My Annual Flower Show

"The quintessence of the cottage garden is an abundance of colour and a jumble of scents.  The cottage flower garden is crowded with flowering plants, jostling one on top of another.  There are practical reasons for such dense planting,  Firstly, the leaves form a protective screen so that weeds have little chance of germinating and, if weeds do emerge, the dense canopy cuts out the light they need to survive.  In other words, the plants act as a ground cover." (Christopher Lloyd - The Cottage Garden)

Every year I sow lots of different annuals for the front garden - some self-seeders pop up too and dominate the beds for a while, aquilegia and sweet rocket in the spring, nasturtiums in late summer, but on the whole I dictate what goes in the borders.  Some years my plans work out better than others, but I do get a colourful display no matter what. 

"Cottage gardens are rarely filled with just one type of plant - they usually contain a wide mixture, begged or borrowed from other gardens and gardeners.  A variety of plants help to keep the beds free from diseases and pests as they have little chance of finding a sufficient number of hosts to become established."

I don't have a specific colour scheme necessarily but generally the border by the front fence tends to be mainly different shades of pink and the border that curves in front of the bay window, hotter colours.  I have a few permanent plants, like a hardy fuschia

and perennial sweet peas

but the gaps are filled with whatever plants have been successful from my spring sowings.  Cosmos and Lavatera are a couple of favourites

and Rudbeckias

I also have a permanent edging of lavender and rosemary in front of the curved bed which acts as a grey-green foil for all the bright colours.

"Perhaps the most important aspect of this jumble of plants that we call a cottage flower garden is that it is incredibly attractive.  In conventional flower borders, the plants are arranged in drifts for a calming effect.  The opposite is true of the cottage flower garden.  Random plants occur because as a gap appears either the gardener fills it with a favourite plant or nature takes a hand and self-sows a plant.  In either case, a cottage garden looks all the better for it.  Mother Nature has an uncanny way of self-sowing two colours together that no gardener would attempt, which results in stunning combinations."

I have a secret that I will share with you regarding gaps in the borders.  To give an appearance of an abundant border I sometimes cheat!  Shock horror!   Invariably there isn't enough room to dig a decent sized hole when a gap is evident - so I use perennial plants in black pots and place them in the gaps instead of trying to plant in the soil.  The black pots become invisible amongst all the foliage of the other plants surrounding it - and bingo - a full border.  Then when the annuals have all succumbed to the first frosts I can plant them out  in their permanent positions.

This Leucanthemum (or Marguerite as we used to call them) is still in its pot as is one of the Rudbeckias - I find it a perfect solution for a gappy border.

"One final point to remember when planning your perfect cottage flower garden is to avoid a rigid plan.  It is much better to allow a degree of flexibility that permits the exuberance of such a garden to flow and allows Mother Nature to give a helping hand.  Push plants in wherever there is a gap and if it looks right, do not worry to much about the 'rules'."

The Butterfly-Friendly Garden - Buddleia

The Buddleia commonly known as The Butterfly Bush was named posthumously after the Rev. Adam Buddle (1662-1715), a botanist and rector in Essex, at the suggestion of Dr. Wm Houstoun.  Houstoun sent the first plants to become known as Buddleja to England from the Caribbean about 15 years after Buddles death. (this info is from Wikipedia but other articles say it is from China - take your pick).




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 Some species commonly escape from the garden. B. davidii in particular is a great coloniser of dry open ground; in towns in the United Kingdom, it often self-sows on waste ground or old masonry, where it grows into a dense thicket, and it is listed as an invasive species in many areas. It is frequently seen beside railway lines, on derelict factory sites and, in the aftermath of the Second World War, on urban bomb sites. This earned it the popular nickname of 'the bombsite plant' among people of the war-time generation.

Butterflies are interested solely in nectar, to maintain their strength, so they will only visit the same flowers as bees when their interests coincide.  An obvious instance of converging interest is on this bush.

They come in a variety of colours from white through to deep purple - I myself have pink, lilac and purple.

