Herbaceous perennials in Winter

Metallic shades of ghosts of plants in the low winter sun.
Echinacea, copper in foreground
Perovskia 'Blue Spire' irridescent white like magnesium in upright bunch far left (great blue flower spikes in summer)
Eryngium giganteum 'Miss Willmott's Ghost' spiky silver to the right
Phlomis bronze button seedheads, back left
Spun gold of dried grass (battered Calamagrostis?), back right
Piet Oudolf borders at RHS Wisley.

Winter Seedheads

There is plenty of interest in the predominantly herbaceous planting around the Millennium glasshouse at the Royal Horticultural Society's grounds at Wisley, Surrey, UK.  January 2nd  was cold and clear, the sky amazing. So, with a kid's eye view I took these views of seed heads. There is not an over-abundance of plant labels, which is ok.  (l-r)

Miscanthus sinensis  'Yakushima Dwarf' (probably)

Cynara cardunculus (globe artichoke, not sure if this is a varietal form)

Eryngium (not giganteum, because too tall -c. 2m - and basal rosette still quite green and fleshy)

These herbaceous perennials give good architectural form from mid-summer on.  They remain most attractive features in mid-winter.  Can't wait to use them in planting schemes!

Form and texture - winter update

Here are the same plantings in winter.  I like the way the Stipa plants have rhythm in the breeze.  You can see the dried Achillea heads.  The Eremurus have long been taken in, no doubt.The shape of the oaks is so pleasing. Later, in the winter dusk, the silhouettes of boundary oaks at the Wisley site gave such a show with the gradated pink sky behind them.  This was far more affecting than the staged 'Lumiere' lighting display put on to attract visitors.

The Hakonechloa has dried robustly, whispering, and the leaves in the beech (hornbeam?) columns rattle.  This view evidences the rhythm of the planting. I am still mystified by the choice of Sarcocca patches (see the dip in the grass).  The plants look very healthy ( I had wondered about the full sun location in the summer) but the combination of the bottle green foliage colour next to the coppery grass didn't feel so good.

Form and Texture - Two more from Tom Stuart-Smith at Wisley

This great green block of planting inspires me to really go for leaf texture. It also reminds me to have the courage to show restraint in the number of plants in a scheme. There are the designer's signature columns providing structure (here, not quite evergreen, as they are beech, but the brown leaves will remain through winter), and allowed to go straggly. The Allium seedheads almost look better, I bet, than when they were a haze of purple balls floating above the swishy waves of grass. I am not sure what grass this is or what its flowers will look like. I'll just have to go back. This apparently simple planting creates a powerful genius loci, or spirit of the place, outside the new glass house.


This small composition is also thrilling: spikes of Eremurus, floating plates of Achillea, a fan of Iris, and a haze of Stipa tenuissima.










Update: the grass is Hakonechloa macra, Japanese Forest Grass, which is often grown in its variegated form, 'Aureola'. T S-S apparently won't use variegated forms, though I have been told that some imp did sneak in one of the vulgar yellow-striped miscreants.

Sweet peas

The scent of sweet peas is spicy and exotic - really heady, especially in the evening. The colour and texture of the petals is like oriental silk. Sweet peas hide under a reputation of belonging to Victorian ladies, but they're a full-on sensual treat.These are from a mixed packet by Thompson and Morgan called 'Elegant Ladies - highly fragrant heirlooms'. Half the plants look to be 'Matucana': bi-coloured flowers with blueish-purple wing petals and reddish-purple flags or standards (the two petals that stand up at the back of the flower).This variety is
particularly fragrant and free-flowering. It's thought to be an old one, close to the species, that was somehow naturalised in Peru (Matucana is a town there) and brought back by a Jesuit monk to Europe. Lathyrus odoratus originates in Italy, including Sicily.

There are many sweet pea cultivars with frilly edges, for instance, in a range of gorgeous colours (whites, pinks, blues, purples). My white ones are in a separate vase - they have a simple elegance that is entrancing.

