Making the Flower Garden: Part Two
Now we crack on with defining what we need from the garden. What style of garden will to be. Oh, and not forgetting the most exciting bit... The plants!!!
Needs, styles, plants
Who needs, what?
Before you make a garden, you really must take time to think about what you actually need. Sounds obvious, I know, but ask yourself: “What are the absolute essentials that I need from this space?” These ‘needs’ are different from ‘wants’. Needs are the things that are critical. For instance, when I considered my simplest needs: I need a path to the potting shed. I need a place to sit. I need access to the lower gate.
I didn’t need a water feature, sunken seating, BBQ area and outdoor kitchen, as lovely and fun as those things are. The potting shed is my place to store tools and compost. The Terrace has an outside tap and hose, luxurious seating, BBQ, etc. So those factors are already catered for.
Next, I considered who is using the garden? Who will benefit? What will they do when they’re here? Myself, I’ll be gardening. Always gardening! Tending to the plants. Occasionally sitting and enjoying the fruits of my labours. Jacq? She’ll be sitting and enjoying it too and helping me. But Jacq likes to sit out of the way, hidden, in peace. So we need seating options. A seat in sun, one in shade, one or two tucked away. Plant-wise, we both need fragrance and Jacq needs cutting flowers for the house.
Berkeley? He will need space to lounge, handsomely, and bask in the sunshine, roasting until his silky black fur is too hot to touch, then rolling on the cool grass. Sniffing the plants and the buzzing bees. He’s adorably nosey and daft, so nothing poisonous, toxic, or spiky close to the paths.
Substance over style
There are just so many garden styles and themes: Cottage, contemporary, naturalistic, romantic, formal, minimalist or maximalist, Japanese, Mediterranean, chaos (yes, that’s a thing), woodland, dry, gravel, tropical… Then there are the hybrid styles mixing them all together. How on earth do you decide? We seem to be drowning in choice and options!
As I discussed in an earlier post (see Gardener, know thyself below), finding your style can take time. Not surprising really, when you dive into endless variations. You can read magazines and books, make a nice scrap book or flat-lay mood board, Pinterest your favourites together, save those Instagram posts… but the most powerful inspiration for me came from actually, physically, visiting other gardens. Yep, I ditched the screen, dragged my sedentary butt out the door, and went out into the wilder world of the unfamiliar.
When I visited these incredible gardens, I didn’t just casually walk through. I sat patiently, watched intently, listen attentively, smelled freely, felt deeply. Then I came back at another time of year and did it all again. I took notes and photos. Listed down what it was about these garden that made my heart sing and my mind purr.
For me, the initial planting scheme for my Flower Garden was directly inspired by the long Herbaceous Border at Waterperry, near Oxford. Towering delphiniums at the rear, hardy geraniums spilling into the path, and masses of flowers! It’s also how you approach that border…
You come through a gate in the wall, round a corner, and BAM! There it is! A massive, deep, floriferous border, stretching away, drawing your eye along with the repetition of colour, form, and height creating a wonderful rhythm that draws you along like a botanical pied-piper. More than that, the border is blousy, opulent, romantic and it just made me smile… I mean really smile!
But that was just the beginning. My garden planting has evolved over the years, as I've evolved as a gardener. Now that I’ve learned to see and hear properly, the garden tells me what is working and what is not. With more garden visits, comes more inspiration and ideas that I employ… ok, copy, but it’s all good!
There is no rule anywhere that says your garden style is set in stone or time. That would be weird. It should morph and grow alongside you. It can be developed and adapted as you gain in confidence, experience, and exposure to more and more gardens and gardeners. After all, a garden is a living thing, not a museum piece.
As I sat looking at Waterperry’s purely herbaceous border, I thought ‘if this had roses, this would be almost perfect!’ Remember the ‘needs’ I’ve outlined before? We needed fragrance! Roses tick many boxes, being cottagy, fragrant, romantic, and useful for cut flowers. They also work beautifully with herbaceous planting. It’s just a question of whether our growing conditions are suitable?
