I was watching closely this year as the buds on the tree peonies started to swell. My plants needed to be moved from the stock-bed to their final positions in the new garden and it was critical that the timing was right. They have sentimental value, for I collected the originals as seedlings that were springing up under their parents at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. I was 19 and working under Ron McBeath, a great adventurer and plant collector in his own right and a man who understood that, if you fell for a plant, it was an all-consuming thing. It was tacitly acknowledged that a certain amount of ‘pockle’ (the term for spare plants for the taking) was tolerated. In fact, I had an orange crate strapped to the back of my bike for such booty. The seedlings were our morning’s weeding so a clutch made their way back to my digs, and then to my parents’ garden, before I was able to take them on to my garden in Peckham a good fifteen years later.
From there they came here as a new generation of seedlings which I’d been growing on just in case. Although they take up to five or six years to flower, growing from seed is easy enough if you sow it fresh as soon as it drops. Germination happens six weeks or so afterwards, but only underground. The first leaves don’t show themselves above ground until the following spring. I left them in the cold frame for a couple of years, as the young roots resent disturbance, and they were lined out here in the stock beds and flowered a couple of years after we moved in. Each plant has subtle differences – the joy of raising from seed – but all are as captivating as the original I now saw thirty-four years ago.
Paeonia delavayi and Smyrnium perfoliatum
I have half a dozen Paeonia delavayi in their new positions, stepped through the entrance to the garden from the house to form a gateway of sorts. Although I wasn’t ready to move the plants until the end of winter, they were dug carefully with a decent root-ball to minimise disturbance. The move happened as soon as I saw the buds swelling, so that they would have the energy of growth on their side and not sit and sulk in wet soil.
Read up about moving peonies and most literature says they are hypersensitive and prone to failure and, if you do succeed, they take a long time to establish. It is also recommended to move them in the autumn, so that the early growth is supported by roots which have been active the winter long and can support this early flush of activity. However, my plants have proven all of the above to be rules worth bending.
Growth is famously early, fat buds breaking ahead of almost everything else and making them vulnerable, you might think, to the cruelty of March and April weather. Again, according to the books, you are supposed to plant tree peonies in positions where the early growth isn’t caught by morning sunshine which, in combination with a freeze, is lethal. A slow thaw is better but, miraculously, our plants were all untouched by a vicious frost last week that toasted the Katsura down by the stream and wilted the early growth on the campion in the hedgerow, so I believe them to be tougher than the hybrid Moutan peonies, their more exotic cousins.
Growing in pine clearings in Yunnan and Eastern Asia, Paeonia delavayi is more adaptable than you might first imagine. Edge of woodland conditions suit it best, but here, on our retentive soil, it has been happy out in the open with all-day sun and freely moving air on the slopes to confound best-practice positioning. I do like contradictions and the ever-evolving learning curve when you get to know your plants and their limits.
Standing in glorious isolation, and ahead of the planting which will join them in this part of the garden in the autumn, I am free to admire their form and am imagining their companions; the things that will complement their moody atmosphere and rich colouring when it comes to planting time. Tall, rangy stems, that will eventually reach six foot or so and as much across as they mature, give way to elegantly furling growth at the tips. The flowers, of darkest blood-red and with stiff, waxy petals, appear before the leaves are fully expanded, hanging at a tilt to hide the boss of red-flushed stamens which age to gold. The beautifully dissected foliage is coppery-bronze at this stage with a damson-grey bloom that fades to a matt neutral green as it fills out.
Paeonia potaninii and Smyrnium perfoliatum
Paeonia potaninii, which hails from Western China and Tibet and is thought by some to be a subspecies of P. delavayi, is similar in its growth, but differs in its gently suckering habit. My original seedling, still growing in the dappled shade of my parents’ orchard, is now several feet across. It looks happy in the clearing and is competitive enough to deal with the infestation of ground elder and ferns that have made the orchard their territory.
Here conditions couldn’t be more different, but my plants show their adaptability by flowering more profusely and being less lush in leaf out in the open. The flowers are the most extraordinary confection of apricot overlaid with burnt sugar, like shot silk surrounding decorative saffron stamens. The flowers hang heavy amongst the new leaves and cast a strong perfume as you pass on the path. The distinctive scent has something of the citrus spice of witch hazel, but overlaid with an exotic, grassy sweetness. Cut, in a vase, their perfume is more easily savoured.
