Colour coded plants to help new gardeners
There is no escaping the fact that some plants and shrubs are easier to grow than others, and it is good to know which are easy to grow, especially when you are a new gardener. Easy to grow also means low maintenance.
Whilst the choice of of plants a personal, and not everyone wants or can spend hours working in the garden. A border may look lovely on television, or in a magazine, but if it is full of Delphiniums, Sweet Peas, Roses, Clematis and Wisteria, it will be very demanding.
Shrubs and plants shown on the website are colour coded to show whether they are easy or difficult to grow, time-consuming or a grow anywhere in any conditions type of plant.
Picking which shrubs, plants and vegetables to grow is not always easy, especially for new gardeners. To help choose plants are colour coded.
Red Wheelbarrow
Red Wheelbarrow shows that a plant or shrub is difficult to grow, or requires specialised conditions or is time-consuming.
For example, Roses, Sweet Peas and Wisteria are all red wheelbarrow plants because they have particular requirements, need careful pruning or just a lot of attention.
Amber Wheelbarrow
Amber wheelbarrow means a plant or shrub middle of the road. It will require some time and maintenance, and attention during the growing season, but is manageable and not too time-consuming. Examples would be say, plants which need some staking, or feeding, but not much other attention.
Green Wheelbarrow
Green Wheelbarrow means the plant or shrub is easy to grow and this represents most of the plants and shrubs on the website.
These are plants and shrubs which are tolerant of most conditions, or require very little attention once planted and are easy to grow.
Easy to grow: a combination of Geranium and Achilles mollis
This combination is easy to grow, will tolerate most growing conditions, and requires little or no attention.
Clematis fargesioides and Lonicera, common name Honeysuckle
This is a group 2 Clematis requiring annual pruning to stay in shape and flower, combined with Honeysuckle, which is a tad fussy about its growing condition. This represents a more difficult combination to grow.