Honey bush

This gorgeous foliage belongs to the honey bush, Melianthus major. Year after year, I grow it in my garden and, sure enough, year after year it expires.

Admittedly we have had two exceptionally harsh winters, the last of which arrived several weeks early – rather unsporting, I thought. I adore this plant, and have done since we first encountered it in Cornwall, where it grows alongside enormous spires of echiums and other fantastical looking things. I love everything from the dusky, glaucous blue green of its sharply toothed leaves, to the smell of peanuts it gives off when touched; the amazing sight of new foliage unfurling, and the outrageous, dark red flower spike that appear from some admittedly rude-looking buds. In its native South Africa it grows like a weed. (Typically, like so many of my favourite plants, it’s horribly poisonous and will kill you as soon as look at you. Fortunately, the odd smell tends to prevent any animals from even considering munching upon its leaves, and it’s the roots which are the most toxic.) Technically an evergreen perennial, hardiness in our climate is not something with which this plant has been blessed, and protection is really required in order for it to survive anything other than the mildest of winters. Up until the point at which the cold November winds whip it to kingdom come, just before the frost renders each stem a necrotic black, it does exceptionally well in my garden. If I have to grow it as an annual then I will, just to enjoy its presence.

Recently, I’ve been scouting about for a replacement plant, my usual sources not being able to help this year. My search took me to the RHS plantfinder, and from there to the very wonderful Plantbase near Wadhurst where Graham Blunt, the effervescent owner, had not only several specimens of what I sought in stock, but also two other related species (M. comosus and M. villosus), both a little hardier and better suited to our climate.

Graham is evidently a person who knows his subject, belying modest assertions that he’s entirely self taught, eschewing book learning for a more hands-on approach. His nursery is an Aladdin’s Cave for the plant enthusiast, with some truly amazing specimens — as we arrived, he was waxing lyrical about some very evil, spiny-looking solanums, one with bright orange thorns which was very special. We were completely won over by the many echeverias he has — one of which, E. cante (a present from Kew), is truly beautiful and seems to radiate light, but is alas not for sale this year until he has had a chance to propagate from it. I particularly loved the colour and form of the ghost echeverias, Echeveria lilacina – powdery lilac-grey rosettes which seem somehow both architectural and entirely other-worldly. The plants are laid out loosely in terms of habitat – jungle, woodland, alpine, waterside, prairie - and visitors are encouraged to roam, and to ask questions, the answers to which Graham is only too happy to provide. I would thoroughly recommend a visit — we left with our wallets slightly thinner, but with massive smiles on our faces a whole list of plants we will be coming back for.

Did I take the sensible route and opt for the hardier relatives of my precious honey bush? I confess, not. It may well end in tears once more, but at least I’ve found someone who can feed my honey bush habit.

Weed or wildflower?

Mock outrage at Friday evening’s Gardeners World as the very splendid Monty Don refers to Corydalis lutea as a weed. He was speaking of it with affection, so I think he’s excused, though I like to think of it as a wildflower. Granted it has a wondrous faculty for self-seeding, but it rarely has it inserted itself in a position where its presence has done anything other than brighten the immediate environment and, should it do so, it’s not hard to pull out.

I love it for its soft, ferny leaves, which remind me of aquilegias or the maindenhair fern Adiantum capillus-veneris, and yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers. It’s a delightfully unfussy plant, liking the margins of things, and will cope as happily with the shade under a tree or hedge as with a position on a sunny wall, in the cracks of which it frequently stations itself. All it requires is moderate drainage, and a slightly alkaline soil. In the shade, it looks great planted with epimediums and its not-too distant relative Dicentra ‘Ivory Hearts’.

It catches my eye, peering back at me from under the pyracantha hedge opposite the kitchen window. Company for when I’m doing the washing up.

Hampton Court Flower Show

Lots of really inspirational gardens and some wonderful plantsmanship in evidence at Hampton Court this year!

We loved the planting and the restrained colour palette in Charlotte Murrell’s Wild in the City garden for Wyevale East Nurseries, and her use of green oak posts and cut logs to form panels for the wall. Another breathtaking site was the amazing hedge on the Heathers in Harmony garden (shown here). It’s a modular vertical planting system (all the rage at the moment) with different heathers providing a tapestry effect. A deserving gold medal winner for designer William Quarmby.

Notable trends across the show included Grow Your Own (still going strong), sustainability, naturalistic planting for wildlife, and vertical gardens! Great stuff.

See our Facebook page for more comments and pictures from the show.

Telling tales

I’m beginning to suspect that the most successful people in any walk of life are the ones who tell the best stories. We all love a good story. It seems to be hard-wired into us in infancy, and we never lose that childlike trust to place ourselves in the hands of the storyteller and allow ourselves to be taken on a journey to an unknown destination. And who doesn’t still feel cheated on those occasions where the ending is given away before its alloted time? I think we all derive deep satisfaction from progressive revelation, and I’ve noticed this is something which the best gardens use to their advantage.

Think about it. In isolation, an open field is a pretty uninspiring thing. Leaving aside what it may have to tell us with its history or ecology, it’s a fairly passive, open, usually green space. Put a house on it, and it starts to get interesting. Enclose it, with hedges, walls or a fence, and a dialogue begins between the house, its garden, and that which lies beyond.

But I don’t believe many of us are really happy to leave things here. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something slightly depressing about standing outside your back door and being able to take in three fences in one glance; although, on moving into a new home, it may sometimes be necessary to strip away the layers of random ghastliness bequeathed to you by the previous owners, just to be able to see what you have to work with. Once we know where our garden begins and ends, we don’t want to be constantly reminded of its limits. At some point, I think most of us have a need to put some mystery back.

“A garden revealed all at once is like a story told before it is started”, writes Dan Pearson, in his book Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. I don’t think he’s describing a wish to create a network of “garden rooms”, partitioned from one another by brick walls or dense evergreen hedging. Rather, I think he identifies a need for some mechanism by which we can obfuscate the limits of our outdoor space, by distracting the eye and drawing a veil over the reality of its boundaries. And it’s a strange phenomenon that the less we have in our gardens, the smaller they can appear. Our fences and walls are the covers of the storybook; we have the opportunity to arrange organic and non-organic materials to compose the details of the narrative within.

There’s a magical moment in the gardens at Sissinghurst when, emerging through a gap in the hedge which runs parallel to the Lime Walk, you find yourself facing open fields. It’s totally disorientating – standing with your back to the garden, you are transported to another world, rooted in the middle of the Kentish landscape, being examined quizzically by a sheep. You’ve stepped beyond the book covers, and all you’ve just experienced seems strangely fuzzy, like trying to grasp the details of a dream on waking. Surely, this pastoral scene, unchanged for centuries, is reality? An about turn, and you’re through the hedge again and, through some kind of wizardry, back in the story.