Taking shape: new plants in the front bed
It’s May Bank Holiday. What better than a spot of torrential rain, the odd spatter of hail, and biting winds to make that precious extra day off work feel special? But we have persevered through the weather and gardened all weekend – with spring finally arrived and the blossom in full bloom, just stepping out into such an unloved front garden every morning was leaving me feeling guilty for the rest of the day.
Not that it was completely unloved of course: I’d already dug out one lawn and planted an array of tiny plug plants, but the effect was rather closer to ploughed field than front garden. Those plants have done a decent bit of growing since – the campanulas, in particular, sprouting up over the past couple of weeks – but a cottage garden border should be lush, overflowing with plants and overwhelming with fragrance. And we were nowhere near that point yet.
Now we’re at least a step closer. Our first wave of planting has been joined by a second – the campanula, gypsophila, violas and dwarf lavenders now jostling with taller cottage favourites and some new smaller plants to fill out the front of the bed. Here you can see a large purple and white daisy already in flower (well, I’ve got to have some joy as I step out the door in the morning); two hot pink Penstemon ‘Andenken an Friedrich Hahn’, or Beard Tongue; a good clump of the compact shasta daisy Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Snowcap’ ; white and rose pink lupins beginning to shoot upwards; a handsome great fuschia-pink digitalis; and a marguerite speckled with the first of its white daisy flowers. In amongst the flowers you’ll find sage, thyme and rosemary, with two kinds of honeysuckle already scrambling up the ugly fence. For late spring flowers there’s a Lonicera Japonica Scentsation I couldn’t resist at the garden centre on Saturday, and for summer fragrance a Lonicera Japonica Hall’s Prolific. Both should give interest in the autumn too – the former with red berries, the latter with black.
front bed: obelisk and stepping stones
Under the window, you’ll see that the trellis for our new rose – an old English climber, Gertrude Jekyll (which you might just be able to make out) – has gone up. Six weeks ago, the rose arrived from David Austin as a ball of roots with a little stub of stem out the top; I’ll admit I was sceptical as to whether I’d be able to get it to grow. Now strong, glossy shoots are bursting upwards, and I’m already looking forward to its blooms in a few months time – and their old-rose fragrance. By planting it under the window, I’m hoping I’ll get wafts of fragrance when they’re open in summer.
Also planted for fragrance is a summer jasmine, wound round a wicker obelisk to provide a good bit of height at the back of the border, and a gust of sweet perfume as you leave or enter the house. It’s only been in for a couple of weeks, but already it’s sending out shoots and looking pretty settled. So settled, in fact, that it inspired me to buy a (slightly different) obelisk for the clematis (a Jackmanii Superba) which was looking a bit unhappy winding against the fence.
A couple of hollyhocks (Alcea Rosa) and a border phlox (Phlox paniculata ‘Mount Fuji’) will be on guard during the summer to prevent its roots getting too warm, balanced by a pair of delphiniums in light purple and white on the near side of the border . In front of them sits an Echinacea Purpurea – the purpley/pink coneflower that make my heart sing in late summer when other herbaceaous perennials are past their best – and Salvia × sylvestris ‘Mainacht’, my wildcard plant. I like the idea – big spikes of indigo flowers in summer and a fragrant foliage – but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen it before (or noticed it, at any rate).
So you see now why it was worth working through the rain (and the hail). For a week I’ve been dying to get the beds weeded and planted after my very good friend Nick presented me with some late birthday swag (lupins, delphiuniums and digitalis – what a gift eh?). Seeing everything in and busy establishing itself was just the back-to-work feeling I was hoping for. Oh, and getting those stepping stones laid means nothing in the far corner will be neglected any more (Clematis, I am sorry for earlier).