Butterflies love Buddleia because it produces nectar that has a higher content of sucrose, glucose, and fructose than many other garden flowers, in particular Buddleia generally has a higher sucrose level (two or three times higher than fructose or glucose) and that is what attracts butterflies, however Buddleia do not produce much nectar, which is why we see butterflies spending so much time on a particular plant. It is also worth mentioning that usually only the larger butterflies visit Buddleia, this is because the tiny individual flowers of Buddleia are relatively long and the smaller butterflies simply can't reach their proboscis far enough into the flower to extract the sucrose laden nectar.

Buddleia - Black Knight

In the UK Half of the butterflies are under threat of extinction, and more than 70% are in decline, we can help turn this process around by planting more Buddleia and more importantly different varieties of Buddleia.  Buddleia is called the "Butterfly Bush" for a very good reason, it acts like a magnet to butterflies, they just love Buddleia nectar.see here for more info



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The only problem I find with them is that they look awful once they have finished flowering, the flowerheads turn brown and if you don't remove them fairly promptly they seed all over the place.  Which is why they have a bad reputation for being invasive.  If you do want to increase your stock they root very easily from cuttings by just sticking a piece of stem into the ground.

This is what Elspeth Thompson has to say:-
"What struck me the other day, though, as the train slid in from Bristol, was how well the place suited its mad urban fringe of purple flowers.  Buddleia is renowned for its capacity to take root wherever it can find a crevice and a little water.  At Royal Oak, it has managed to find footholds in cracks in the paving, along the tops of walls, in angles of the openwork metal bridges that span the different platforms, and even down among the tracks."

The sun over the last couple of days has brought more butterflies out - but my bushes aren't smothered with them as they usually are - a sign of the times maybe.

The Bee-Friendly Garden - Nasturtiums



 Nasturtiums have to be one of the cheeriest flowers in the garden.  They tangle and twine and climb and add hot spots of colour wherever you plant them.  They self-seed easily, and hopefully, come back year after year. 

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And the best thing about them, is that they are edible.  They give a nice peppery twist to salads and the flowers add a lovely hit of colour.  The name comes from the Latin 'Nasus Tortus'  meaning twisted nose which refers to the reaction of peoples faces when eating the spicy plant.


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They look pretty when brought indoors for decoration too.


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Nasturtium buds can also be pickled in place of capers, and as the summer gets hotter so does the pepper in the plants - more heat, more sun - more spice.



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Originally they are from South America - the Conquistadors brought them back to Spain in the 1500's.  If you use them as a companion plant they should hopefully draw the pests away from your precious brassicas.  The large, soft, umbrella-like leaves attract Cabbage White Butterflies to lay their eggs - not good for the Nasturtiums but good for your cabbages.



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They come in beautiful jewel colours from pale lemon to the darkest red and when the flowers die back they leave behind a seed cluster that dry on the plant and fall off.  If you check the ground around the plants you will find some of this dried seed -  save it in paperbags in a cool place -  then sow them from March to July when they will bloom until the first frosts.

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Monet was rather fond of them and planted them in the border of the pathway that led to the front door at Giverny.

Monets painting of A Girl in the Garden

They put on a better show of flowers in poor soil - last year I planted some in between the rows of potatoes but  the soil was too rich and all I got was a load of leaves.  Whereas in my front garden where the soil is thin and stoney they bloom beautifully.  They carry on flowering right through to the first frosts - but when the frosts hit them they become a slimey mess and should be removed tout suite.
 
 So, for the price of a cheap packet of seeds and  a cheerful way to get bees into the garden - plant a few Nasturtiums - I don't think you will be sorry (unless you hate orange flowers, that is).

