Carol Klein picks her favourite plants for fabulous evening scent
The latest from Carol’s beautiful co age garden... plus her diary for the week!
is powerful and potent. My mum used to sow a pinch or two around our tiny garden, especially close to the back door. On summer evenings, the scent would drift around the house.
When we first grew Zaluzianskya ovata, it was for its delightful pure white flowers opening from crimson buds. Watering one night in the greenhouse where it was billeted, I was bowled over by its delicious perfume. It’s a South African native but perfectly at home here in an open, sunny situation. Although its flowers are attractive during the day, the plant comes into its own as the sun sinks.
Plants with aromatic foliage, mainly herbs such as thyme and rosemary, release volatile oils from their leaves when the sun beats down; then you can imagine you’re walking down a dry hillside with the deep turquoise
Mediterranean glinting in the background. At night, you need to rub their leaves to be able to appreciate their perfume.
There are so many delicious daytime scents to be enjoyed too; roses and sweet peas of course, but also that of some shrubs, including one unknown late-blooming viburnum with bunches of small, white flowers. Scent is the most evocative quality in any garden; I should consider it more often.
After finalising the redesign of the back garden, we decided we should install subtle permanent lighting.
So, we’ve had eight warm white spotlights fitted to the mains and positioned them to shine up interesting focal areas such as the arbour and structural plants. Seeing illuminated umbrellas of leaves dance in the wind while dramatic shadows spread across old gnarled tree trunks has been fantastic!
Our home-made wigwam has also joined the evening light show with its new dainty necklace of solar fairy lights. By day, we can hardly see it in its camouflage netting and we regularly seek peaceful solace there to stop and listen to nature, as well as use it as a hide to watch the birds. My son and I were delighted to add greenfinch to the tally chart for the first time and, although we take dozens of photographs of the birds that venture the closest to us to feed, we didn’t capture it in our excitement!
There are so many plants at their best at the moment. I adore the Verbena bonariensis, lupins, lilies, sweet peas, calendula, geranium, peony and roses for their colour, fragrance and ability to attract insects. The buddlejas are starting to flower and each of the ‘White Profusion’, ‘Black Knight’ and ‘Nanho Blue’ are set to wear an unprecedented mass of gorgeous blooms. I hope the butterflies find them and our home-made butterfly feeders irresistible, as I’ve suggested a family ‘best butterfly photograph’ challenge!
Identifying gaps in the borders prompted the purchase of roses ‘Amber Nectar’, ‘Pink Blanket’ and ‘Rambling Rosie’, plus lavenders ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Hidcote’ and ‘Regal Splendour’. They’ll look great with our sunflowers, rudbeckia, asters and poppies, poached egg plant and cosmos, which all have flower buds.
At the allotment, we’ve picked broad beans, peas and yellow courgette ‘Polka’, which were all delicious. The carrots and sprouts are growing well, and plump red and white currants are ripening. We’ve enjoyed our first strawberries and there are plenty more to come, along with salads, beetroot and leafy green veg. The boys’ ‘pot spot’ has herbs, carrots, French beans, radishes, blueberries and other assorted goodies. We feel so fortunate that the garden provides our family with purpose, enjoyment and good wellbeing.
Long days of sun and high temperatures have worked wonders in the garden, but perhaps our constant presence during lockdown played a part, too! We’ve even managed to keep strimming the headland in a cornfield beyond our back-garden gate. The soft fruits are all carrying substantial crops. Strawberry and
At this time of year there’s always plenty to do to keep us busy and active in the garden. Recently, the main thing has been providing enough water to keep everything going until we had some much-needed showers and everything went into overdrive. It’s amazing what a little rain can do!
The wild meadow area looks a treat this year. The yellow rattle we planted in autumn has done its job and weakened a lot of the more vigorous grasses so that they’re less dominant. Consequently, there are so many more wildflowers this year, which also seem to be stronger and have been able to withstand the differing weather conditions.
All round the garden the roses are having a wonderful year. One of the best is rambler ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’, which has been trained over an archway close to the summerhouse. The perfume on a warm, sunny day is magnificent. The border nearest to the house is edged with lowgrowing dianthus, they’re all in flower at present and, again, they’re
filling the air with perfume. It’s a joy to go for a quiet, relaxing walk around the garden taking in all its beauty and aroma.
This month in our garden, the feature plants have been the foxgloves; alive with foraging bees, they’ve been outstanding. Another star performer has been Sambucus nigra ‘Black Lace’. This ornamental elder is a new addition to the
garden and has deep burgundyblack dissected leaves topped with umbels of pinky-cream flowers, which look absolutely stunning.
After planting new additions to my ever-increasing iris bed, I realised that I had another bit of land I could reclaim to extend the bed even more. It’s a little shadier than the rest but I’m confident that these sun lovers will still have enough light to thrive. Having cleared all the rubbish from the area and dug it over, it was very dry, so I gave it a good soak, then I dug out some older irises and split them. I cut the tops down and replanted them in the new area. It looks lovely. Next year will tell if it works or not. There are a few spaces now so I can order some new ones. Any excuse!