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Garden design & redesign
Plants and planting schemes
Flowers, fruits & leaves again
Flowers
Flowers are an essential part of any garden but, as demonstrated in the previous article, they are not the mainstay of a good planting scheme.
Most plants flower for only a short period of time, so choose carefully and always consider what other interesting features they may have like foliage, scent, fruit and even bare stems in winter, as all these aspects will enhance your scheme and give it an overall balance.
Iris germanica (left), for instance, has rich blue-purple falls (the outer petals) with a white beard and light purple standards (the upright inner petals) and is sweetly scented. When I suggested we plant irises in a client’s garden she pulled a face and announced her dislike of this idea. Her reason? Because the iris flowers for such a short time. While this is true, what she failed to appreciate was the iris' lovely, evergreen foliage that continues to give pleasure long after the flowers have faded.
I put this oversight down to inexperience and with luck, in time she will come to recognise that plants can give pleasure not just from their flowers. I often quote Christopher Lloyd from his book Foliage Plants in which he says: “For it is an indisputable fact that appreciation of foliage comes at a later stage in our education, if it comes at all”.
Successional planting is a way of making the most out of the same piece of ground. Yellow loostrife planted alongside the flag iris happily borrows the foliage of the iris to create a group that is in complete contrast to the weeks before when the purple iris took centre stage. Also, in the intervening weeks since the fading of the iris and the blooming of the loostrife, clumps of Hosta ‘Francee’ have joined the throng, proving how important it is to include foliage among your flowers to complete the overall balance of the picture. After the flowers of the loostrife have faded the hosta will produce its pale lilac flowers and after that kaffir lilies - Schizostylis coccinea - will bloom to brighten up the group in late summer, still using the leaves of the iris as a foil. The foliage of the iris will be evident in this patch of ground long after the aforementioned plants have died down - so not so short-lived after all!
By using the same piece of ground for different effects throughout the year, you can create interest with other flowering plants that may not have any other special features. Clematis ‘Etoile Violette’, for example, is a gorgeous climber with an abundance of deep purple flowers in summer. To help fill the gap it leaves behind in winter, I have planted evergreen Hedera helix ‘Buttercup’ alongside, which has, as its name suggests, small, acid yellow leaves that contrast so well with the deep purple flowers of the clematis. By planting them side by side, once the clematis has died down, there is still interest throughout winter offered by the evergreen ivy. And right, in the same garden, the clematis is also joined by Jasminum officinale ‘Inverleith’.
As well as proffering flowers, climbers also serve a useful purpose in using the vertical space - especially useful if you have a small garden. They can also hide an unsightly view and are good candidates for growing through trees. Here Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ (left) can be seen doing a splendid job of clambering over a tall fence and into an old apple tree beyond.
If growing this rose for its flowers you won’t be disappointed, but you should know that it is not a repeat flowerer, so while its flower show is spectacular, it will be over in two to three weeks. However, it does have two other strings to its bow - it has a wonderful perfume and in autumn it is covered in clusters of small, deep red hips that last throughout the winter. Here then is a rose that will work hard for you and will give you a huge amount of pleasure.
When designing a garden, I always leave plenty of room for agapanthus, which I like to repeat throughout my schemes. Here is Agapanthus praecox, which forms a dense clump of evergreen, strappy leaves, which helps create a permanent structure in the garden. Behind the agapanthus is the gorgeous grey-green evergreen foliage of Melianthus major, and a pot of Galtonia candicans can be seen nestling in between the agapanthus. The beautiful hydrangea at the front is Hydrangea involucrata ‘Hortensis’, which has intense wine-red double flowers.
When planting do make sure you have researched your plant material and have understood its growth pattern - height and spread and speed of growth. Right is Verbascum bomybciferum in summer where it has attained a height of 2m (6.5ft) or more. It’s hard to believe that the soft, ground-hugging, rosette of velvety foliage, seen in Part Three Planting Principles, could grow to such monster proportions.
Other favourite flowers that have attractive foliage are the crocosmias. Left is the common orange crocosmia, which has lovely grass-like foliage that sways in the slightest breeze. Its orange flowers are dotted over the plant, giving it a ‘see-through’ quality - an ideal candidate for growing in among grasses, where it will illuminate the clump in a magical way.
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ is a much taller cultivar with deep red flowers and wonderful sword-like, pleated foliage.
Still on the orange theme, Californian poppies have very attractive, ferny foliage that is a greyish-green and, although annuals, they will seed around your garden and become a permanent fixture if you let them.
How about adding a tree for height and for its foliage, like Catalpa bignonioides ‘Aurea’ commonly called the Indian bean tree - that’s Red Indian as apparently they used to crush the black bean pods and smoke them in their pipes.
This tree was a favourite with the Victorians who advocated cutting it hard back each spring to keep it as a low-growing shrub in the mixed border. This annual cut back results in much larger foliage. This particular specimen has been let to grow as a tree but it still has spectacularly large leaves even though it is not cut down each year.
Globe artichokes (left) too make a handsome addition to any border with their fantastic foliage and edible flowers, if you can bear to cut them off when they look so fantastic left on the plant. Apparently, if grown as a vegetable, leaving the flowers on does weaken the plant, but not so much as I have noticed in my own garden, where they never get eaten.
If you are looking for a tree that has both colour and edible fruit, the obvious choice is to go for a crab apple.
Nothing wrong with that but by way of a change, why not try the strawberry tree - Arbutus unedo (right). Unlike the crabs, this one is evergreen and, because the flowers take one whole year to ripen into fruits - which look like round strawberries, both flowers (next year’s fruit) and fruits (last year’s flowers) appear at the same time. The fruits are edible but the taste is nothing to write home about; however, they look fantastic in the salad bowl or on top of ice cream. It doesn’t mind being in the shade either so a good one for a tricky spot.
Another interesting fruiting tree for a small garden is the dogwood Cornus kousa var. chinensis. Apparently this tree was introduced to the United States by Ernest H Wilson in 1907. He described it as having sweet fruit but apparently, he would say that about lead shot! This makes me think that, like the strawberry tree, the fruits look better than they taste.
Even Fatsia japonica, grown for its exotic-looking evergreen foliage, has flowers, which are very attractive in winter at a time when there is little else flowering in the garden.
Next article: Drawing a planting plan