Growing. Without a green house or a decent coldframe I can't sow sweet peas in October to get early blooms. I sow mine in April indoors and plant out mid-May. If you soak the seeds overnight, they don't take long to germinate. The seedlings get tall and floppy so I put them out, even though it seems to check their growth for a couple of weeks. This year I had some pea-sticks from a Surrey coppicer and placed these against a wigwam of canes. I also put in some climbing French beans which will have lilac flowers. Anyway, they were flowering by mid-summer's eve, which is good enough. They are half way up the wigwam and I am cutting regularly to keep more flowers coming. Once the flowers set seed the plant stops making new flowers. I hope to show you the wigwam in full glory next month.

Psychedelic Prairie Planting at RHS Bicentenary Glasshouse, Wisley, Surrey, UK

I urge you to get to Wisley within the month to see the most mouth-watering sweet shop planting. My little camera cannot do the colours and the space justice.

Do not look left or right once you enter the garden but head straight for the Bicentenary glasshouse. Walk straight through and out the back to James Hitchmough's seeded prarie planting, and to Tom Stuart-Smith's herbaceous perennial planting.

Yellow fox-tail lily (Eremurus), and acid orange red hot poker (Kniphhofia); hot pink carthusian pink (Dianthus carthusianorum) - wowee!

Update January 2010: here is the prairie planting in January.

Garden Barge Square - garden on the Thames

This is a house boat community on the Thames, not half a mile from Tower Bridge. The Dutch barges have been planted for the exposed conditions using deep containers. There is a unified planting scheme including light trees (Robinia pseudacacia, Birch and apple varieties) grasses, shrubs and annuals.

This is a really exciting garden. You enter the wharf through a tiny portal in a wall, and then there is this whole other world below you, down a gangplank shifting in the river swell. What's a garden doing here, fruit and roses, so close to the City?! This is the area where spices, tea and other goods from the east were docked. There's a sense of dark history and transgression, even on a gloriously sunny mid-summer day.

Please follow the link and click on the slideshow icon top left in the toolbar. You can regulate the pace of the slideshow yourself and turn on or off the comments.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Vivekagarden/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLhz4_9-YGO9QE&feat=directlink

Unfortunately this garden is open to the public only once a year, so bookmark this link and put it in your diary for next summer http://www.opensquares.org/

Leaf colour and texture - Melinda's garden

These textures and colours ZING!

Golden Hop (Humulus lupulus 'Aureus')

Black elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'Eva')I think...let me know, Melinda!

Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutifolia 'Overdam')

...and something interestingly glaucous front right.

Melinda's a garden designer and a design tutor. She knows what she's doing. She opened her garden under the National Garden Scheme, http://www.ngs.org.uk/. Below, you can see her husband taking entry money, the blue of his shirt setting off the yellow Choysia (shrub) behind him, and the frosted lime green of feather grass (Stipa tenuisssima) in the path. Stipa self-sows freely, as does the Nigella, little specks of blue flowers in the foreground. She 'edits' what pops up each year (that was the term of another garden visitor). Another tip to store away for the future is the paint colour for the fence. It sets off the palette Melinda has chosen really well.

Kate's garden

Kate opened her garden as a member of Lambeth Horticultural Society, http://www.lambethhorticulturalsociety.org.uk/. It's a wildlife garden. This amazing insect city was built by her son using some pieces of his iron sculpture work, bricks and sticks. There's also a pond, a meadow cut in a paisley shape and raised veg beds with diagonal rows. Kate really has green fingers and a good sense of design. There are four or five places to sit and study her planting choices. So many to choose from but I particuluarly liked this unusual, delicate cut-leaved rheum (below) which echoes the acer behind, with insect-magnet valerian (Centranthus ruber).

Trug shots

I was given this trug a long time ago (it had a ring in a box in it , ah). Anyway, I've only just started using it and it is perfect for going to and fro the allotment - seedlings on the way out and produce on the way back.