We have them here with the acid-yellow Smyrnium perfoliatum, which lifts the subtlety of the colour and throws it into relief. I’ll need to do this in the garden too and plan to have the darkness of P. delavayi amongst Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Raven’s Wing’, with P. potaninii floating above the ruby-red droplets of Dicentra formosa ‘Bacchanal’.
Though the brilliance of the Smyrnium is perfectly pitched with these rich, warm colours, I take heed from Beth Chatto’s words when I told her it hadn’t yet taken off in my garden in Peckham. ‘Just you wait !’, she said. And I, not wanting to break all the rules, have remembered her advice and have only set it free on the rough ground behind the barns with the comfrey.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Sharp winds have whipped the blossom and pushed and pulled the tender young growth on the epimediums. So often is the way of early April. The cruellest month perhaps but, in its awakening flora, the most exquisite.
Some of my favourite plants are having their moment now. Woodlanders mostly, making the best of bright spring light flooding to the floor ahead of the canopy closing over. The plants that seize this window are ephemeral by nature and you have to steel yourself for not wishing that time would slow. Picking a posy helps to make a close observation of these long-awaited treasures.
Our garden is young and I have just a few square metres of shelter. The pockets close to the studio have to suffice until we gain the protection of new trees and a sliver of shade in the lea of the house is where I keep the Asian epimediums. I have a collection of twenty or so plants, grown against the odds and carefully looked after in pots. I am sure they would perish out in the open, for they are altogether more delicate than their European counterparts, needing a stiller atmosphere and more reliable moisture at the root in the summer.
My efforts to keep them in good condition – namely shelter from wind and trays in the summer to keep the pots moist when I am not here to water – is all the attention they get. Other than picking over the dead foliage in the spring and a monthly liquid feed in summer, they reward me handsomely for this light intervention. Epimedium leptorrhizum ‘Mariko’ was the first to flower. I do not know this plant well yet, but it has flourished for me in the couple of years I have been growing it, forming a neat, low mound of leaf and throwing out charteuse young foliage with delicate red marbling. The large, dancing flowers, held out sideways on wiry stems, are a strong, rose pink with white inner spurs.
Epimedium leptorrhizum ‘Mariko’
Epimedium leptorrhizum ‘Mariko’ foliage
Epimedium fargesii ‘Pink Constellation’ is much better known to me and the spray in this posy is from the plant I brought with me from my Peckham garden. It is particular in its long, serrated, shield-shaped foliage, which is sharp on the eye yet not to the touch. Three leaflets to a stem and burnished copper when they emerge, they darken to a shiny, holly-green for summer. The flowers, of palest pink, are well named and staccato in appearance, arranged candelabra-like on long, wire-thin stems. They sport dark purple inner spurs and the creamy beak of stamens terminates in unexpected turquoise pollen.
Epimedium fargesii ‘Pink Constellation’
Epimedium fargesii ‘Pink Constellation’ flower detail
Epimedium fargesii ‘Pink Constellation’ foliage
The Vinca major var. oxyloba is altogether more robust and the plant from which these flowers are taken is one I have introduced into the hedgerow alongside the garden. The original came from The Garden Museum and, having seen it take a hold there, the hedge seems like the best place for it. Beth Chatto’s catalogue lists it as having an ‘indefinite spread’ and sure enough it has jumped and moved already, rooting wherever it touches down. Certainly not one for introducing into the garden. A gate to either end of the hedge, a verge and mown path to either side, will kerb its domain, if it ever gets that far. I prefer it to straight Vinca major for it’s finely-rayed, starry flowers, which are an intense inky purple that vibrates in shade. It has been in flower now since late December.
Vinca major var. oxyloba and Corydalis temulifolia ‘Chocolate Stars’
The name of Corydalis temulifolia ‘Chocolate Stars’ refers to the colour of the foliage, which is perhaps its greatest asset, springing to life ahead of everything else with a lushness that is out of kilter with the season. I welcome its luxuriance and have it with the liquorice-leaved Ranunculus ficaria ‘Brazen Hussy’ and my best yellow hellebore, for which it was a good foil early on. I used it at the Chelsea Flower Show a couple of years ago with Vinca major var. oxyloba, amongst cut-leaved brambles on a shady rock bank of Chatsworth gritstone. The pale lilac flowers were nearing the end of the season and it had lost its April vitality which, right now, makes you stop and draw breath.
