Our part being Oxfordshire and parts of Bucks and Berks (see map). What plants will and won’t be happy here? 

As with so many straight questions, the answer is, you guessed, it depends. But generally speaking it’s not necessarily always complicated. 

It can be though. One garden in Nettlebed where we worked contains deep pits, where in times past, clay was dug for the local pottery. In this part of the garden, the soil is acid, but take a step or two away from the pits and there is an abrupt change to an alkaline soil.  

In the garden of a well-known author, on top of the Chilterns, grows a superb collection of azaleas, camellias, eucryphias and other acid-loving (chalk-hating) plants. The garden lies within the acid cap which spreads irregularly over the hills. 

So some plants have marked preferences for acid or alkaline soils, but there is a huge range that will thrive where the soil is slightly acid or slightly alkaline to neutral. One needs to know the soil type when preparing a planting plan. One can test for this with an inexpensive pH kit from a garden centre, but this is a bit tedious as samples have to be taken from all around the garden. Results can mislead, because many gardens have imported soils overlaid on the original soil. A good guide is to look for local indicator plants, such as the presence or absence of acid-lovers such as rhodondrons and azaleas and bracken. Some native and crop plants are also good indicators. 

The plants in our monthly gallery ‘Name this plant’ are mostly happy in neutral to alkaline soils, because they seem to be more common in our gardens. 

The gardener must also consider other characteristics of the site. Is it exposed and windy, or sheltered? Which way does it face and how much sun will each part receive? Is it wet or dry and when? Does it drain well?  

Many more exotic plants, like cannas, bananas and palms suffer from shredded leaves on windy sites. There is a limited, but good repertoire of plants that are happy in shade, including box, holly, laurel, euonymus and other shrubs and herbaceous perennials such as hostas, heucheras and Japanese anemones, to name just a few. (And most ferns.) 

Many garden plants succumb to the combination of cold and wet, especially when prolonged in winter. Many Mediterranean herbs and the fashionable plants from South Africa hate these conditions and turn up their toes. Alpines need shelter from winter rain as well as fast drainage at their roots. Many of the South Africans not only need to drain freely in winter, but must not dry out during their growth in the summer. 

For the most part therefore, our gallery features plants that are good all-rounders that have proved their survival skills in our part of the world.