This is what Christopher Lloyd has to say about them

"Natsurtium could be described as a hardy annual, for even though it succumbs to the first frosts of autumn you can push its seeds into the ground where you wish them to develop and they will germinate at quite low temperatures.  Self-sown Nasturtiums will often appear in mid-winter if it is mild.  Their hot colours show up in shade and they grow excellently against a shady fence or hedge, preferably in moist conditions.  They are no less satisfying when garlanding a garden rubbish heap.  Valuable plants, they provide a splash of colour towards the end of the year when the garden can look a bit tired."

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The Scented Garden - Philadelphus

In the last of my mini-series of posts on the Scented Garden in Summer I am focusing on Philadelphus (Mock Orange).  Out of all the plants that I have mentioned previously this is the most highly scented - you can practically smell it wherever you are in the garden, and it is a 'must-have' plant for the quintessential cottage garden.



Philadelphus - Belle Etoile

They are named 'Mock Orange' in reference to their flowers, which in the wild species, look somewhat similar to those of oranges and lemons and smell of orange flowers and jasmine.  It is named after an ancient Greek king of Egypt -  Ptolemy II Philadelphus.



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 The one in the Rosebank garden is about ten feet high and has arching branches full of flowers - it has been in flower for several weeks and smells divine.  After is has finished flowering I will prune it back to encourage it to flower next year

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pruning out all of the stems that have flowered to about a third of their length and take out a few of the old stems right down to the ground - this will encourage the plant to send out new basal growth which will provide a good flowering branch framework - well worth the trouble if you love this plant as much as I do.

I know there are loads of scented plants that I haven't mentioned but the ones that I have are the most prominent in my garden - and certainly it wouldn't be the same for me without their beautiful fragrance.

The Scented Garden - Honeysuckle

There are about 180 species of honeysuckle, 100 of which occur in China.  Many of the species produce a sweet edible nectar.  The breaking of the honeysuckle stem will release this powerful sweet odour.

Surely this is the best known of cottage garden climbers.  Well loved for its sweetly fragrant tubular flowers, this classic climbing honeysuckle is ideal for covering walls and fences, or romping through mature shrubs and trees.  Bees and butterflies love the nectar rich flowers, which are followed by round red berries that attract birds in late summer.

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I have this one twining through the ivy on the front of the house - the common name for it is Woodbine but the genus Lonicera is named in honour of Adamus Lonicerus (or Adam Lonicer) who was a German Renaissance Botanist whose first important work on herbs, the Krauterbuck was published in 1557.

Adam Lonicer

The blossom of the Wild Woodbine can be collected to make Honeysuckle Jelly (see recipe here)


There was an old Music Hall song written about Honeysuckle in 1901 called The Honeysuckle and the Bee.

Honeysuckle is an important source for nectar loving insects and the smell of wild honeysuckle is intoxicating, especially on a warm summers evening when it is pollinated by night flying moths.

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Monty Don says:-

One of the greatest joys of living in the British countryside at this time of year is the heady tangle of fragrances along country lanes flanked by hedgerows. We gardeners carefully cultivate plants for their scent but I like 'free' fragrances that suddenly enter one's world as much as any, and the best of these wild smells undoubtedly comes from the Honeysuckle which is found sprawling and creeping along the hedgerows for mile after fragrant mile. read more of this article here

Samuel Pepys wrote:-  "The bugles blow scent instead of sound" - he called it the trumpet flower.

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The Scented Garden - Sweet Peas and Old Fashioned Pinks

Who'd envy a sweet pea?  By rights they should reign over the choicest spot in the garden - looking and smelling as ravishing as they do - whereas more often than not you track them down to a row by the cabbage patch where they languish  in regimental splendour ready for cutting.  Though I think them lovely as cut flowers, my enthusiasm for sweet peas in the garden is boundless.  I grow them up everything - the climbing roses, the apple trees. (Felicity Bryan)



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You can of course wait until spring to sow your seeds in situ.  But that way you won't see flowers until high summer.  If, however you get sowing the first two weeks in October then you will have large plants to bed out in spring and with luck have flowers by early June (Felicity Bryan)

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This has been a good year for sweetpeas in our garden by the sea.  I picked my first bunch in early June, from plants sown in the greenhouse last October, and am still picking a couple of bunches a week from a mid-February sowing.  Their fabulous scent and colours - white, pink, crimson and maroon, and every shade of mauve from the palest lilac to blackberry ripple to indigo have been a delight all summer long.
(Elspeth Thompson)

Sweet Peas in the Rosebank garden August 2011

These are the sweet peas in the Rosebank garden last year - I had trouble with greenfly on them at one stage, but after spraying with an organic insect spray they recovered and went on flowering for weeks.  This year after a dodgy start they are at last beginning to climb but as yet have no flowers. 