Fritillaria meleagris
This is the second year the snakeshead fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) have flowered for us on the banks behind the house. They will not show evidence of seeding for a few years yet but, in the meantime, I will add to the colony to increase its domain in the short turf beneath the crabapples. They are one of my favourite spring flowers, the chequering of the petals more marked on the purple forms, less so but in evidence, green on white, with the albas. They have a medieval quality to them that must have inspired textiles and paintings. And when the wind blows, despite their apparent delicacy, they are oblivious.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Yellow breaks with winter. Soft catkins streaming in the hazel. Brightly gold and blinking celandines studding the sunny banks. They are shiny and light reflecting and open with spring sunshine. As strong as any colour we have seen for weeks and welcome for it.
There is more to come, and in rapid succession, now that spring is with us. The first primroses in the hollows and dandelions pressed tight in grass that is rapidly flushing. Daffodils in their hosts, pumping up the volume and forsythia, of course, at which point I begin to question the colour, for yellow has to be handled carefully.
Lesser Celandine – Ranunculus ficaria
In all my years of designing it is always yellow that clients most often have difficulty with. ‘I really don’t like it’. ‘I don’t want to see it in the garden’. ‘Only in very small amounts’. Strong language which points to the fact that it prompts a reaction. Colour theory suggests the yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. The stimulus being emotional and one that is optimistic, making it the strongest colour psychologically. Yellow is said to be a colour of confidence, self-esteem and emotional strength. It is a colour that is both friendly and creative, but too much of it, or the wrong shade, can make you queasy, depressed or even turn you mad.
Whether I entirely believe in the thinking is a moot point, but I have found it to be true that yellow is a positive force when used judiciously. My first border as a teenager was yellow. I experimented with quantity and quality and by contrasting it with magenta and purple, it’s opposites. Today I weave it throughout the garden, using it for its ability to break with melancholy; a flash of Welsh poppy amongst ferns or a carefully selected greenish-yellow hellebore lighting a shaded corner.
Helleborus x hybridus Ashwood Selection Primrose Shades Spotted
I remember talking to the textile designer, Susan Collier, about the use of yellow in her garden in Stockwell. She had repeated the tall, sulphur-yellow Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum throughout the planting and explained how she used it to draw the eye through the garden. ‘Yellow in textile design is extraordinarily persistent. It is noisy, but it lifts the heart. It causes the eye to wander, as the eye always returns to yellow.’
At this time of year, I am happy to see it, but prefer yellow in dashes and dots and smatterings. I will use Cornus mas, the Cornelian cherry, rather than forsythia, and have planted a little grove that will arch over the ditch in time and mingle with a stand of hazel. The fattening buds broke a fortnight ago, just as the hazel was losing its freshness. Ultimately, over time, my widely spaced shrubs will grow to the size of a hawthorn, the cadmium yellow flowers, more stamen than petal, creating a spangled cage of colour, rather than the airless weight of gold you get with forsythia.
We have started splitting the primroses along the ditch too. I hope they will colonise the ground beneath the Cornus mas. I have a hundred of the Tenby daffodil, our native Narcissus obvallaris, to scatter amongst them. The flowers are gold, but they are small and nicely proportioned. Used in small quantity and widely spaced to avoid an obvious flare, they will bring the yellow of the cornus to earth.
Narcissus obvallaris with Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry)
Primrose – Primula vulgaris
After several years of experimenting with narcissus, I have found that they are always best when used lightly and with the stronger yellows used as highlights amongst those that are paler. N. bulbocodium ‘Spoirot’, a delightful pale hoop-petticoat daffodil is first to flower here and a firm favourite. I have grown them in pans this year to verify the variety, but will plant them on the steep bank in front of the house where, next spring, they will tremble in the westerly winds.
Narcissus bulbocodium ‘Spoirot’
The very first of the Narcissus x odorus and Narcissus pallidiflorus are also out today, braving a week of overcast skies and cold rain. The N. pallidiflorus were a gift from Beth Chatto. She had been gifted them in turn by Cedric Morris, who had collected the bulbs on one of his expeditions to Europe. The flowers are a pale, primrose yellow, the trumpet slightly darker, and are distinguished by the fact that they face joyously upwards, unlike their downward-facing cousins.
