Kapiti Coast
One of the most appealing things about growing a few plants in pots is the way they can be used for contrast in the garden.
Julian Matthews’ ideas for pots.
Iwas reminded of this when we visited Hunting Brook Gardens near Dublin last year. Owner Jimi Blake, who is one of the younger breed of accomplished and adventurous gardeners, uses distinctive plants in pots almost as exclamation marks, stopping visitors in their tracks. A handsome container of succulents and cactus was an example of this, contrasting strikingly with the lush plants in the surrounding garden.
A great advantage of succulents (and cacti) in pots is that they are very tolerant of neglect, carrying on when watering is neglected, unlike so many plants in pots which will go backwards or die if regular and thorough watering is overlooked.
Jimi’s intriguing approach to making a modern, idiosyncratic, artistic garden full of striking and unusual plants with the emphasis on foliage is captured in his new book A Beautiful Obsession (go to the website huntingbrook.com for details and photos of the garden).
If planning a visit to Dublin, Jimi’s garden is a must-see, as is the beautiful garden of his sister June Blake, just down the road.
Jimi’s friend Helen Dillon also has innovative ideas for growing plants in pots.
I mentioned her new Dublin garden in my last column in December; when we visited she was growing white cosmos in metal rubbish bins which looked surprisingly good tucked up with our New Zealand native Chionochloa flavicans and would have been easy on the budget.
Helen also had a potted specimen of Polygala grandiflora in a pot, which was intriguing to me as I’ve never particularly liked this small shrub with its purple pea-shape flowers when I’ve seen it in gardens, but in the container it took on a whole new look. Mind you, the accompanying potted grey foliage agave helped, its shape creating contrast and the grey colour toning down the purple.
Helen’s roses were inspiring, especially those she had resorted to growing outside the property between the high stone walls of the garden and the footpath.
When I voiced my admiration, I set a trap for myself. Helen asked, “How many roses do you have in your garden?” I had to hang my head and answer “None!”
But, thanks to her example, I now have two, chosen for the part they play in my high colour summer garden. They are both English roses, the deep red ‘Darcey Bussell’ and the reddish-black ‘Munstead Wood’, and they have made a pleasing combination with dark foliage, red and deep purple single-flowered dahlias and Summer Series alstroemerias, of which the tall-stemmed ‘Indian Summer’ with its glowing orange and deep yellow flowers was the most spectacular. It was also the longest flowering alstroemeria in the garden, starting in spring and continuing without pause until late autumn.
As with all alstroemerias, the long flowering is encouraged by pulling (not cutting) the stems once the last flower has fallen.
Some gardeners are convinced that these new alstroemerias have the bad habit of their old time relations which tended to spread rapidly through the garden. This colonisation tendency seems to have been bred out of the new ones, certainly in the case of those I have grown.
I grow the evergreen, compact Japanese grass Acorus ‘Ogon’ in several places in the garden.
I appreciate it for the way the narrow yellow foliage is both attractive and so close knit that it prevents weed growth.
There’s a lovely cream and green variegated foliage variety too.
Both plants are very easily propagated by division in winter or spring and whole clumps can be dug up and moved into a different position in the garden if a change of scene is required.
The intriguing thing about this plant is that it grows as easily in average garden soil as it does in wet soils or submerged in a garden pond.
A couple of years ago, I dug out clumps of both acorus varieties and simply dropped them into my good-sized pond as I was wanting to bring a more natural, wildlife sanctuary feel to its formal design. I also wanted to be able to ignore the fact that mud was building up on the concrete floor of the pond as cleaning was becoming too difficult. The result has been pleasing, the grasses looking stunning over summer with the foliage of the weeping Japanese maples at the pond’s corners and the goldfish have a happy time leaping into and wriggling out of the foliage. ✤