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The flowers should be picked regularly or they will go to seed and stop flowering.  Normally I have bunches in the house all summer long - they have an enchanting fragrance and colours of jewel-like intensity - no gardener worth his salt should be without them.

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Sweet peas on tiptoe flight, With wings of gentle flush, o'er delicate white (Keats)


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A garden full of sweet odours is a garden full of charm, a most precious kind of charm not to be implanted by mere skill in horticulture or power of purse, and which is beyond explaining.  It is born of sensitive and very personal preferences yet its appeal is almost universal (Louse Beebe Wilder)

GARDEN PINKS
The old-fashioned carnation name pinks comes from the serrated flower edges, which look as if cut with pinking shears. And the name of the color pink is said to come from these perennials, which have been popular in gardens for hundreds of years. The many dianthus species and hybrids come in red, white, orange, purple, cranberry, and of course, many shades of pink. Flower size ranges from less than an inch to several inches wide, and height ranges from just a few inches to several feet tall.

I only have one patch of pinks which have kept going for several years - they have, unfortunately, been beaten down by the rain and are laying flat, but it hasn't  affected their fragrance.  They are related to carnations and sweet williams and are perennial.

Mention old-fashioned pinks to anybody, gardener or non-gardener, and they will immediately know what you are talking about. They have an evocative quality about them that almost defies definition. They conjure up the hurly-burly of the cottage garden and yet at the same time have a serenity all of their own. The flowers have a delicacy and yet still have substance, while the perfume they possess can be quite heady; filling the warm summer's air with the scent of cloves. (Thompson and Morgan)



You have to agree that pinks are a must in the scented garden, although they seem not to be a common as they once were. 

 

The Scented Garden - Roses

My Sweet Rose
by
John Wm. Waterhouse

The fragrance of the sweetest rose is beyond any other flower scent, it is irresistable, enthralling; you cannot leave it.  I have never doubted the rose has some compelling quality not shared by other flowers.  I do not know whether it comes from some inherent witchery of the plant, but it certainly exists. (Alice Morse Earl)

Rose - Zephyrine Drouhine

A single flow'r he sent me,

since we met,

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -

One perfect rose.

(Dorothy Parker)

Gather Ye Rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying
by
John Wm. Waterhouse

Elusive, mysterious, the fragrance of roses and the romance surrounding it, is legendary.  Cleopatra supposedly entertained Mark Anthony in a room filled with 18 inches of rose petals, and the sails of her ship were soaked with rose water so that 'the very winds were lovesick'.

Rose - Albertine

Which is loveliest in a rose?

Its coy beauty when it is budding,

or its splendour when it blows?

(George Barlow)

In general, the most highly scented roses are the ones that are either darker in colour, have more petals to the flower, or have thick velvety petals.  Rose fragrance will be strongest on warm, sunny days when the soil is moist, because that is when the production of the scent ingredients increases.  Often a rose that was fragrant in the morning is no longer so by the afternoon.

Rose - name unknown

The rose looks fair,

but fairer we it deem for that

sweet odour

which doth in it live

(William Shakespeare - Sonnet 54)

As you can see from the pictures, all the scented roses in my garden are pink, and very similar in colour.  They are all highly fragrant and this is why I chose them.   What cottage garden would be complete without scented roses. 

Rose - Gertrude Jekyll

Though youth gave love and roses,

Age still leaves us friends and wine.

(Thomas More)