Narcissus x odorus
Narcissus pallidiflorus
Our other native daffodil Narcissus pseudonarcissus has a trumpet the same gold as N. obvallaris, but with petals the pale lemon hue of N. pallidiflorus. It has an altogether lighter feeling than many of the named hybrids for this gradation of colour. We were thrilled to see a huge wild colony of them in the woods last weekend, spilling from high up on the banks, the mother colony scattering her offspring in little satellites. This is how they look best, in stops and starts and concentrations. I am slowly planting drifts along the stream edge and up through a new hazel coppice that will be useful in the future. A move that feels right for now, with all the energy and awakening of this new season.
Narcissus pseudonarcissus (top), Narcissus obvallaris (bottom)
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
I try hard to ensure that these posies picked from the garden are done in real time, but last weekend I flew off to the States for a week’s work. So this bunch I picked last Saturday before the frost, which till then had kept itself to the hollows down by the stream, made its way up into the garden for the first time on Sunday morning. These are the very last of the dahlias, pushing against the tide of decay, but dwindling daily with the increasing cold at night. Blackened the instant the frost arrives and heralding the coming of winter.
Usually this is the time to lift dahlias. The tender foliage is seared back to the stem. Dig down and the fleshy tubers are rude with a summer’s feeding and full of the energy they need to sustain them through the winter. The two species I have selected here have so far proven themselves to be just as happy in the ground with a little help in the form of a mulch of compost to keep them through the cold season.
Dahlia australis
Despite the elegance of its finely divided leaves and sharply drawn flowers, Dahlia australis is a plant that needs room at the root in company. Try to lift the tuber and you find that it is easily a two-man job and this is why the push of growth is strong and constant from the moment it comes through in the spring.
Standing now at shoulder height and a stretch of the arms across this is not, however, a plant that feels demanding of space. With delicate growth and single flowers on wiry stems, there is a lightness about it that tends to be lost in the hybrids. For this reason I have decided to keep it in the garden as it will sit well with the wild feel of its companions. I plan to have it amongst Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’, which you can see here at the very end of its flowering season. The tiny violet flowers, which leave behind them a sterile taper, have been flowering for months, but now have nowhere left to go. Three or four plants spread widely in a bed provide a vertical accent and the dahlia will be good pushing its way through this floral cage.
Dahlia merckii ‘Alba’, Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’ and Amsonia hubrichtii
Dahlia merckii ‘Alba’ is of an altogether lighter weight and more delicate disposition. Standing at no more than chest height, with delicate growth and foliage, this is a delectable dahlia. Despite its appearance, it seems to be perfectly hardy, and I would not want to be without it for its constancy of flower. These are pure white, small and widely-spaced and dance like butterflies in wind, but if the plant is not in good company it will snap and break. Teaming it with low perennials that will not overwhelm its foliage is better than staking. Far less fiddly and better for the dahlia to find its own way, since the spaciousness in the plant comes out in several directions from the crown. In the stock beds I have it with a herbaceous Salvia pratensis, but when I use it in the new garden I will team it with the Amsonia hubrichtii that you see colouring gold in this posy. They are both sun loving and, after its early flower, the amsonia will leave room for the dahlia to get away in the first half of the growing season.
The flowers of both these dahlia species die well by simply dropping their petals and, as they seem happy to continue to produce without throwing all their energy into seed, there is no need to dead head as you might their more flamboyant relatives. The singles also have the added benefit of being accessible to pollinating insects.
Bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’)
Miscanthus ‘Dronning Ingrid’ and Bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’)
I have included the bronze fennel in the bunch for its darkness now that it is in seed and the miscanthus for its ability to harness the light in its inflorescence. I am finding the miscanthus difficult to place in the garden because they have such a strong atmosphere which smacks too much of somewhere else to sit easily in this landscape. I have seen them growing wild in Japan, where their plumage is the emblem of the autumn season and their clumps illuminate autumnal verges. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Dronning Ingrid’ is a new variety to me with foliage that colours with flashes of red and orange at the end of the season. The flowers, which are not as dark as some but emerge with a red flush nonetheless, soon pale to silvery bronze. The flower, held free to catch the breeze, is more tapering than many miscanthus but, come the winter, it lives up to its common name of Silver Grass as it flares in the low light.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
A new month today and there is a chill in the air and the grass is heavy with dew. The trees are yet to show colour, but the autumn bulbs are up and pushing a flare of brilliance against the drawing back that is happening around them.
