Nature’s light and shade
Shades and textures of green are everywhere. This is mostly a delicate minor key moment in the garden. The quality of light really affects colours out of doors. The lime greens of Euphorbia (1) and Molopospermum peloponnesiacum (2) look fresh now, whereas in summer that colour can look too acid. Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’ (main picture, left) has moonlight-pale goblets, which I see against the church from our bathroom window. The books say it needs neutral-to-acid soil, but sometimes you can challenge received wisdom and find that a plant will succeed where others decree it might fail. ‘Cotswold Brash’ soil suits ‘Elizabeth’ perfectly well, but it is well drained and the place is shady and sheltered, so that may help too. An orchard is beautiful at any time of year. Beneath the trees, mown paths through long grass (3) are a favourite feature of mine. The best time is when the long grass on either side of the path is studded with old pheasant’s eye ( Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus), which is far more desirable than the commonly substituted N. ‘Actaea’ and flowers at the end of a long season of bulbs here. Earlier, the ground is covered with the wild N. pseudonarcissus and some collected forms of old N. poeticus cultivars brought from gardens where I have worked – with permission from the owner. I have a weakness for the older forms of less showy plants and I am also susceptible to the simpler forms of bearded iris. The ox-eye daisies and a few Geranium pratense follow the daffodils. They are not as abundant as they once were, because it is too shady for them. In any wildflower mix, the daisies get off to a head start and then slowly diminish over the years. I know too, that the seed mix I bought so long ago contained the larger European form of daisy and if I were starting again, I would insist on the English native form. The cloudy shaped rosemary bushes (4)
flower imperceptibly in palest blue, but they smell terrific. When the flowers fade, we clip them into humps and hollows.
As well as preferring simple forms of flowers, I also like humble effects and cottage plants. The row of home-made bean poles (5) that my husband puts up every year gives me as much pleasure as any garden ornament. And apple blossom( 6) is to me, more beautiful than the rarest rhododendron. ‘ Kerria japonica?’ high horticulturists ask with an uncomprehending stare, when they see the unruly yellow bush near the churchyard door (main picture, left). But this is a cottage garden favourite and it was here when we came, so although its sunny double flowers are not in the same league as the pale Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’ further up the border, I cherish it. With the Clematis macropetala ‘Maidwell Hall’ it makes a rowdy picture, but rules are made to be broken. Especially the ones that you make for yourself. A garden that is too self conscious can be very dull. Woven into every Persian carpet was a deliberate mistake. Gardens too, are all the better for the odd departure from good taste. Welsh poppies (7) in the same sunny gold as the kerria are allowed to seed themselves everywhere. I am less indulgent with the orange ones, because, like the great landscape architect Nan Fairbrother, I believe that ‘sameness is all’ and that if you have room, the beauty of one thing will always have more power than too much variety. The things that give me real pleasure here are the naturalised plants; the blue Anemone blanda in the dell, the Cyclamen coum and the Crocus tommasinianus. I like it when plants naturalise because it shows they are happy. The blue perennial form of Lunaria (8), which grows wild in Corfu has replaced the biennial, dark-flowered form. It can be too rampant for some, but the luminous blue of the flowers is like nothing else early in the year and it also flowers off and on into winter. I brought seed of this back from Corfu and Derry Watkins of Special Plants now sells it as Lunaria ‘Corfu Blue’ – although it is better known as Lunaria annua ‘Corfu Blue’.