Yes, I could have used spicy phlox and hesperis, perfumed lilies or peonies. However, a chance garden visit to Seend open gardens (most notably Maud’s Seed House and Amanda’s Seed Manor Garden), opened our eyes, noses, and hearts to roses. We’ve been hooked ever since!
I was slowly gathering various threads together, but the exact ‘style’ was elusive. I pondered for a while, then concluded that it didn’t actually matter or need defining at this point. It’s certainly not worth obsessing over. You can hybridise styles if you want. There’s no need to draw hard lined delineations between garden styles and themes. Go ahead and blur those boundaries!
I like cottage gardens, rose gardens, romantic gardens, mediterranean gardens, naturalistic garden, formal gardens… so who says I cannot pick exactly what I want from all of these? Will I be reported to the Garden Style Police?
planterlust
noun:
an insatiable desire to travel to garden centres and nurseries,
finding new and ingenious excuses to buy more plants.
P.s. I've just made this up but as a real condition (obvs) it should be in the dictionary!
Pondering plants…
Thoroughly assessing the site first gave me the confidence to explore potential plants. With bags of sunshine, well-drained, alkaline soil, my mind immediately sprung upon salvias, nepeta, perovskia, lavender, euphorbia, maybe agapanthus and phlomis… grasses… cypress trees? But a chance online encounter also threw Hydrangea paniculata into the mix! Hmmm, not quite sure, but intriguing!
Pondering my options, I also needed to consider the ‘plant needs’ of a fourth party… The wildlife? Pollinators need need nectar and pollen as readily available as possible. What about the birds? If I want to attract birds, they’ll need seeds and berries, and prey to feed on. They’ll need water, cover, nesting materials, etc.
And what about those roses?! Hmmm, that’s decidedly iffy. Do a simple search and you’ll find the ideal conditions read something like: “A well-drained, loamy soil that is rich in organic matter, providing good drainage while still retaining moisture, ideally with a slightly acidic to neutral pH level”. Hmmm, I have none of that… apart from the drainage. Will that stop me? Will it heck!
Plant encyclopaedias and plant labels speak in ‘ideals’ which are often vague or lost in translation in the living world. If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn in all my time as a globe-trotting wildlife photographer and humble gardener, it is this: Nature doesn’t read books, or blogs, or watch YouTube. So be prepared to be surprised.
That’s why I prefer plant books written by actual practicing gardeners, who can translate how these plants really grow and cope with various condition. My starting point is always Beth Chatto’s mantra “Right plant. Right place”. But with the living experience my garden has provided, my philosophy has evolved and I will now try ‘borderline’ plants, with the clear understanding that:
“Thrivers are for keeping. Failures are for shredding!”
I am surprisingly remorseless and not even remotely sentimental when it comes to this. Every plant has one year to establish and thrive. If I sense that I’ve planted in the wrong position, it’ll be moved. Beyond that, they’re unceremoniously ripped out, shredded, and composted. This isn’t a horticultural hospice. I won’t spend my time nursing beleaguered plants. I want a strong, healthy, vigorous garden, full of plants that love the conditions and stand on their own.
If you want a healthy vigorous garden that is ‘lower’ in maintenance, choose your plants to to suit your conditions. You want plants that thrive, not just survive! Avoid forcing plants to grow with fertilisers and soil amendments, like trying to change soil pH. If you have a stony garden with shallow soil, you’ll find a vast range of plants to suit. It may just take a little more effort in finding them.
What plants where?
Next up, the plant selection. Fantastic!! Ah, but good plants are rarely cheap. Most garden centres around here sell 2ltr pot-sized plants at around £10-£15. I would be planting well over 100m² or 1,100ft². That’s a lot of plants! I simply did not have the budget for that kind of spend. It would have to be thrifty and perhaps a little resourceful.
After days of laboriously wading through my plant books and online references, trawling through past episodes of Gardeners’ World, I gradually narrowed down the plant selections. I whittled down vast lists on my Reminders app (great for lists!) that I could refer to while perusing the tables at garden centres and nurseries.
