Peony

Kelway's stand at Chelsea

gift bunch - 'Coral Charm' (?)

'granny' peony; likely P. officinalis

P. 'Yachiyo-Tsubaki'

P. 'Bowl of Beauty'

A gorgeous gift bunch from Nicola at Cottington inspired me to review peonies. I nipped into the garden to check on ones I've planted. The dark red one is one I divided when I came here 20 years ago. Who knows, maybe it originates when the garden here was re-made in the Edwardian area, the peony heyday. Its autumn foliage makes a crazy colour clash with granny-inherited Nerine and the last few dahlias in a vase.  And 'Bowl of Beauty', which my exquisite taste friend says make her sick (selected by me, admittedly in bud and in haste).  By contrast, the delicate-est pink at the original peony nursery, Kelways. I picked up Claire Austin's catalogue at her beautifully presented stand (camera had run out of battery by this time), which usefully supplemented RHS books and a great article in May's Gardener's Illustrated.  To be included in planting designs. And here's a completely different take on peonies. It would be amazing to come across this on a mountain trek, Paeonia brownii.

Setting out a shady border

You plan, you go to the nursery. At the nursery what you planned doesn't look so good and there's something else of irresistable quality in stock. They have that great plant you never thought of, or that one you've only ever seen a picture of. Wow! You juggle it all in your mind. Drive back, plotting and scheming and crossing your fingers. Your friend commented how tasteful the selection was. Did she mean boring? I wanted it to be full on blowsy!


Then you set it out. Move the pots around. I think it's going to work, it just has to knit together. I have primed the clients to know pot-thick show garden planting isn't practical or good for plants...yay! They like it.
I'll feed back when it's all grown up.

Sarah Eberle's Credit Crunch Garden

The path here generated a great deal of interest at Chelsea this week. I 'manned' the garden one day and fielded a lot of queries about it. The idea is that the owner of this garden is an overdrawn artist, short on money but with lots of time and creativity. She has sourced these walkway grills from a scrap yard for £10 each and used ends of bags of different coloured aggregate (gravel) to fill each square, mosaic-style. London buildings are represented. At the front is the Royal Hospital (site of the Chelsea Flower Show). I also found Battersea Power Station and St Paul's Cathedral, but not the Gherkin!

I like the way this simple design element (the grill) has been used on different levels and planes - for the floor, the steps and decorative panels on the wall to the right. It's great how money has been saved on hard landscaping (I counted 15 grills) leaving more for plants.

I also like the use of herbs and fruit in with mixed planting. There's a vine and a gooseberry bush at the front, borage and woad on the right, and there was also oregano and mint. Productive planting is a good trend and represents a return to the origins of cottage gardening - ornamental and edible together. In the designer's narrative, the artist was selling herbs and berries in an honesty box by the front gate.

This designer normally does far grander gardens but was asked to step in only in March as Flemings from Australia had had to pull out when their nursery had been destroyed in bush fires. http://www.saraheberle.com/