Things grow better when the garden plot thickens

WHAT’S your idea of the perfect plot?

Mine is a sunny, sheltered spot where I can tempt tender plants to flourish, preferably somewhere the spring blossom gets a chance to open without being blasted by frosts and gales and where the soil is dark and crumbly and produces tasty veg.

But these idyllic conditions aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

I know one distinguished plantswoman who bought her home because the back garden plummeted down a precipitous slope, creating the ideal conditions for her alpine flowers. And another who fell in love with her exposed garden on the edge of the Grampians as it provides a home-fromhome for her hardy auriculas.

One of the most beautiful gardens I’ve visited is surrounded by mature trees that, for much of the year, create deep shade.

Its owners saw the opportunity to create a spectacular seasonal effect, so they’ve concentrated their efforts on spring, with astonishing results.

Here, snowdrops and crocuses are just the overture and what comes next is a dazzling display of scillas and puschkinias, rare kinds of fritillaries, dog’s tooth violets and wake robins from the woodlands of North America, native bluebells and primroses from closer to home and candelabra primulas from Asia.

Once the canopy starts to close, the show is all but over and ferns and other shadelovers take over for summer, but the memory of all those glorious flowers persists long after the garden has turned into a green, leafy glade.

In the autumn the leaves are gathered and stacked for leafmould, which over the years has created the sort of humous-rich, free-draining soil that encourages the plants to flourish, and every year new bulbs are added and congested clumps of primulas are split up, so the garden is constantly being reinvigorated.

Most people have a shady spot in the garden where they could create something similar, if not on the same scale.

Underplanting deciduous shrubs is an easy way to achieve the same sort of effect and many spring flowers will grow happily amongst perennials, dying down just as their neighbours start to spread their foliage.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years, using primulas and hellebores to brighten the early months and adding small bulbs wherever the texture of my heavy clay soil is showing signs of responding to my regular applications of mulch.

At last these efforts are beginning to pay dividends and early spring is fast becoming one of my favourite seasons.

And let’s face it, it’s now, when the sky is leaden and rain turns frequently to sleet, that the sight of small irises, hardy cyclamen and tiny narcissi can really cheer us up.

So it’s worth finding space for these jewel-like flowers, even a pot by the front door or in a window box where you can enjoy them on the coldest day.