Sunday 18 November 2012

Europe's shortest herbaceous border

Hours spent gardening: 6
Plants purchased: 0
Hours awake all night coughing: 12 (have man 'flu)
Plants divided: 7
Bulbs planted: 254
Sycamore leaves collected: 5231





It's that time of year when gardeners go dormant like perennials and ease themselves into an armchair with a pile of seed catalogues to hand.  I had been planning to redesign the back bed (formerly known as the veg patch) and suddenly realised we were cruising towards late November without having given it a second thought.  The original plan had been to recreate something inspired by a visit to The Broadwalk Herbaceous Border at Hampton Court last year (Europe's longest herbaceous border at 580 metres).  I've been dreaming all year about foxgloves and irises interspersed with allium heads nodding in the breeze, the whole thing held together by silver foliage and towers of sweet peas ready to burst into bloom.  You know the kind of thing I mean.  As I type this, I realise how ludicrous this is given that the border I am dealing with is 2 metres long and partially in shade.  It seems logical to call it The Short Border from now on.  Since my original plans, the recession has put a damper on frivolous spending habits in London's chi-chi garden centres.  This could actually be a good thing in my horticultural evolution.  I can see from other blogs that real gardeners are busy propagating, taking cuttings, growing things from seed and making everything go further with plant division.  Only city types are whiling away Sundays in the plant equivalent of Harvey Nichols, where the customers think that agastache are people who make 'eyewear' and compost is a nightclub on the Dalston fringe.  Times are hard and I will just have to grow my own.


The Broadwalk Border, Hampton Court Palace.  Taken in May (obviously)

Irises at Hampton Court, something to aspire to

A close up of those alliums

Unfortunately, what was missing from the new thrifty revolution was planning.  I've read the books on planting plans.  I've got a little compass in order to draw the expected diameter of plants, bought the plant encyclopaedia with what goes where and even have an app so that you can point your ipad around the garden and it will tell you what to plant.  So did I make a planting plan?  Reader, I did not.

What actually happened was this.  In the midst of some carefully planned bulb planting activity, I realised winter was almost upon us and I must act now if the Short Border was to be anything in time for next year.  A selection of random bulbs went in following by some foxglove seedlings that had, as usual, been neglected and were bursting out of their posts.  Some had to be discarded due to a coating of white mold.  Then came a frenzy of plant division reminiscent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  (Things were not helped by the fact that Le Photographe has broken my spade.)  A geranium phaeum was torn into pieces, a hosta Frances Williams pulled apart and stuffed carelessly in the most slug prone part of the garden. A grass was ripped into shreds leaving blades of grass scattered as if attacked by a combine harvester.   A mixed pack of iris bulbs were poked in in an unpredictable rash of colours including yellow (normally banned from my colour pallet, daffodils excepted) and alliums went into the shade without a thought as to whether they could actually grow.  A lack of markers has rendered the bulbs vulnerable to the reckless and over enthusiastic gardener who is prone to going in and digging up areas she has forgotten have been planted.  Squirrels, foxes and cats roam on the area, routing for bulbs or simply welcoming the open and freshly turned ground to be used as their personal toileting area or as a dining area for those who believe bulbs are edible.

Images of The Short Border are available but are unsuitable for readers under 18.


Cyclamens and Cineraria, Hackney November 2012

14 comments:

  1. Your statistics show that you've had a lot of action! That coughing thing isn't so nice. Let's hope you'll get better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Sadun. Working at home today in my pyjamas to recover. I have a direct view of the garden which is a nice way to work although about 20 more leaves have dropped since I started typing this reply! Le Photographe has been asked to cut some branches off the sycamore this winter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I spent this weekend repotting cuttings that I took quite some time ago that were bursting out of their pots. Dark evenings plus a the bab to look after at weekends do not make for a lot of gardening time...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it must be cold and dark up there! I was in Stewart Park two weeks ago which had better trees than an arboretum I went to on the same weekend. Cuttings are a topic for another day.

      Delete
  4. You gave me a good laugh, thank you. Planning?!? So that's how it's done? I very much admire the sophistication and knowledge of UK gardeners, but have decided it must be a bit of a burden as well. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ha ha, Hoover Boo, I wonder how much planning really goes on or are we all just muddling along and shoving things in the gaps. Perhaps our famous garden designer Cleve West thinks "oh no, it's Chelsea Flower Show next week" and goes into a frenzy of clipping box balls and buying up floaty perennials in a last minute panic. The pretence at planning is just a charade to impress his public....

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is so funny!! Just today I stuffed a plant into a spot that will probably heave it out as soon as we have a freeze. I make plans and then go out and don't follow any of them. I have yet to figure out how to make a cutting grow, except for sedum, which only need to be stuffed into a pot to grow roots. They may soon be the only plant in my garden. :o)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmm, I might try that with my sedums. Seriously, I do need help with cuttings, they never work. Do you think it's because I put them in home made compost or does cuttings compost really make a difference?

      Delete
  7. Hilarious! And so familiar. Its not that I don't spend an enonorous amount of time thinking and planning. I do. I am just prone to suddenly acting without much thought due to a fit of impatience and a sudden yen for action. This may be why I frequently find myself moving plants. Sometimes mere hours after first planting them. In my defence, pretty much the same thing happens when I have plotted and planned and atually followed said plan. Can't wait to see it burst into life next Spring. I bet there will be bits of it you absolutely love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well! Janet, you've made my gardening afternoon seem like a huge success executed with knife-like precision as at least everything is still in the first place it was moved to. The self-doubt did start creeping in but it gets dark early and I start thinking about wine...

      Delete
  8. Oh Claire as ususal you sound like me. I will send good thoughts for that cough and garden. Too funny!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks Donna, I am feeling better!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Claire - that's hilarious! I hope your short border does well. I am always very meticulous about my planting schemes, I carefully decide which plants I want where, how many and what size. I take into account the colour, flower, foliage and all manner of qualities in order to produce an arresting border with year round colour and appeal and that also happens to be utterly free of maintenance. Then I stop dreaming, go outside, see what I've got that's desperate to get out of its pot and plonk it in the ground in a space between the weeds.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I read most of your comment thinking you were deadly serious and without a bone of irony in your body. I breathed a sigh of relief at the last sentence.

    ReplyDelete