Plants for a London Garden with a north facing wall.

[Eric Hardy]

We visited a friend earlier on in the week who has a house in Twickenham. She has a small garden about 18 ft wide and 33 ft deep. The house, which is tall, is on the east side. The remaining sides have a boundary walls about 5 feet high. She was asking what she should plant to grow up the north facing wall in particular and I thought it might be a good idea to pick the brains in the forum  . Any ideas please?

I also thought I would ask if anyone could identify this tree which grows near the house at the north-east part of the garden. It is about 12 to 14 ft high and I guess about 10 ft spread. It is fairly light looking, not very dense that is. I took a sprig but unfortunately it has been drying out for 5 days before I thought of photographing it. Being interested we asked our friend what it was and she thought the name started with "pitta" like pitta bread but I think it is more likely to be "pitto" and wondered about pittosporum. Looking it up I found a bewildering number of them and I wondered whether anyone could identify it more precisely? I just put the leaves on the floor on a piece of paper a few minutes ago and used flash.



Eric H

[ideasguy]

Perhaps PITTOSPORUM tenuifolium
Take your pick on this site Eric:
http://www.burncoose.co.uk/site/offer.cfm?offer=1185

I'd recommend a Clematis 'Nelly Moser' for that North facing wall.
Thats one plant (so Ive read) will hold its colours longer without fading when not facing direct sunlight.

Heres some of my favourites which may work in that shady spot:
Bergenia
Brunnera 'Hadspen Cream'
Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'   
Fuchsia 'Genii' (this one almost glows in the dark!)
Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum'  (also almost glows in the dark!)
Camellia (a couple in shade in my garden)

Primula vulgaris, Primula denticulata etc
Ajuga reptans 'Atropurpurea'

Then the spring beauties Daffodils, Crocus, Snowdrops

Hydrangea may do OK there, Eric. I read they can take shade so I planted a few under trees in my garden.
They do get a bit "leggy" in shade (as most plants do when they hunt for sunlight), but I have a deep blue variety and it did very well.

[Eric Hardy]

Thank you George. I googled PITTOSPORUM tenuifolium and there was one there which looked very like the one in question. I read that it is supposed to grow to 2 metres tall and I am sure the one at our friend's is almost double that. The leaves and wood looked very similar though. There seem to be an awful lot of different pittosporums 

Thanks for all the plant suggestions too. We have a lovely fuschia which is a pale pink and grows where it hardly ever gets sunlight. It is still covered in bloom. We also have one near our summer house which looks almost like the ones that grow wild in Ireland, but with larger blooms. We cut it down every year to about 9 inches high and every year it comes back invigerated and grows into a large bush, covered in blooms. We have had it for years. That is still in full bloom too.

Eric H