Mediterranean way of life
THE Mediterranean lifestyle is known for being more healthy and less stressful, but it’s not all down to the olive oil, salads and red wine. No, I reckon a lot of it’s due to the gardens, which are laid out for enjoying legendary long, relaxed meals outdoors in surroundings that leave you free to digest your lunch over a snoozy siesta instead of scurrying around keeping up to date with the chores.
But you don’t need a villa in Tuscany or a place in Provence to enjoy the benefits of a Mediterranean garden.
They are just as effective in British back yards, given a sheltered, sunny spot with reasonably well-drained soil.
To create the look, start with your hardware. Mediterranean gardens centre on gravel and paving instead of grass, with plenty of plants in pots, so go for terracotta tiling in warm, pinkyreds and stock up on clay pots.A few large ones look the part much better than a clutter of small ones and they’re far easier to look after.
If you’ve got room for a border or two, prepare the ground by digging in grit as well as organic matter to make the free-draining soil Mediterranean plants need.
Use gravel or pebbles for mulching after you’ve planted – they reflect the heat and light, which helps contribute to the ambience, besides keeping roots cool and moist, and stifling a lot of annual weeds.
ADD A rustic pergola to cast dappled shade over your area – some of the best-looking examples you see around the Med are home-made from angular branches. But if DIY isn’t your hobby, invest in a kit.
Go for the lean-to type to stand against the wall over your patio doors, or be more avant-garde and stand a semicircular one against a high wall.
The finishing touch is the planting.Typical Mediterranean plants are those that look good all year round and can cope with hot, dry conditions without needing a lot of fuss, so go for aromatic evergreen herbs, sun-loving euphorbias and heat-loving shrubs such as hebe, phlomis, cistus, olearia (daisy bush) and helianthemum (rock rose).
These look good growing together, they all enjoy the same conditions and they are almost entirely maintenance-free. If you fancy something a bit unusual that’s bang on target, try Euryops pectinatus, a shrubby plant with yellow flowers all summer and comb-shaped foliage. It’s not always 100 per cent hardy, but it roots easily from cuttings. Keep a few on the windowsill over winter as insurance.
If you want one or two striking architectural specimens to give height to a border, hardy palms and yuccas look the part.Tamarisk is very Med, too, with tough, feathery foliage and a froth of pink flowers in summer.
You’ll need a climber for growing over the pergola – a grapevine makes the ideal scene setter or in a really hot, sunny spot south of Watford, try campsis, the exotic trumpet vine, which has huge, flame-coloured flowers in late summer. If you fancy scent, go with Trachelospermum asiaticum. The flowers are white and propeller shaped, produced right through the summer with a hefty jasmine scent. But if you plump for flowering climbers on your pergola, remember that the flowers only appear on the outside of the structure – which is why grapes are usually favoured since the fruit hangs down the inside and looks far more decorative when you’re underneath.
For growing in containers, you’ll want plants that put up with heat and drought yet still produce plenty of colourful flowers, and keep going all summer.A tall order? Not really.There are several half-hardy perennials such as pelargoniums and lantana that fit the bill. Sun-loving daisies such as osteospermum, gazania and lampranthus also look very authentic.They’ll all overwinter in a frost-free conservatory, they root easily from cuttings and they aren’t expensive to replace if things don’t go quite according to plan.
The big advantage of containers is that, being portable, you can rearrange them if you need to make extra room for visitors.After all, Mediterranean gardens are designed to be sociable.