The aim of Wild Thomas Gardens is to create gardens that are beautiful, well balanced, and healthy.
By knowing the individual needs of every plant, we can build beautiful gardens, such as these Teddington and Ealing projects.
If you want to create your perfect garden, it's important you get your gardening basics right.
Want to know how? Then let's take a look.
Growing Plants for your Garden
We look at the specific site of your garden and assess its character. This includes looking at the aspect, the soil type, the surrounding area, and the surrounding buildings, plants and trees.
It’s very important to match plants to the site rather than force a plant to grow in conditions it’s not suited to.
For example, if there is a lot of shade in your garden, the cost and effort needed to maintain a traditional lawn is considerable and the results may never look very good!
So instead of fighting the elements, change the approach and look at the huge amount of beautiful plants that thrive in shady conditions.
Plants always need water, air, light, and nutrients from the soil, but each plant needs each of those elements in different quantities.
Because of this, it’s vital to group plants together based on similar needs, rather than arranging them to complement each other and the garden space.
The joy and challenge of gardening is to build healthy plant communities.
Plants that sit well together, grow and flower in complementary ways, and therefore need far less maintenance and artificial help.
Of course, sometimes things can go wrong, and just as important as knowing how to grow happy plants, is knowing how to spot the unhappy ones.
How to know when your plants are in trouble.
There are lots of different signs that your plant may not be happy. Yellowing leaves, drooping foliage, slow or no growth, limbs or stems dying, the list goes on.
There are also lots of causes for the plant to not be healthy, so it’s important to assess the site, and consider what may have changed or when the problems started.
It might be that the plant is in the wrong place, maybe it's planted next to another bigger plant whose root system is more vigorous than its neighbour, the soil type may be wrong, it could be not enough water, or too much…
Sometimes it can take a while to get to the bottom of the reason but more often than not we can solve the problem and get the plant growing happily again.
Of course, if you know the best ways to care for your plants, you should be able to avoid these issues.
While knowing the basics is essential, it also helps to know some technical tips for plant growth.
How to care for your plants: The technical side.
The key to caring for your plants is to get to know what they are.
Where in the world are they from?
What conditions did they evolve in?
When is their dormant period?
When do they flower?
Are they Herbaceous, which means they don’t have woody stems, or are they a woody-stemmed shrub?
There is no general rule for all plants.
and Part of the joy of gardening is getting to know the plants in your garden, then caring for them in the appropriate ways.
Websites like the RHS have great info on how to care for a huge variety of plants, so if you need advice on a particular plant in your garden, this is a great place to start.
Want to Grow Plants in Your Garden?
If you would like to enjoy a beautiful garden brimming with colourful, healthy plants, then maybe we could help you.
We are gardeners based in Teddington, so if you live here, or the surrounding areas, we'd love to get to know you and your garden.
For advice, or a quote on your project, get in touch today.
Happy gardening! Jake and Karen.