Raised flower bed-ideas?

[Four Cofffee]

I have a cobbled court yard garden with just one raised flow bed approx 7 meters x 1 meter. Each year I spend £££ on bedding plants and each year I am disappointed at the results as half of them die despite having a sprinkler system. The annuals I plant seem to just disaapear. I have added manure and every other fertiliser known to man. I did fill it with poppies one year and that looked fab for about 3 weeks.

I am now thinking I should give up the ghost, rip everything out, oput new soil in and plant it with a single type of plant (lavendar springs to mind) and stop pretending I can garden.

Ideas?

[Simpo Two]

You have to work out why they're dying.

Overwatering
Underwatering
Insect attack (including from underneath)
Too much sun
Too much fertiliser (bedding plants come in plugs of peat which provides enough for some time)
Pecked by birds
Wrong plants for the location


What symptoms other than 'disappear'?

[Four Cofffee]

Simpo Two said:

You have to work out why they're dying.

Overwatering
Underwatering
Insect attack (including from underneath)
Too much sun
Too much fertiliser (bedding plants come in plugs of peat which provides enough for some time)
Pecked by birds
Wrong plants for the location


What symptoms other than 'disappear'?

I fear I may overcrowd them, but I have also struggled to keep the ground elder out. Some do very well, others merge into the jungle of leavese amd are never seen again.

[Simpo Two]

Four Cofffee said:

I fear I may overcrowd them, but I have also struggled to keep the ground elder out. Some do very well, others merge into the jungle of leavese amd are never seen again.

I see now what you meant by 'disappear'. Right, well there are two kinds of plant here.

1) Weeds grow better because for them it's their natural habitat - they find a spot they like and proceed to grow like hell.

2) The plants you want do not grow there naturally, they would rather be somewhere else, like Spain or South Africa, or in a different soil or a different location.

So if you allow the two kinds to mix, the weeds will win every time.

Gardens are by nature artificial - that's why they need constant maintenance to keep the balance of nature, er, wrong. In your case, it would appear to be weeding

[RichB]

Well poppies do do 'disappear' after a very short while, they only have flowers for about a week. Also ground elder is one of the most pernicious weeds known to man! (p.s. did you know you can eat it like spinach?) If that's what you've got then I would dig the whole bed over and try get as much of the root out as possible and then spray it with a total weed killer. You'll be wasting your time planting anything in the bed until you get rid of it. Once that's done then decided what sort of bed you want, what suits the age and style of your property etc. Does the plot face north, south, east or west etc. Do you want flowers or sculptural plants? So many questions it's impossible to answer in one reply but first off get rid of the ground elder!