Val Bourne: don’t put the whole garden to bed in autumn, says Val
Don’t put the whole garden to bed in autumn, says Val
I’VE learnt a lot since I began making gardens some 50 years ago, and I cringe at some of my mistakes! I made a narrow crescent and planted 12 different hybrid tea roses in a variety of bilious colours. They were all different heights and they all flowered at slightly different times, so they looked awful. There was no space around them to plant anything except for an edging of white alyssum and blue lobelia. The alyssum and lobelia both packed up quickly, although there are better longflowering lobelia to be had today.
It taught me that 12 of the same rose would have looked far better and never to plant upright hybrid teas in a narrow bed again. I also try to avoid pink and yellow, ever since I planted a goldenleaved ivy with a cool-pink Clematis
montana – a mistake that stared me in the face for several years before I finally moved house and left some other poor soul with it.
However, the one thing I have done well over the years is to put plants in the place where they’re happiest. Aromatic plants go in full sun, woodlanders get shade, and autumn grasses and taller perennials get afternoon sunshine. I have always avoided the border that gives you something throughout the year, because while something else is thriving another thing is going over.
Having plants in the correct place is easier to maintain. I’ve already tidied my woodland border because it’s in the middle of coming back to life to make winter and next spring glorious. Any day now I shall tackle the rose and peony beds, and cut away the shabby summerflowering froth and take the top growth out of the roses. By December it will have been denuded, apart from the box balls and the penstemons. The penstemons may look ragged, but they need their top growth for winter protection. Proper rose pruning is a New Year affair.
I don’t put the whole garden to bed, though. The autumn border of stiffstemmed perennials and tall grasses will be left to catch the frost, as will many Mediterranean plants close to the house. The seedheads and nooks and crannies will serve as hibernation hotels for lots of different creatures.
I’m reminded of writing The Winter
Garden in 2004. I was moving house to Spring Cottage and wanted to collect the seedheads from my old garden and describe them. I had several phlomis and picked one head of each on a cold frosty day. Once inside on a tray, I set about describing their pepper-pot personalities, but the warmth of the room encouraged lots of overwintering insects to emerge. I found myself scurrying back and forth to release them into the garden.
I had no idea that those seedheads were sheltering so many tiny creatures, although I think the wrens know. They frisk the autumn border most days at the moment, looking for tasty morsels among the stems. The variegated pampas grass Cortaderia selloana
‘Silver Feather’ will no doubt be sheltering a hibernating hedgehog or two. It’s glorious this year, helped by spring heat and plenty of summer rainfall. I might have preferred that combination the other way round.
Many grasses tend to disintegrate early, but the flowering heads of
Miscanthus sinensis keep their shape and add movement. They gradually become more translucent as winter reduces the awns and they provide a gossamer veil at this time of year. And November needs all the help it can get! It is without doubt the garden’s nadir and generally the grimmest month of all.
The sun is so low now that it’s picking up every detail. Some readers will no doubt notice particles of dust indoors on surfaces and in the air. They may feel a sense of failure at the amount of dust, but there’s just as much dust around for the rest of the year – we only notice it more now because of low light slanting through. It’s the same in the garden, when colours deepen and minute details show.
“November needs all the help it can get”