Affordable Gardening Services in Southend

Borders are the only part of a garden that is never actually finished. A lawn is either cut or it is not, a hedge is either in shape or out of it, but a mixed border is a slow negotiation between several dozen plants of different vigour, all of them trying to take each other's space. Gardens in this pocket of SE6 tend to have generous borders along both boundaries and a bed under the rear windows, planted at some point by somebody who knew what they were doing, and gradually reduced by time to whichever three species pushed hardest.

Division keeps a clump alive

Most herbaceous perennials die in the middle and spread outwards, so a clump that flowered well for four years and now has a bald centre is not tired, it is overdue. Lifting it, discarding the exhausted middle and replanting the vigorous outer sections returns it to full performance. Spring is the safer season for the majority, particularly on cold heavy ground where an autumn division sits wet all winter, though bearded iris is lifted after flowering in midsummer and peonies would rather be left alone altogether than moved on a whim.

Support goes in before it is needed

Staking a collapsed delphinium in July is a rescue operation that always shows. Support is put in place in April and May while growth is still short, so stems come up through it and hide it entirely by flowering time. Hazel or birch pushed in and bent over gives a springy natural cage; link stakes and rings suit heavier clumps. The height is judged at around half to two thirds of the plant's final height. Every year somebody stakes to full height in spring and spends the summer looking at a border full of canes.

Deadheading and what it actually achieves

Removing spent flowers is not tidiness for its own sake. A plant that sets seed has completed its purpose and slows or stops flowering, so cutting the faded heads off redirects energy into more bloom, which is why repeat-flowering roses, dahlias and hardy geraniums respond so dramatically. The cut goes back to a leaf joint or a bud rather than leaving a bare stub. Some plants are deliberately left alone: anything grown for autumn seed heads, anything that self-sows helpfully, and shrubs whose flowers become the hips or berries wanted later.

Dense planting against the house wall

A border running tight against the building is a common design and a mixed blessing. Foliage packed against brickwork holds damp at the base of the wall, hides the airbricks that ventilate a suspended floor, and provides covered access from the garden to every gap in the fabric. Keeping a hand's width of clear ground along the wall, exposing airbricks and lifting the skirt of any shrub growing against it removes the run without losing the planting. Where something has already found its way inside, that becomes a matter for our local team.

Edges, path margins and the surface beneath

The line where a border meets paving does more for the look of a garden than anything growing in it. A cut edge against grass, or a clean joint against a flag, reads as care even when the planting is scruffy. Overhanging plants drip onto that joint all summer, and the paving directly beneath a dense border goes green long before the open part of a terrace does. Recovering a path that has darkened along its border edge is mechanical work, carried out under our local team.

Plants at a change of address

People moving house reasonably want to take favourite plants with them, and it can be done if it is planned. Shrubs are lifted in the dormant season with as much root as can be carried, potted and kept watered; herbaceous clumps travel best divided. Anything named in the sale particulars stays. Where a lift is happening alongside a full household move, coordinating the two, as with the removals team in Catford, saves a second visit. Ongoing care once the border is planted is described at our garden maintenance team, and a comparable round covers gardening prices in Catford.