Little can be lovely . . . but bigger is beautiful

OFthe many new plants crammed into my garden this year, none has performed like the Verbena bonariensis.

It has soared to six feet in height and produced countless clusters of tiny flowers on top of its wiry stems.

The bees love it and so do I and I’m now hoping the young plants, grown from cuttings in early summer, will also flourish.

Next year I plan to grow it with fennel so I can enjoy the contrast between the fennel’s acid yellow flowers and the purple of the verbena.

Fennel of course is another tall perennial, which is one of the reasons I love it – I’ve yet to find a giant plant I can resist.

I can’t ever remember being tempted by a plant described as “dwarf” or “suitable for the smaller garden”. Instead, I hunt through seed and nursery catalogues in search of specimens classified as “ideal for the back of the border” and fall in love with them when I find them.

The results are always dramatic, but not always practical.

In one previous garden the postman threatened to return with a machete and hack his way to the front door when he found his way barred by stalks and tendrils.

After a heavy downpour or summer storm, tall flowers can slump like drunks in a bar room brawl, and there’s not much you can do to right a Russian Giant sunflower once it’s hit the skids.

But even when they are flopping onto the path and tripping up the Tesco delivery man, I find big plants irresistible.

I’m seriously thinking of planting cardoons, which are like artichokes but twice as big – and can picture them partnered with Veronicastrum virginicum, which produces airy stems of lilac flowers that easily top the six foot mark.

I’m not aiming to create a jungle (I’d need cannas and bananas and they are just too tropical in appearance) but I think I must be trying to recapture that moment when, as a child, I first fell in love with plants.

Then, everything seemed big, from the rhubarb stems in my grandfather’s garden to the rose tree I played at my grandmother’s house.

There’s something magical about being surrounded by flowers that tower over your head and the daddy of them all is Giant Gunnera.

Plant in a boggy patch in your garden and watch it soar. The leaves are so huge you can take shelter under them if it rains.

Big plants have a dynamic effect on small gardens. Somehow they make the space bigger, even if you have to elbow them aside to reach the shed, whereas small, neat specimens in the same space can appear fussy.

But them I’m not a neat gardener. I’ve got no issue with leaves on the path or daisies in the lawn. I like my garden best that moment before the plants run riot.

Of course from there it’s just a short step to chaos, which is when I have to wade in and reassert control with secateurs and a spade.