Floral diversions
It isn’t too late for fireworks, as Toby’s new border-control planting project sets his borders ablaze with colour
THE late great Gertrude Jekyll once said, “There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.”
She obviously hadn’t seen my friend Ted’s garden! Its steeply sloping headhigh banks are difficult enough, but what makes them impossible to garden are the pheasants that dig into the dry earth of the incline. Lift any rough turf to plant, and the birds dive in to excavate a dust bath – a feature that grows larger until the hole is plugged and the turf replaced with an ugly cover of chicken wire.
Taming isn’t going to work here, so I’ve taken a leaf from another gardener’s handbook. When asked what he did when his rough grass looked shabby Christopher Lloyd remarked, “I look at something else!”
The art of distraction is a great gardening skill, and in Ted’s case the solution isn’t on the banks but with the borders in front, planted with flowers that hide them when at their worst.
When creating any floral diversion, I always think of fireworks displays. As a rule, Roman candles and rockets spluttering intermittently into the air leave me cold, but when the same pyrotechnics burst into life at the same time, the show is always spectacular!
That’s why I’m not mixing early perennials into the borders, but sticking exclusively to a late palette of flowers and grasses (see the panel below for the rundown). Early phlox and campanula might extend the season, but they’ll also dilute the floral fireworks.
And it’s not as if aster, helenium and grasses have just the one trick. When they’re finished, the spent seedheads catch the frost, and because they’re slow out of the blocks in spring, they make excellent sleeping partners for bulbs. Tulips and daffodils will thrive in their company, planted into the steep slopes of the grassy bank. Even the pheasants won’t kick up a fuss! Perhaps Gertrude was right after all…
“When creating a diversion, I think of fireworks displays”