THE PATIENT GARDENER
AS SPRING STIRS, IT’S TEMPTING TO BUY PLANTS WILLY- NILLY. BUT GIVE IT A LITTLE MORE THOUGHT AND YOUR GARDEN WILL THANK YOU FOR IT
“With shopping, gardeners divide into two camps: the rash and the wise. Wise gardeners never buy on impulse”
When the sun comes out, people go shopping. It’s an impulse that is also connected with gardening: plants in catalogues and garden centres are fresh and cheerful while the view out of the kitchen window is dreary beyond endurance. It’s wonderful to get out and embrace the new season; filling a window box with violets or bulbs is a celebration of the spring equinox. But don’t rush into buying anything else.
When it comes to shopping, gardeners divide into two camps: the rash and the wise. Wise gardeners never buy on impulse: instead they think about the structure of their garden and its green architecture. In other words, shrubs and trees. Flowers are the details that come later.
Visiting successful gardens is more enlightening than visiting a garden centre; good gardens are instructive in organising space in a three-dimensional way. Besides lessons in volume, texture and contrast, a happy garden will give insight into plant communities. Happy groups of plants have common interests, such as a need for dappled shade, or soil that is dry and well drained. They are not a bucket list of plants, they are plants that thrive in the conditions on offer. Good soil prep is a key to plant success. A patient gardener, then, not only finds shrubs exciting but loves a compost heap. It’s a state of mind.
FREE PLANTS!
Dependable perennials that are easy to propagate Using plants that come back year after year is labour-reducing and sustainable in the long term, unlike the pick and mix selection at a garden centre. Sometimes it’s a good idea to buy a particular flower when it is in bloom (for instance with hellebores and all their mutations) but generally it’s not so important.
Focussing on small groups of plants makes planning easier: planting just oriental poppies and irises in one area is an opportunity for hugely rich colour and shape. Impulse buying is, on the other hand, sometimes an excellent idea, but try and keep it to a well honed nursery that is attached to a great garden such as Beth Chatto, Great Dixter or Coton Manor. These are the best kinds of souvenirs.
Herbaceous perennials, after mainly dying down in winter, are easy to divide and move around at different stages in the growing season. Lift an overgrown clump of hardy geraniums, such as Geranium ‘Rozanne’, divide it with a spade, put part of it back and spread other sections around the garden. Instead of paying extra for new plants, the trade-off is that you’ll need to remember to water the transplants. Geraniums flower for months at a time, as do many perennials, such as deep magenta Knautia macedonica, with its pin-cushion heads that are attractive to pollinators and seeds that bring finches into the garden. Other plants have the
advantage of dying gracefully, such as sanguisorba,
eryngium and astrantia, keeping their seed heads through at least the first half of winter.
STRUCTURE AND SHAPE Shrubs provide an interesting canvas when all else is bare
Shrubs have the potential to be exciting because they bring form and character to a garden. You might decide to have clipped topiaries next to free-ranging shapes. You might choose flowering shrubs, such as roses, with herbaceous perennial grasses, all reaching 1.5 metres or more; or you might want to punctuate a flower border with long-needled miniature pine trees ( Pinus mugo is the insider’s choice). You might even use a ribbon of box or a box alternative such as Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Golf Ball’, to give a hint of formality to a loose arrangement of peonies and lilies.
Evergreen shrubs are important in reminding you that your garden does exist, after much of it has disappeared underground during the dark months. Shrubs and trees provide food and lodging for animals; and they also give weight to a garden, sheltering it from the elements.
In establishing a hedge, remember that buying young plants as bare roots (resembling a pack of twigs) will give them a better chance in the long run, with the bonus of being cheaper. Mature shrubs or expensive large trees give instant gratification but they tend to need more care as they adjust to the shock of moving.
As well as plenty of patience, a shrub or tree will need the right amount of space for its eventual size. As its roots respond to the warming earth, it might look completely static, or barely alive, above ground. This could be a good opportunity to put in temporarily gratifying things like annuals, to take pressure off the shrub to do something.
WATCH AND LEARN Every garden has room for a tree
A garden of small trees is easier to look after than a wildflower meadow, yet it offers a similar appeal.
Adding bulbs and perennials in an orchard-like space is a relaxed kind of gardening and creates opportunity for hanging up a hammock. Grass left to grow can be a foil for not only buttercups and daisies but also more interesting plants, such as daffodils, that aren’t the usual bright yellow – try ‘Pheasant’s Eye’ Narcissus
poeticus – or vertical camassia, in mauve or white. Trees blur a garden’s boundaries, mitigating a less attractive view and screening out the neighbours. An amelanchier (or shadbush) is small, with an airy structure and a light canopy; birch and Japanese maple have interesting bark while casting a shade that is more dappled than dense and easy to plant around.
The individuality of tree shapes is a pleasure to watch as they slowly develop. Orchard trees on the other hand will require a bit more patience: a young crab apple may be dwarfed by the wooden pole that supports it.
Try to take pleasure in each stage: a garden planted with small establishing things looks industrious and purposeful. The little crab apple ‘stick’ will flower and fruit anyway.
Patient gardening is not all about virtue: the end game is to be able to relax, but that will only happen if the garden itself is relaxed.