Garden of the Week
This L-shaped plot is still relatively new but already boasts year-round interest and structure
Mike Palmer’s garden is his plant oasis. “Its purpose is to keep me off the streets, which it does! I practically live in my garden. But it’s important to sit down with a glass of chilled white wine occasionally, to enjoy the fruits of your labours.” However, like many gardeners, Mike rarely puts this into practice. “I’ll sit down to relax, then see something that needs doing and I’m up again and off to do it!”
It’s hard to believe this gorgeous L-shaped garden is less than three years old. Mike has created a strong, geometrically designed space with three circular lawns and exuberantly planted, deep borders. Structure and winter interest is provided by box balls, conifers, strategically-planted Pyrus calleryana ‘Redspire’ trees, which also produce fabulous autumn leaf colours, and acers. Perennials with strong colours, including penstemons, dahlias, geraniums and echinaceas, weave around ornamental grasses and tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica).
Year-round colour is enhanced with planters used for summerflowering cosmos and masses of colour-themed tulips in spring.
It’s a far cry from when Mike moved here – it was laid completely to lawn with unsightly conifer hedges all around. He designed and replanted the garden in January 2018, laying out his plan on paper. The structural plants went in first, followed by those providing the main colour themes. “I knew which plants I wanted
to include, in the main colours of purples, blues, pinks and white with splashes of hotter colours.”
Two conifer blocks, created from the existing hedge, are the only original part of the garden left. “But their days are numbered,” says Mike. “They create a lot of dry shade. I can’t plant near them and they need lots of trimming. Once other plants grow up near them, they’re going!”
It’s a high maintenance garden, but that was intentional. “As I’m semi-retired, I wanted to make sure I had something to do,” he explained. “The lush planting and close spacing was also intentional. I like the Chelsea Flower Show look, with everything crammed in close together. I hate seeing bare soil, but love playing with colour, structure, textures and foliage. I also love growing and trying out new plants, and I also trial new plants for companies.”
He blogs about this and other gardening matters at www.mike-palmer.com.
The existing lawn was also removed and replaced with new turf, creating a fabulous foil to the border plants and the rest of the garden, setting them off to perfection. “I’ve never been a ‘lawn person’, but I’ve now become a bit of a slave to it. I’ve always said never spend too much time and money chasing your lawn, but I’ve now chased too much time and too much money on this one! I do leave it to grow a little bit longer in dry weather in summer.”
The greenhouse is crammed with seedlings and young plants in spring. “I love propagating plants, it’s a big part of gardening, so I’m sowing seeds, growing on seedlings and taking cuttings all the time.” A collection of regal pelargoniums
Continues over the page
helps ‘pretty it up’ and in winter it houses Mike’s large collection of dahlias, banana plants and other exotics that need protection. He grows the majority of his dahlias in pots, which are either sunk in the ground or surrounding plants hide the pots. “This way of growing them makes them much easier for overwintering. Just move the pots to the greenhouse!”
In August the garden is full of colour, interest and structure. There’s the myriad purple flowers of Verbena bonariensis mingled among dahlias ‘Nuit d’Eté’, ‘Sam Hopkins’ and ‘Ambition’. Echinacea purpurea and echinacea ‘White Swan’ sit in cosy combination with purple-flowered Aster frikartii ‘Mönch’, red, orange and yellow heleniums and steely blue Eryngium planum. Rising majestically above these dense plantings are groups of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Flamingo’ and bronze fennel.
Being a self-employed gardener, garden designer and graphic designer, Mike loves experimenting with plant combinations. Some of his favourites include rose ‘Princess Anne’ underplanted with geranium ‘Brookside’, Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ and Stachys byzantina, rose ‘Munstead Wood’ underplanted with lavender ‘Hidcote’ and Astrantia major ‘Florence’ along with Alchemilla mollis, and Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Overdam’ underplanted with Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, the white-flowered Jacob's ladder (polemonium) and geranium ‘Rozanne’ with ribbons of Verbena bonariensis threaded in between them. The verbena is allowed to self-seed, but Mike is ruthless removing those plants that grow in the wrong or unsuitable places.
At this time of year, with so many plants to care for, Mike rarely has time to sit down to enjoy his creation. August is all about daily deadheading, weekly feeding (Mike calls it his ‘Friday Feed’) and watering, which during hot spells can mean twice a day for the containers.