Today’s posy, the first of October, captures some of this late vibrancy. I have known and grown Nerine bowdenii since I was a teenager. Geraldine, our neighbour, had them growing in the root zone of a huge fig at the foot of a south-facing wall. The fig had long outgrown any ambitions to be trained, but its lofty frame allowed you to walk underneath it and the sun to slide in and bake the ground at its feet. A good baking is what Nerine like as it makes them feel like they are not so far from their origins in the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa. They grow there in rocky ground and, though they are capable of surviving a -15°c chill, a free-draining soil and reflected heat will help them to flower better here in Britain.
Nerine bowdenii
I have a collection of plants gathered from here and there as I have come across good forms. The best – the pure white ‘Blanca Perla’ and palest shell pink ‘Ostara’ – are kept in pots and brought up to the side door to keep us company when they are in flower. A mixed batch, which I bought unnamed and which range from white through to a hot sugary bubble-gum pink, are planted at the base of my espaliered pears in the Kitchen Garden. They get the benefit of a south-facing position, the radiated heat from the wall and, importantly, an absence of competition. Their foliage, which needs all the light it can get, hates to be overshadowed by neighbours so keep them to the front of a sunny bed if you want to grow them in company.
Nerine bowdenii ‘Blanca Perla’
A row of Geraldine’s bulbs, which I have moved about with me from garden to garden over the years, are shortly to be transplanted to their new position from the stock beds. The best time to move them is immediately after they have finished flowering as their foliage is becoming dormant then. I will move entire clumps and not divide them, as they flower best when in a tight community. Established clumps will tell you how they like to live, for the bulbs will mound up out of the ground to sunbathe rather than dwell below the surface as most bulbs do. I will plant the clumps on a hot, south-facing slope where the sun slides in under a limbed-up holly. Though there is the necessary light for baking the conditions are tougher there and the bulbs will put more energy into flower than leaf.
Nerine bowdenii ‘Ostara’
The flowers rise up as the summer foliage is waning and sap the last of its strength in the process. Tall stems – sometimes as much as a couple of feet – stand alone by the time the flower sheaths split in response to the flowers’ swelling. They are in flower for weeks, from early in September in some years, running on well into November if the weather is kind. As cut flowers they can last a good fortnight in a vase.
Schizostylis also hail from South Africa. In contrast to Nerine their foliage is almost evergreen, but they also hate competition and will fail to flower if overshadowed. However, here the parallel ends. They prefer damp ground or certainly moisture-retentive soil, so the posy makes a combination that is good for colour contrast, but not really achievable in the garden. That said, I have them here on the south-facing slopes and the plants have not complained in our hearty loam. They were given to me as spring divisions by Josie and Rachel, our neighbours up the lane. They run through their garden in drifts, appearing with asters and colchicum. So far, in the four years I have grown them in one place they have not needed dividing, but everything points to the plants needing it soon and they let you know when with shy flowering.
Schizostylis coccinea ‘Major’
Schizostylis coccinea ‘Major’ is probably the best and most commonly available form. The satiny flowers are a gleaming brilliant red. In the past I have experimented with ‘Sunrise’, a soft apricot-pink, and have ‘Mrs. Hegarty’ – a pale shell pink – from the same neighbours, but both seem to be shy-flowering in comparison. I may simply have not found them a home that suits yet. My rule is that you have to move a plant at least three times to give it a chance of finding its niche, so I’m holding on final judgement for the moment.
Salvia ‘Jezebel’
The Salvia ‘Jezebel’ is part of a salvia trial I’m running to find the good forms of Salvia greggii and it’s closely related cousins. The plants were selected from Dyson’s Nurseries three years ago now at the Dixter Plant Fair (running this weekend) and the best have proved themselves already. Bushy by nature and happy to live in your hottest, driest position, I have found they are excellent in pots or for prolonging the flowering period of a woody herb or mediterranean combination. ‘Jezebel’ has outgrown her neighbours, rising up to 90cm over the summer and flowering continuously since July. If you brush against them the sticky foliage and bronze calyces smell of blackcurrants and spice. The flowers age from a vivid cherry-red to a slightly softer pink before they fall. The bees love it and I know already that it’s a keeper.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
The late summer perennials are upon us. The components of this bunch have all been out for a fortnight and have steadied the garden through the latter part of August, a difficult month that can all too easily see gaps opening up where earlier performers are spent.
