Seedheads for SHAPE & TEXTURE
Sputniks, pepper pots and silken spiders offer a delightful range of tactile forms
Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ produces its purple orbs in May, a perfect follow-on act for tulips. As the flowers fade the seedheads turn into green and black sputniks and carry on adding their vertical drumstick presence to the border. The trick is to catch them before they cast thousands of tiny black seeds. June-flowering alliums, such as ‘Gladiator’, ‘Globemaster’ and ‘Ambassador’, are sterile so they can be allowed to fade into autumn. Give the stem a tug from time to time until it comes away from the bulb. Shorter June-flowering alliums with lilac f lowers, such a A. cristophii and A. schubertii, produce their own plant sculptures and all these alliums can be dried as long as you pick them before the capsules split. Just hang them upside down. The ridged pepper pots of opium poppies, those tall annuals with greyish leaves, look superb in the vase or border. Linnaeus once calculated that every head contained 40,000 seeds so this is a candidate for my 2-in-10 rule (see page 20), along with nigella (love-in-a-mist). The seed capsules dry well and the feathery foliage and purple-blushed seedcases look lovelier than the flowers. In shady spots hydrangeas can safely be left and their papery heads disintegrate to form a fine tracery as cold weather bites, like flakes of wafer-thin porcelain. Favourite forms include H. paniculata ‘Limelight’ and pure-white ‘Kyushu’. These easy-togrow shade-lovers bear conical heads in August and you can cut and dry them or allow them to slip away as the year ends. Nearby, you could grow honesty (Lunaria annua) for its silvery pennies with seeds encased between two paleparchment discs. Either collect the papery heads or leave them; a few should pop-up and place themselves for next season. Sea hollies thrive in a sunny spot and these tap-rooted beauties have loved this year’s long, hot summer. The perennial forms tend to brown and disintegrate, so use your judgement. The best steely plant sculpture belongs to biennial Miss Willmott’s ghost (Eryngium giganteum). As summer turns into autumn the silvery heads fade to harvest-brown, but snip them off before the thimbles disintegrate because this is an avid self-seeder. It can be dried at the silvery stage, and I leave one or two to drop their seeds where they will. I still have to fight my way through them! One of the most tactile seedheads belongs to a yellow-flowered clematis called ‘Bill MacKenzie’ (see photo on p15). It’s often called ‘the orange peel clematis’ thanks to its thick yellow tepals. The correct form has bright yellow lantern flowers and dark reddish-brown stamens followed by silky, pale green spiders that age to bleached canvas. This vigorous clematis begins to perform in August so cut it back hard in spring. Herbaceous summer-flowering clematis can also be relied on. C. integrifolia ‘Ozawa’s Blue’ scrambles through my pale pink roses to great effect, flowers and silken spiders jostling side by side.
Their papery heads disintegrate… like flakes of wafer-thin porcelain