Thorny Problems

I received an email (no greeting of any kind, but I am learning to be grateful for the “please” and “thank you”). It read thus: “Planting suggestions please for three north-facing, recently constructed raised flowerbeds each 8x4ft which are also subject to windy conditions. Many thanks.”

Readers, brevity is admirable – when I started this Thorny Problems caper, I dreaded the arrival of a snail mail bag containing, among all the cheery queries and carefully packaged alas-no-longer “live” pest samples, lengthy letters that read like the anxious jottings of a wide-eyed insomniac, frequently embellished with unfathomably detailed sketches.

But this question, about the raised beds, gave, quite simply, not enough information to elicit a sensible reply. For example:

Location matters The wind is not such an issue in, say, Herstmonceux or Hampstead, as it might be in Aberystwyth or Aberdeen.

Context photos These are always helpful: North-facing raised beds could be overwhelmingly dark if sited cheek-by-jowl next to the forbidding granite wall of a three-storey house/ attendant copper beech, but far less so next to a head-height, white-painted garden wall or hedge.

Finer points What kind of soil is in the beds; how deep and well-draining is it? All this matters and governs what will or won’t grow well.

So, to the reader who sent the email: Illustrated lists of “plants for windy gardens”, “plants for shade” and so on are to be found on the internet, or indeed in countless books.

But presumably you wanted my input based on your individual situation. How much more fruitful my response could be if you had given me a bit more to get my teeth into.

Having got that off my chest I will, softie that I am, offer a few suggestions of plants for a shady raised bed containing averagely rich, neutral soil, with a depth of at least 45cm.

The aim is to provide a measure of year-round texture and colour (in this instance various greens plus white), and only list plants that either hug the ground or are tough enough to withstand a certain amount of buffeting and are not over-fussy about the amount of light they get (although plants in serious shade will always produce skinnier, taller growth than those that are well-lit). Raised beds will always need extra water in high summer.

Olearia ilicifolia: Spiny leaves notwithstanding (ilicifolia means “holly leafed”), this sagecoloured evergreen with contrasting darkish stems has year-round elegance, with clusters of small, daisy-like, dull white flowers.

It would make a good metre-high “backbone” for the bed, together with substantial, clumpforming evergreen Libertia grandiflora, with its deep green sword-like leaves, earlysummer chalky flowers and attractive winter seed heads.

To this, add a selection of the following: ferns such as evergreen Dryopteris lepidopoda; for early spring, try white-flowered hellebores and tough-leafed (more snail-resistant) hostas; for late-summer flowering try statuesque Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’. Variegated white-flowered Vinca minor could be used to trail over the edges of the bed, should they need “softening”.

If you hate the sight of your garish plastic vegetable growbags, remember this trick for next year: Slit them cleanly right across their ‘waists’, empty the contents of the two halves into a barrow, turn the empty bags inside out (acceptableblack-side-out therefore) and roll down their tops inwards a bit to make a lip. Refill them with their contents, then stand them on their ends, having punctured their bottoms to provide drainage. Result: each growbag yields two unobtrusive, deep-ish containers, slower to dry out and stout enough to take a support cane for a tomato plant or whatever else you choose to grow in them.