Time for a wallflower to blossom once more
As their name suggests, they’re often overlooked, but they’ll offer fine colour in spring if planted now
WHEN I was a nipper living in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, my maternal grandparents lived in a stone terrace house at the bottom end of town near the river.
It was special somehow – the close proximity to the River Wharfe and Middleton Woods imbued it with a kind of magic. It had a front garden that was nothing more than a square of grass (lawn is rather too grand a word) surrounded by a narrow border just a couple of feet wide.
It would have won no prizes in the design stakes, but each May it entranced me for one simple reason – grandad planted his borders with wallflowers.
The names remain with me still: ‘Cloth of Gold’, ‘Vulcan’ and ‘Fire King’. But for all their brilliant colours – bright yellow, orange and rich, deep crimson – it is the fragrance I remember so well. Rich and sweet, a kind of dolly-mixture fragrance, and when your nose is only three feet from the ground the intensity is unforgettable.
Sadly, few bother with wallflowers today, but we should. They are trouble-free plants which, especially when planted with tulips, provide a spring display that has a double whammy of scent and col
our, not provided by tulips alone.
In those far-off days, grandad would raise his wallflowers in rows on the nearby allotment, sowing the seed in May, transplanting the young wallflowers to a wider spacing in July, and then digging them up to plant out in the garden come September and October.
You can sometimes still buy them today in nurseries and garden centres, tied into bundles of 10 or 20. They will look a little sad – even sadder when you have planted them as the leaves will remain wilted and floppy for a week or so. But soaked overnight in a bucket of water, puddled in, and encouraged by mild autumn weather, they will soon pick up and give their all the following April and May. Mostly they are sold as container-grown plants. This avoids all the wilting and the sad appearance, but it does make them more expensive. Whichever state you can find them in, plant them a foot apart and plant your tulips between them afterwards.
Mixed wallflowers are offered more often than single colours, and yet single colours offer the most impact when planted with a contrasting coloured tulip. An edging of forget-me-nots will give the whole planting a feeling of being surrounded by water or sky.
Sadly, few bother with wallflowers today, but we should...