Naomi Slade is planting a confection of colour in her small Bristol garden
... by planting a confection of colour
It’s always said that when it comes to nursery visits and gardening shows, you're spoiled for choice. Like a kid in a sweet shop, they say. And it’s just dawned on me that
despite superhuman restraint, that's exactly what I am.
The sugar rush started last summer, when a dahlia variety called ‘Mick’s Peppermint’ mysteriously arrived in my garden – presumably in a pot of various things that came from my mother-inlaw. It’s a jazzy sort of creature, spo ed and splashed with pink, but I’m partial to a nice dahlia so there it stayed. Then last spring I found myself ordering more plants (as you do) and dahlia ‘Twyning’s White Chocolate’ and Cosmos atrosanguineus ‘Chocamocha’ (www.farmergracy. co.uk) kind of fell into my possession. The dahlia is large and rather lovely, a white collare e form, with a yolkyellow middle; Mark Twyning has bred lots of sweetie-themed dahlias, including ‘Twyning’s After Eight’, and in his shoes I might have called this one ‘Cream Egg’, but there you go.
The cosmos is a perennial and it’s said that the flowers smell of chocolate. I fancy this requires a bit of imagination, but the small blooms are a rich, chocolaty red-purple and they'll weave pre ily among the other planting when they get going.
And this got me thinking. Sugar is the thing that people currently love to hate and I slightly wonder whether making plants sound extra-delicious and tempting is actually capitalising on our obsession. So, cunningly, we can treat ourselves without dark looks from the dentist or a disastrous impact on the waistline.
And so – since no summer garden is complete without echinacea and I don’t need any persuasion to indulge in guilt-free confectionery – I then couldn’t resist fizzy-pink ‘Delicious Candy’ when I saw it. Eye-catching and reasonably drought tolerant, it’s also a good choice for the rather dry central bed, so in it went.
The planting scheme is still evolving and I’m still keen to poke in lots of new perennials – which I suppose is as good an excuse as any for a botanical candy crush. But the borders are finally filling up with colour and interest, and there’s no doubt that, one way or another, the garden is ge ing sweeter and sweeter!