Hot, hot, hot!
Be transported to a tropical paradise in this plantaholics’ urban garden that’s packed with a profusion of exotic blooms and foliage
Some gardens can start to look tired once July and August arrive, but Cornerstones isn’t one of them. That’s when this garden opens for the National Garden Scheme, and it’s jam-packed with colour because Judith and Jeff Coombes have a penchant for tropical and tender plants which peak when the weather’s at its warmest.
“It all started with bananas,” Judith explains. “We have several Japanese bananas ( Musa basjoo) that have survived for many a year. They’re left in the ground and sometimes they get cut back in winter, but they shoot up from the base once warmer weather arrives.”
T hese large-leaved, exoticlooking foliage plants provide a backdrop of lavish foliage in the ‘Hot Border’. In front, a swathe of green-leaved pineapple lily ( Eucomis bicolor) and a patch of deep red E. comosa ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ also thrive from year to year, and they aren’t lifted either, “although we do bring in E. vandermerwei every year.”
Hot-red and yellow gazanias and begonias edge this border, adding yet more drama. Chusan palms, fortunei, Trachycarpus
add a further tropical touch and they also come through winter unscathed. There’s even a tree fern,
Dicksonia antarctica, thriving in this garden, “which does have to be fleeced during winter”.
It’s hard to believe that this garden is only four or five miles from the centre of Nottingham, but being on the outskirts of a large city keeps the temperatures more ambient.
Cornerstones also lies close to the River Trent, so warm air congregates around the river and helps the garden avoid the worst of wintry weather. The light, free-draining soil is alluvial, with a clay layer about 10 feet down, so the soil doesn’t get waterlogged in winter or dry out in summer.
“Being east of the Pennines also helps,” Jeff explains, “because we get less rainfall on this side and the easterly winds are quite kind by the time they get here.
“We’ve got increasingly adventurous over the years with our tender plants, and some years we wait until January to see how cold the winter is before we decide whether or not to lift them. The only thing that stops us getting more and more is the size of our greenhouse for overwintering them! It only measures 12 feet in length and it’s kept frost-free by an electric thermostat.”
T here’s a heated electric propagator on one side and this is useful for cuttings and seed sowing, because this couple are both plantaholics. They’re keen members of the local gardening club, too, so they’ve been on lots of trips all over the county and
many of their plants remind them of places they’ve visited. They’ve also travelled further afield, visiting the Cape Town Flower Show in South Africa.
Jeff and Judith came to gardening late after giving up work, so for many years the garden consisted simply of a large lawn bordered by a conifer hedge. In 2000, Judith started to create a garden that relied on annuals, until a gardening friend told her that she had to start growing perennials instead. “I can’t resist a good flower,” she says, so she soon acquired a backbone of long-flowering perennials.
At first, Judith had mixed borders, containing a wide assortment of plants, but five years ago she began to group them together and now her grass border is much admired by visitors to the garden.
Phloxes, which are all planted in the same area, do well here and peak in midsummer when the garden opens.
“I have between 30 and 40 at least,” says Judith, “and I started off by buying a lock, stock and barrel collection, so I don’t know all the names. They’ve become stalwarts and the colours – pinks, whites and lavender-blues – blend well together.”
Judith takes some outside selections and pots them up for her plant stall which is highly popular – as are her home-made cakes – when the garden opens. The pale pink phlox ‘Bright Eyes’, in particular, has a darker eye than others and is very fragrant.
Judith is a methodical person and all her plants are labelled and added to a database. Magpies have a habit of walking off with her labels, though, and her crocosmia collection has suffered somewhat, “because they’re hard to tell apart!”
One of her favourite crocosmia is ‘Paul’s Best Yellow’ which flowers abundantly in July. ‘Okavango’ is another excellent summer performer, with its salmon-tinted, orange flowers.
Cornerstone’s conditions also suit daylilies and agapanthus because the garden is mainly in full sun, and there’s moisture not far from the surface – so July is the perfect time to visit.