Gentiana asclepiadea with Aster umbellatus
Gentiana asclepiadea is the best-known to me. In fact this original plant is one that I have moved about with me since my Home Farm days, where I first used it. It is always listed as autumn-flowering, which is somewhat misleading, but I know when I start to see its colour that summer is ebbing.
Gentians are usually picky plants. We treated them casually when I worked on the Rock Garden as a student at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, but once back down south I soon learned that the majority prefer a cool, moist atmosphere with a humus-rich, acidic soil. Not so this lovely perennial. Grow it in retentive ground on the north side of something taller to give it a little shade in the hottest part of the day and it is remarkably adaptable.
It is a beautiful thing from the moment it emerges in spring, the leaves folded and shiny, like armour. The growth rises to no more than a couple of feet before arching under the weight of bud and revealing why it’s common name is Willow Gentian. The arching habit is what makes it such a delightful companion, for it covers the ground gently without overwhelming smaller partners. Since Home Farm this plant has travelled with me for twenty years and was moved a third time this spring to make way for the new landscaping. I was surprised to find it had grown into a clump that was difficult to manhandle alone. I will divide it in April and put it amongst hellebores on the cool side of the little barn. Here it is teamed with the lofty Aster umbellatus, but in the garden the smaller growing Aster schreberi will add the lightness it benefits from.
Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘All Time High’ and Artemisia lactiflora ‘Elfenbein’
I grew the Aster umbellatus from seed Piet Oudolf gave me when I visited his garden late one autumn. It was out of flower, but stood proud and plateau-flat at two metres. This is its habit and why in America it is called the Flat-Top Aster. In the five years I’ve been getting to know it, it has never run from its clump or toppled or needed support. It is the first of the asters to flower here and I plan to use it with Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘All Time High’, a Japanese burnet which has emerged as a good one in my sanguisorba trial. Its leaves are finely divided and help to keep the overall impression light and lacy. The flowers, dangling and scored like graffiti in bud, produce fine white filaments as they mature, like those of plantain flowers. They will hover around the aster’s tabletop.
I must admit to having given up on Artemisia lactiflora ‘Guizhou’. I liked the idea of its creamy verge-side appearance and the dark, finely-cut foliage, but it always got burnt and has never done well for me. So, it was a surprise to be given this form – Artemisia lactiflora ‘Elfenbein’ – by Chris & Toby Marchant at Orchard Dene Nurseries. Dark green foliage, finely divided again, is the foil to the creamy flowers. It is has been well-behaved to date, happy on our retentive ground and nicely clump-forming. As I look out of the window now, it is filled with afternoon light, caught in its inflorescence and allowing your eye to travel from one cream grouping to another.
Salvia greggii ‘Blue Note’ and Aster umbellatus
Salvia greggii ‘Blue Note’ is not a plant I will combine with any of the above as it likes a hot, dry spot and is low-growing, but it does illustrate the importance of contrast and I like its inky darkness with the off-whites here. It is a great little plant, layering gently where it touches down and smelling muskily of blackcurrants when you brush the foliage. I see it combined with lavenders and have made a note to myself as a reminder to make the coupling next year.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
This week has been an important one. The digger men are here, carving out the new garden and shaping the land around the house. A great divide of mud has marooned us. Venture out in any direction and you are met by instability.
There is nothing like the crunch of a decision having to be made to focus the attention on what you really need to keep. I have been taking out roses in full bloom to make way for new paths. After holding on for as long as I could, it was strangely liberating. A running rudbeckia and the bolting boltonia are now on the compost heap. I’ve been curtailing their spread since they came here, despite knowing that they were trouble. The inulas that were grown from seed are sitting in a heavy un-liftable knot that was levered by the digger and covered with damp hessian ready to be divided and potted up this weekend. Their removal has tuned my mind to decide where I eventually want them.
In planning for this moment I planted a sanctuary bed that runs at the front of the house, locked in by the path. Most of the plants here were grown from seed. You care more for seed-raised plants somehow and their volunteer seedlings have shown that they like it in this spot. Today’s posy illustrates something of the transparency in the planting. I want to see through it, for it to be light and for it to shift against the weight of the walls of the house. Yellows and greens and browns are the backbone of the planting. Of the half dozen in the bunch, the greater number are umbellifers. They make wonderful companions in associations that are naturalistically driven and bring the same feeling into a bunch.
Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’
I have grown bronze fennel forever, liking the way it is from the moment its new growth pushes through to the point at which I have to cut away last year’s skeletons to make way for it. It loves our ground here, the sunshine and the free draining soil, so I only leave the plants standing over winter where I know the smoky haze of new seedlings can be managed. Now they are just showing flower, which has pushed free from the net of dark foliage. Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’ looks good with almost anything and I love the horizontality of the gold umbels when they mass more strongly later in the month.
Bupleurum falcatum
Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’
The acid-yellow umbel in the mix is the biennial Bupleurum falcatum. I threw fresh seed into the rubble around the barns and potted some up to plant them where I wanted them. They have just started to flower and will continue to form a bright cage of flower, so small and filamentous that it creates a haze of vibrancy. Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’ is it’s perennial cousin. I shall write more on this later as it is an old favourite that deserves more time.
Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum
Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum rises up and above most of its companions on wire thin stems which catch our breezes, but there is no need for staking until they hang heavier with seed. I cut them to the base to avoid the seedlings at this point as the clumps are long-lived and you need just a handful to make an impression. The fluffy flowers are a pure sulphur-yellow and the leaves are the blue green of cabbages but fine, like lace.
Lonicera periclymenum ‘Graham Thomas’
This is a good selection of the wild honeysuckle called ‘Graham Thomas’. I first saw it growing on his house when we were taken to meet him as Wisley students. I had no idea then how influential a plantsman he was, nor how much I would have enjoyed his namesake all these years later. I much prefer it to the brickier, shorter-flowering varieties such as ‘Belgica’ and ‘Serotina’. It also flowers far longer than its native parent and, after its first July flush, continues off and on into September.
Hordeum bulbosum
The bulbous barley, Hordeum bulbosum, was collected on a trip to Greece a few years ago. It has proven to be completely perennial, retreating to a basal cluster of storage organs after flowering. I cut it before it seeds to limit its spread, as it germinates freely. In Greece the storage organs (which give it its species name) would keep it alive during a summer without rain to reactivate growth in the autumn. Here, without a water shortage to speak of, it is happy to return with a second flush in September. The flowers are early, rising in April, to trace every breath of wind outside the windows.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
The third week in June, around the solstice, is when the roses are at their best – first flowers opened and buds yet to come. The week usually coincides with weather and this bunch was picked just before a black sky gave way to thunder, lightning and downpour.
The roses are part of my trial of getting to know good garden plants. There was never room to indulge their showiness in the Peckham garden and, when we arrived here, they were one of the first things that were planted. I felt I could get away with them if they were treated as part of a productive garden. They push against the flow of what we want to do here and couldn’t be more out of place with the landscape backdrop. But a bunch brought in for the house is an opulent indulgence.
They are now in their sixth summer and I am beginning to see which are the good ones and which are the weaklings. There are twenty four varieties in total, all David Austin selections and each was chosen for their perfume, colour, flower shape and general mood. Here are a bunch of a half dozen.
The Alexandra Rose
I like to have singles in the mix as they bring a little of the wild as a contrast to the doubles. The Alexandra Rose is one of my favourites, making a relaxed bush and open sprays of flower that fade as they age.
Jubilee Celebration
Jubilee Celebration is perhaps the weakest plant, but not unhealthy, and it has a strong true rose scent. The colour is a very distinctive old rose which ages to apricot. It is also a wonderful shape with backward curled petals.
From the top; Pat Austin, Lady of Shallott & The Lark Ascending
Pat Austin is a rangy grower, but healthy and consistent. The flowers are a golden peach, slightly pendulous on the bush and smell of Earl Grey tea.
Lady of Shallott
Lady of Shallot’s bowl-shaped blooms are shot pink over apricot. The colour is duller than Pat Austin but no less lovely.
Teasing Georgia
Teasing Georgia is the most yellow of this bunch. It is a really good rose with plenty of vigour, which can be put to a wall and trained as a climber. The flowers are the most quartered of this selection and open flat.
The Lark Ascending
The Lark Ascending is not such a good picker as it drops quickly, but I love it’s loose pale peach flowers which seem to tumble from the bush. It has fewer petals and it is a pretty grower, never stiff and therefore a good candidate for a mixed planting in a border. Not that this will be the case here. The cutting garden is the cutting garden where I can break my own rules and simply enjoy the flowers.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Clockwise from bottom left: Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Meconopsis cambrica, Tragopogon crocifolius, Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’, Amsonia orientalis, Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’, Ranunculus acris & Valeriana pyrenaica
The Chelsea Flower show usually falls in a week that is suspended between spring and summer. That is one of the things that gives the show its charge, the freshness and feeling of anticipation. I was not involved this year other than as a spectator and it was a delight to return home after a busy week of looking to find that we are still in this teetering point and haven’t missed the moment.
