DESIGN ELEMENTS When the going gets tough Many gardeners have a section of their garden that might often see plant failures year after year. They’ve tried all sorts of plants that claim to be tough as old boots, but still they fail. Glenice Buck has dealt with one such problem garden bed where she lives and this week starts a series of 3, on how she went about solving the problem.   Glenice explains that the bed is on a slope (see photo below) so the water would just hit the soil and run down the hill. This garden bed also gets all day sun on heavy clay soil. Access to water is limited to hand watering. Not ideal considering the busy schedule that Glenice's parents have. On top of the lack of shade and being baked by hot afternoon summer sun, the soil had been previously used as bit of a driveway and had been compacted by heavy machinery when the house was being build. Glenice said in her post that    "This section of garden bed in the rear garden at #thegardenattheberkshires has been the toughest bed I have ever dealt with. Five years on with a lot of work and improvements it is finally starting to fill in and look good. It has been hard to get anything to grow in this area. The reasons for it being a difficult spot to deal with is   Tough garden bed at the Berkshires photo Glenice Buck Have a listen to the podcast I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.