Starting from scratch/focal point

Hi,

I have a border in my backyard between a fence and lawn in an L shape. It's about 5-6' wide and each leg of the 'L' is about 25' long. I ripped out all plants and 4 flowering plums. Since I have the worst clay soil I made it into a 12" raised bed. The border width from the corner of the fence to the edge of the border is about 9'. I have a lot of books on garden design and plant selection but need a focal point in the corner of the 'L'. My wife is calling the proposed design an "English Garden" whatever that means but we have selected Clematis, Roses, Peony, various bulbs and perennials to give you an idea of what we are shooting for (hopefully it's not the moon). Nothing is planted yet. The 'L' is primarily facing southeast so it has full sun and large plants at the rear of the border will not shade smaller plants.

The ideas I had for a focal point in the corner were/are -

1. Dwarf Flowering Cherry - I selected this for it's spring bloom/fall colors and the fact that it's supposedly deep rooted so bulbs can be planted around it. Downside is that people say the rest of the year it looks ho-hum but what are they comparing it to? The one I'm looking at grows to 10' (Kwanzan/Gisela 5 rootstock).

2. Japanese Maple - I thought one of the smaller (6' tall) red leaved Japanese maples might provide year round interest and probably would not cast excessive shade on nearby plants. I'm not sure how far we would have to hold back on nearby plants to avoid root damage or competition. I figured I'd put in a smattering of rocks around the tree and make a rock garden out of it with phlox or similar. As with the cherry I would not plant any tall plants against the wooden fence behind the tree as I think this would just distract from the tree.

3. Nix the tree idea and go with a large urn surrounded by various sized roses and some large perrenial plants against the fence as a background.

In the end I know this is mostly a matter of taste but are any of these ideas inherently bad? When the flowering plums were in the border I planted some bulbs in fresh soil about 3' from one of the trees and when I dug up the bulbs in the fall there was an incredibly dense mat of fine net like roots near the soil surface. I guess the tree sensed the high quality soil and sent out a mass of roots. Of course this was a 20' tree.


I also wanted to ask about the soil I put in. Since the existing soil was nearly unworkable, I removed several yards and mixed in about 50% compost and manure down about 1-2'. I then realized that this would not really solve the drainage problem adequately so I decided to go with a 12" raised bed on top of that. I filled that with 6 yards of what they call planters mix from the rockery. As best I can tell it's composted leaf matter, manure and sand (?). It's fairly light, drains well and does not compact easily so I assume it's a good choice and can be planted directly. Do I need to do anything/add anything to this soil before planting ( I probably won't be planting much until fall)? Seems like at the very least I should keep it damp and watch for settling. Hopefully this is pretty much an ideal planting bed.


Thanks


This message was edited Apr 25, 2006 4:11 PM