Marking it with today’s posy brings the meadows and the garden together. Ranunculus acris, the meadow buttercup, is at it’s zenith. It is one of my favourite components in the grassland, rising up tall above it’s neighbours this early in the season. Where we have over-seeded the old pastures with meadow seed from the neighbouring valley, the buttercup is now in evidence three years on. I like the way it is so light on its feet and that there is so much air amongst the bright pinpricks of yellow.
I have brought it up close on the vegetable garden banks and used it to bring together the clumping Valeriana pyrenaica, which I am trying to naturalise in the grass. This European species has been grown in Britain since at least 1692, and was first recorded in the wild in 1782 as a supposed native, and it could easily be part of our landscape. It has been in flower for a month now and though you wouldn’t think that the brightness of the buttercup would sit well with the lilac pink of the valerian, such colour clashes are commonplace in wild plant communities.
I also have it growing alongside the Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’ close to the compost heaps. This is a chance seedling of our native comfrey found at Moorland Cottage Plants in South Wales. I first saw it at the Chelsea show and was taken by its darker violet flowers which are alive with bees. It is not allowed to seed as it is a coloniser and the roots grow deep, pulling minerals up into the foliage which, when harvested, make a fine green manure or compost tea. Before the plants set seed, all the growth is cut to the ground and used as a mulch or green manure to turn into the soil. To make an evil smelling brew of compost tea, fill a large plastic bucket to the top with it, trample down and fill with water. Allow it to ferment and then skim off the pungent liquid feed rich in nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium.
I have Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ growing in the grass under the crab apples. They are at their best this week as the crabs are fading, racing up their stems like sparklers almost as fast as you can enjoy them. I like the creaminess of the flowers and this single form the best. I have made the mistake of planting it in open ground amongst perennials and had a million and one seedlings to contend with. The double form is sterile and better in the beds, but I’m hoping that the singles will seed into the grass where it runs thin with yellow rattle.
I might try Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Amsonia orientalis and Tragopogon crocifolius together as they are currently disparate in the garden. This is the first time I have thought of doing so and the advantage of throwing things together in a bunch. Amsonia has a short moment of flower, but great longevity of life as a plant and the tragopogon is a delightful self-seeding biennial that adds flux to the mix. ‘Lady Flora Hastings’ is perhaps one of the best centaureas, flowering for weeks and then again if you cut it to the base when it starts to look tired. Like the comfrey its roots run deep and come easily as cuttings. Move the parent plant and it will reappear with the certainty of a perennial that will probably outlive you if you find it a place in sunshine that suits.
The Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica, is at is peak in these first few weeks of the growing season. My plants were strewn as seed on bare earth a couple of years ago and are naturalising happily. They are best when emerging as an incidental in places where other plants might think twice about flourishing. Cracks between paving see them at their happiest and they are unflinching in dry shade. They also thrive in full sun, but I prefer their pure, clean yellow when it sparkles in shadow.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Above from left to right; Lamium orvala, Matthiola incana alba, Dicentra ‘Stuart Boothman’, Lunaria annua ‘Corfu Blue’, Erysimum scoparia, Valeriana pyrenaica & Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’
Although it is still early in the season there are enough flowers in the garden now to start making hand-picked posies for the house. This is a great way to identify new combinations for the garden as you can easily try together several flowers that may be growing in quite different locations.
The lamium, an exotic deadnettle with moody, brownish-pink flowers, came with us from Peckham and has started to self-seed in the shade of the willow trial. The original clump is now a couple of feet across when in full flower, and hums with bees.
The matthiola, a perennial stock which is highly scented of cloves, is seeding around freely in the most inhospitable rubble at the base of the barns. I have seen matthiola growing in similar conditions in Greece, so it is good to find it a home where the going is tough and it is perfectly happy.
The Valeriana pyrenaica, which came highly recommended from Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter, is early to come into leaf and looks like it might be a little too happy here, as it’s seeded about in just a couple of years. However, this needn’t be a problem if it is found the right place, and I have planted a few in grass to see if it can cope with the competition.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
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