WONDROUS WISTERIA
With their draping fronds and heavenly scent, these delicate f lowers make a glorious natural roof for an outdoor dining area
NICOLA STOCKEN
In the decade since Sue Emms (above) and her partner Pete Weller began the transformation of their garden near Rosson-Wye in Herefordshire, they’ve created a wildlife pond, rose garden, potager, small woodland and meandering informal borders, all set around a white wisteria-clad terrace and pergola.
A lot of love has been lavished on this garden, but very little planning, says Sue. ‘Having studied garden design, I know you should always start with the framework and hard landscaping, but I rarely do that,’ she admits. ‘I envisage the plants and work out how I can use them. We’re fortunate because a broad hill that slows the prevailing southwesterly winds lies to the west, so the garden is sheltered. When we got started here, the first area we created was the wisteria pergola.’
White flowers, and wisteria in particular, are among Sue’s favourite plants, and they fill the central pergola and dining area. ‘For this area, I did actually draw up a plan and we stuck to it,’ she says, laughing.
Japanese wisteria is trained over the structure, its perfume almost overwhelming on a warm evening. Nearby borders are planted in an all-white scheme of aquilegias, alliums, white ‘Royal Wedding’ oriental poppies, delphiniums, flowering sea kale and meadow rue.
Once established, wisterias are vigorous, though they can take a long time to get going. ‘In its first year, ours produced very short flower panicles and I was rather disappointed, but they’ve got longer over time,’ Sue explains. Wisteria needs sufficient sunlight to flower well, no less than six hours a day, and a sheltered south- or west-facing position.
The wisteria family encompasses about 10 species, and among the most commonly grown are Chinese and Japanese forms – Wisteria sinensis and Wisteria floribunda. Japanese varieties tend to have longer bunches of flowers and, curiously, twine in an anticlockwise direction, whereas Chinese species travel clockwise. Both are deciduous, with sweetly-scented flowers that come in shades of white, purple, blue or pink – white varieties tend to flower later.
Draping over the top edge of the pergola, the flowing fronds sit like a crown above the garden, which gets more informal the further back you go. Grasses, ‘wafty’ perennials, fast-growing shrubs such as
GREEN & WHITE Clockwise from top
A whitebeam arch frames the view of Sue’s informal garden beyond; Lupinus
‘Noble Maiden’; Thalictrum aquilegifolium var. album; Aquilegia vulgaris; Papaver
orientale ‘Royal Wedding’
A HAPPY MIX
Opposite Rising above
Allium stipitatum ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Mount Everest’ and ‘Miami’, a rustic wigwam emerges from a froth of catmint ‘Walker’s Low’, foxgloves and alchemilla