The RHS Plant Finder is very useful, but fair warning, even though you can filter plants by light and soil type, ideally you need to double-check with ‘real life’ nursery growers and gardens. (If there’s an open garden near me, I’ll visit and make a note of what is growing well and ask the gardener their thoughts)
The vast majority of my selections were herbaceous perennials, a few potential shrubs, climbers for that joyless fence, plus a couple of grasses to add movement and rhythm. I then scoured my own gardens, earmarking (cannibalising) those plants that were not happy in their current situation, especially those that were needing more light. I also looked for those plants that were due for dividing, or had simply outgrown their pots on the Terrace.
Then I began propagating. I made cuttings of hydrangeas and shrub roses. By the time I was laying out plants, I had 19 free shrubs including 10 roses. I sowed trays and trays of seed. For the cost of a couple bags of compost and a few packets of seed, I raised well over 200 herbaceous perennials and grasses. Then there were the bulbs! Relatively cheap and full of early spring cheer! They’re also very useful for filling the gaps between all those small plants.
As I discussed my garden plans on Instagram, Alex at Living Creations contacted me and asked whether I would be interested in trialing their new range of Hydrangea paniculata in my new garden. They were looking for trial gardens around Europe to test them in varying situations. I said yes, and 100 young hydrangeas arrived in a crate!
Then there’s the invaluable ‘T.L.C.’ corner of the garden centres and nurseries. The sad, miserable, pitiful, pot-bound, dried out, neglected plants, some on their last legs. Bless them! I took pity and took them home. Yes, I know I said I’m not running a horticultural hospice, but… Wow! Did I find some bargains, or what?!
If you’re willing to look with an open mind, happy to take a punt, buy out of season, forget trends and fashions, but can look ahead and imagine what could be, these SALE corners are a treasure trove. With judicious pruning, a little feeding, repotting, the vast majority surged back into vigorous growth.
For the rest, I visited the nurseries. The actual growers that sold their own plants as 9cm pot ‘plugs’ aka pot liners. To create more impact, I would buy 24 of the same plants and grow 6x4 clumps. And, no, you don’t have to plant in ‘odd numbers’ when you’re creating clumps and drifts… or ever. That’s just silly and arbitrary. Who makes these rules?!
The original plant list
As planting time drew near, I had amassed hundreds of plants, not including all the bulbs. Below, you can see the plants I started with. Trees and shrubs for height and structure. A soft flowing middle story of herbaceous perennials and grasses. Then a ground-hugging lower story of perennial ground cover and bulbs:
Trees, Shrubs, Climbers:
Prunus (Ornamental cherry), Betula utilis jacquemontii, Pyrus pendula, Shrub Roses**, Hydrangea paniculata***, Viburnum burkwoodii, Rosa ‘Emily Bronte’**, Rosa ‘Mill on the Floss’**, Clematis* (various cultivars picked up in a cheap job lot), Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii.
Herbaceous:
Delphinium elatum ‘Faust’*, Verbena bonariensis*, Valeriana officinalis**, Eupatorium purpureum**, Salvia ‘Amistad’, Galega officinalis**, Echinops ritro**, Alchemilla mollis, Digitalis** (Foxgloves), Echinacea purpurea**, Gaura lindheimeri**, Linaria purpurea**, Lupins ‘Band of Noble Series’*, Lupins ‘West Country Lupins’, Stipa tenuissima**, Nepeta ‘Walkers Low’, Perovskia ‘Blue Spires’, Salvia ‘Caradonna’,
Bulbs
Tulips, Narcissus, Muscari, Allium, Camassia.
* TLC Corner | ** From seed or cutting | *** Gifted
Coming up…
It’s time to finally put pencil to paper, gather a ready supply of erasers, rummage around for a sharpener, and leave the kettle on the Aga for copious amounts of tea! This is going to be thirsty work! The design wasn’t forthcoming, but I got there in the end!