Surprise & delight
Explore the joys of a partly uncontrolled garden by cultivating a few self-sowers, interminglers and ‘resprouters’, writes MICHAEL McCOY
Cultivate an element of spontaneity in the garden with some self-sowers, interminglers and resprouters
Total control in a garden may be convenient, but it’s also joyless. It’s not that control isn’t rewarding – there’s huge satisfaction in standing back and gazing after you’ve mown the lawn and clipped the hedges but satisfaction is all you get. The reward is measured out or withheld to the extent that your management meets your expectations.
But I want my garden to break free of my expectations and, as often as possible, exceed them. What I’m seeking from it, more than anything else, is surprise, delight and wonder. And while nearly all gardens are likely to present you with doses of these intangible but hugely desirable outcomes, I want to drown in them! In order to do that, it’s worth literally cultivating them.
Here are a few plant types that you can add to your garden for that frisson of unpredictability, releasing nature to show you that she knows best.
self-sowers
There is no better way to introduce a degree of spontaneity to your garden than by growing annuals that are capable of self-sowing. Each December, my garden is flushed with Flanders poppies, and in January, hovering with flat plates of Queen Anne’s lace (Ammi majus). Not knowing exactly where they’re going to pop up is a large part of the fun.
In neither case, as with my other great self-sower, the irreplaceable white lace flower (Orlaya grandiflora), can I just let these plants have their head. All need a bit of reining in. But that’s easy enough: simply rip up the excess plants while they’re young. You get a much better and longer show out of fewer plants grown well than with many jostling about, shoulder to shoulder, so thinning is well worthwhile.
The great enemy of self-sowing is, of course, mulching, which is otherwise unquestionably good practice for moisture retention and weed control. At Great Dixter in the UK, they’ve started experimenting with differential mulching. They mulch in all the tight spots between plants to discourage other plants from coming up, but leave some areas free of mulch or lightly mulched to allow germination of self-sowers. I’ll explore this idea fully when I’m reincarnated as someone slightly more organised. Meanwhile, how about you give it a go, and let us know how it works?
The list of self-sowers for your garden may be different to mine, being heavily dependent on rainfall and temperature range. Walking the ’burbs in your area or visiting local gardens is the best way to discover what will work for you. It’s also
worth being cautious about introducing plants that may escape from the garden into surrounding farmland or bushland.
interminglers
Control freaks hate the idea of plants intermingling. That makes me love the idea, and plants that can achieve it, even more. What I’m referring to is the effect achieved by that small number of annuals or perennials whose above-ground parts (not roots) like to spread about, sending out feelers to climb, ramble or scramble through surrounding planting, without competing with or, at worst, composting them. The great thing is you never quite know where they’re going to appear, or how they’ll go about their inveigling.
The multi-award-winning Geranium ‘Rozanne’ is great at this. Plants in its immediate vicinity might be muscled out of the way, but those one step beyond will be used as trellis, over which it will fling its far-reaching fingers, and then its mauve saucers. Nasturtiums behave similarly, but want a host with some heft if they’re not to bring it down. Their lily-pad leaves and jewel-like flowers never look better than when poking up through some shrub.
Avens (Geum spp.) don’t run or climb, but their long, almost leafless flower stems lounge about prettily in the surrounding planting, often looking like they’re arising from some other plant altogether.
Perhaps the easiest and cheapest of all interminglers to access is the spreading petunia. It doesn’t have a particular varietal name but is sold in punnets or four-packs with a label indicating that it’s capable of spreading to 1m or more. It’s otherwise