The modern border (Filed: 09/06/2001)
In the second part of our series on perfect borders, Mary Keen expains how to achieve contemporary, prairie-style planting
Border plants for sunny spots
Border plants for shady spots
A GREAT deal of space is used by modern planting and it relies on repetition for its effect: think meadow, rather than border. Fewer plants are used than in traditional schemes, and the same shapes appear again and again. The peak moment is late summer.
How to get the look
The great apostle of the New European natural gardening movement is Piet Oudolf. Light, movement, texture and year-round effect are more important to him than colour. He keeps maintenance to a minimum - no watering, no feeding and no staking - which means that choosing the right conditions for plants is vital.
This is also the approach that Beth Chatto has always preached. A visit to her garden, or to Bury Court in Hampshire, home of Green Farm Plants, where Piet Oudolf worked on the garden with John Coke, will give you a look at the kind of naturalistic borders that are now fashionable. Both places sell wonderful plants.
New European gardens tend to be tall, and they move with the wind, so grasses are always a first choice. They make any border look light and airy. Admittedly, they can look bedraggled and soggy under English skies. In a continental winter, rimed with frost, they look like something from a Christmas card.
The sample plans this week are perhaps on the small side, but think of them as building blocks; if you have space, repeat the scheme several times.
Sometimes I have suggested an alternative plant that might suit your conditions better than the first choice. Sun and shade cover broad categories; what you plant will also depend on how wet or dry your soil is.
Neither of these borders will be showy and colourful as a bedding scheme might be, but they will look relaxed and easy. Natural, in fact.
Sun
Miscanthus sinensis 'Flamingo' provides a strong vertical silhouette in late spring, but when its silvery pink flowers appear in July, you can see why people rave about grasses. The brown stems and plumes will stand all winter. M. 'Gracillimus' has much narrower leaves and fades to ash blond in cold weather.
Domes are another important shape. The purple salvia - looking like giant lavender - will provide a foil to other vertical plants for months. Among the sword-leaved plants, Iris pallida dalmatica looks perfect with the salvia and is the best iris for keeping its blue-grey leaves fresh all summer. It likes a hot, dry place and will not stand being crowded. Kniphofia 'Green Jade' will not flower at the same time as the salvia, but it is lovely late in the year.
Plants that carry their flowers like salvers provide another important change of shape. Achilleas (or yarrow) are meadow plants. Anthea is a good creamy yellow form that lasts a long time.
Circular and globular flowers are also favourite shapes, and dabs of colour are provided by eryngiums, monardas, asters and the marjoram 'Hopleys'. For dry places, choose the sea holly (Eryngium giganteum, familiarly known as Miss Willmott's ghost) with its steely blue thistles. This is a biennial, but it self-seeds where it is happy. On wet soils, the bergamot (monarda) would be better value, with purple flowers and long-lasting bracts.
The newer monardas, with names that suggest Red Indians, do not suffer from mildew as some of the old forms did. Where there is room for another tall plant - perhaps if you abandon the eryngium - add Veronicastrum roseum, which is an unusual plant with pink flowers on stiff spires.
Last in the year will be the little aster 'Horizontalis'. It grows in tiers, so even before its small, pinky white daisies appear, it is a pleasure to see. When all the flowers have faded, leave their seedheads. The birds will enjoy them and they will furnish the garden in winter. If it all seems too brown, console yourself with the thought that it is easier to cut down a border in spring than in autumn, and learn to look at the garden in a European way.
Shade
Grasses also appear in the scheme for semi-shade, and the two varieties chosen will both flower early. The reed grass 'Karl Forster' survives in any kind of soil and has upright flowers that last all summer. Bowles' Golden Grass (Milium effusum 'Aureum') is as graceful as 'Karl Forster' is stiff. It makes pools of sun in dark places. Carol Klein always uses it on her beautiful Chelsea stands.
The pink cow parsley (Chareophyllum) is an early plant that turns green as it fades. It seeds a bit, but you can pull out those in the wrong places.
Valerian (Centranthus) grows anywhere and produces tight round flowers for months. I like the dark red form - touches of red can lighten this sort of scheme - but white is pretty in shade and some people may prefer it. The one to avoid is the muddy pink version. Valerian is another self-seeder, so control will have to be exercised. It flowers better if you cut it back occasionally, which will help subdue the progeny.
The double meadowsweet (Filipendula) has ferny leaves and creamy plumes that sway in the wind. Put it near plants that look firmly anchored - such as the spiky evergreen native iris, with its yellow berries, or another sword-shaped evergreen, the liriope, which has dark purple flowers arranged in columns late in the year.
Special effects are provided by the beautiful large meadow rue (Thalictrum) with its glaucous leaves and early flowers. Like all thalictrums, it needs a moist spot. Not very well known, but an excellent and easy plant, is the biennial Angelica sylvestris. This plum-coloured angelica is a smaller form of the giant A. gigas, which is out of scale with most small gardens. Sylvestris is a happy seeder and grows to about five feet in good conditions.
For late flowers, try the polite version of the well-known
golden rod. 'Goldenmosa' is smaller, prettier and better
behaved than the common thug. The aster, which will be
the last to perform, is a wiry, airy plant with tiny,
violet-blue, daisy-like flowers. Be fair to it and give it
partial shade rather than total darkness, or it will fail to
flower.
-- Anonymous, June 20, 2001