable by all people and sometimes its more sane for people to try to work with what is already in place.

I do not live in a desert climate. Rainfall ranges in my own state vary from 17" to 54" annually depending on where you live. The greatest amount recorded was 84". Summer can be hot & dry but some years are wet & humid, such as this one. Winters are variable as well, some mild, some bitter. I deal with moss, leaves and debris on gravel, its a part of my maintenance. The problem depends on the surrounding foliage, # of trees etc. My lot used to be lush and green but I chose to remove it all down to the bare ground to plant a prairie. My biggest battle is finding plants that will survive patterns of rain + humidity but also stand up well when extended drought patterns set in. The weather here is very inconsistent and challenging since it swings from periods of draught to periods of wet.

The US is a very large country and its impossible for someone living in the UK to make general statements about conditions or garden practices since it varies extremely even within individual states and from one gardener to the next. Just about every climate condition exists here somewhere. By the way, my landscape is not indicative of the urban area where I live. Today it is 86 degrees, we had 3" of rain day before yesterday and it is quite humid & it has been wet all summer. I do a massive amount of weeding because it is rather lush here as well allowing imported plants to invade & grow a bit too well which is why the grasslands are rapidly being eaten up by imported trees and other plants.

This was my conventional landscape before I cleared it. Neat well dug beds & clean crisp borders.