planting your garden Part 1

With all your plants sourced, gather them in a nearby area such as your patio - identifying each specimen from its label. Arrange them as per your sketch on the bed itself, which is designed to take into account future growth rates, heights, spreads and contrasting colours and foliage textures.

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be conservative with the footprints you leave on soil

A good tip to remember when standing on your freshly dug border is to be conservative with the number of footprints you leave on the soil. When your foot crushes the soil, you are destroying the soils structure - which is not giving the plants their best start.

With the plants now positioned on the bed, stand back and check the positions against the plan. If you're happy then you can start...

dig a hole in the bed

Using a small spade, dig a hole in the bed (cutting a hole in the membrane first if you are using one) in the required position for your first plant, removing enough earth to enable you to place the pot in the hole, so the soil level in the pot matches the soil level in the bed.

remove dead flower heads, leaves, stalks, moss or weeds

It's worth smartening up the plant before it’s planted. Remove dead flower heads, leaves and stalks or moss and weeds growing in the pot - so you don't import weeds into your new border.

plant labels

You should also remove any plant labels from the pots - with your sketch identifying your specimens, you now have no need for unsightly plastic labels!

With the plant smartened up, give the pot a few taps on its side and gently slide the root ball from the pot. At this point, check the moisture level of the soil surrounding the roots in this pot.

If the compost is very dry, and crumbles away from the roots as you remove the pot - then it would be wise to soak this plant in a bucket of water for at least 10 minutes.

tease out some of the roots at the side of the root ball

If the compost is moist enough already, then gently tease out some of the roots at the side of the root ball, in order to give these roots a head start when they try to establish in your bed.

Be careful doing this, as breaking the roots at this point will not help.

dense roots in the pot?

Opening the roots is important on plants showing signs of being 'pot-bound'. These will have very dense roots in the pot, along with very little soil, with the roots growing in circles around the pot.

specimens, shrubs or trees use your foot to firm roots

Now place the plant in its hole, ensuring the soil levels match up. Back fill the sides with some of the soil removed when digging it. Firm the plant with your hands but don't over do this damaging the plant. Larger specimens, shrub or trees use the heel of your foot to firm in the root ball.

Don't be tempted to bury the plant under too much earth. Ideally the soil level from the pot may have a very thin layer of bed soil over it - but no more, the plants stem does not want to be buried as well.

lightly forking...

When you've finished planting, tidy the bed by lightly forking over the surface especially over footprints to restore the soil structure. If using decorative gravel or slate as a mulch, now add this around the plants.

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