Approaches To Planting Flowers

 PLANTS FOR THE FLOWER GARDEN

 HESPERIS

(Cruciferae) southern Europe, western Asia

H. matronalis (damask violet, dame's violet, sweet rocket) is a cottage-garden perennial to mass in informal borders. Evening-scented white, pink and mauve cruciform flowers are borne in loose clusters above narrow dark green leaves in early summer. Dead-head to encourage further flowering. Freely self-seeding. Grow as a biennial, since older plants deteriorate to woodiness. Sun.

H: 60-120cm/24-48in s: 45-60cm118-24in - z: 3[3-9]

HEUCHERA

(Saxifragaceae) alumroot, coral flower N. America H. x brizoides hybrids form perennial mounds of rounded scalloped hairy leaves, mottled grey and green, which are evergreen except in very cold areas. Woody roots spread to make good ground cover in well-drained soil - in full sun for best flowering performance and in part shade for foliage only. Slender panicles of flowers held well above the foliage on Wiry stems appear in early summer. Choose a named form to harmonize with neighboring flower and foliage color. H. x b. 'Coral Cloud' has coral-pink flowers.

H: 45-60cm/18-24in s: 30-45cm/12-18in z: 3[3-10]

H. micrantha 'Palace Purple' is a perennial grown for its handsome bronze foliage with rich deep red undersides.

HEUCHERELLA

(Saxifragaceae)

x H. tiarelloides is an evergreen perennial hybrid between heuchera and tiarella with tiny pink flowers in early summer and soft green leaves without the typical heuchera marbling. Grows in similar conditions to heuchera and is an excellent border plant.

H: 45cm/18in s: 30-45cm/12-18in z: 3[3-10]

HIBISCUS

(Malvaceae) rose mallow

H. moscheutos (swamp rose mallow from USA) is a handsome perennial species with toothed slightly lobed ovate leaves. The satiny wide-open mallow-flowers may be 15-20cm/6-8in across and are white, pink or crimson, borne in summer. Sun and moist rich soil. Easily raised from seed.

H: 0.9-1.5m13-5ft s: 0.9m/2ft z: 4[4-9]

H. trionum (flower-of-an-hour from Africa) is an annual with dark green serrated leaves. Large cream mallow-flowers with purplish-brown centres appear in late summer, typically opening only in the morning. Sow seed each spring. H: 75CM/30ill s: 30cm/12in ANNUAL

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Plants Breeding and Selection

ARGYRANTHEMUM

(Compositae)

These tender chrysanthemums, which are easy to overwinter from cuttings taken in late summer, grow into attractive shrubby plants that flower prolifically. Ideal as focal points in large pots on a wall or terrace in full sun.

A. foeniculaceum (formerly Chrysanthemum foeniculaceum; marguerite, Paris daisy from the Canary Islands) is an evergreen perennial with deeply divided silvery-grey almost glaucous foliage and white daisy-flowers in summer. A. 'Jamaica Primrose' bears lovely pale yellow single flowers, complemented by deeply cut green leaves.

& s: 60-90cm/24-36in z: 9[9-10]

ARTEMISIA

(Compositae)

Shrubs and perennials grown for grey and silver leaves that make an attractive foil for other plantings. Survive low temperatures in full sun and well-drained soil.

A. absinthium lambrook Silver', a cultivar of the European absinthe or common wormwood, is a semi-evergreen sub-shrub with woody stems bearing silver-grey dissected leaves. Pale yellow flowers appear in summer.

& s: 90cm/36in z: 4[4-10]A. ludoviciana (white sage from N. America) is an herbaceous perennial with silvery-white felty leaves and silvery-grey flowers in summer. Suckers freely and may be invasive.

H: 120cm/48in s: 60cm/24in z: 5[5-10]

A. pontica (south-eastern and central Europe) is a suckering perennial that has smoky-grey feathery foliage and makes good ground cover or pathway edging in sun.    -

H: 45-75cm/18-30in s: 45cm/18in z: 5[5-10] A. 'Powis Castle' is an evergreen sub-shrub, making a sturdy pewter-toned cushion of fine-cut leaves.

H: 60cm/24in s: 45cm/18in z: 8[8110]-

A. schmidtiana 'Silver Mound" is a perennial that makes 'low mounds of silvery grass-like silky' foliage.

10cm/4in s: 25cm/lOin z: 4[4-10]

 

ARUM

(Araceae) south-eastern Europe

A. italicum pictum (correctly A. 1. marmcrratum) has leaves that unfurl in autumn and grow to full lushness in spring - glossy arrow-shapes veined in creamy-white. Spikes of red berries take the place of leaves in late summer. Seeds true. This tuberous perennial makes attractive ground cover in sun or part shade.

H: 38cm/15in s: 30cm/12in z: 6[6-10]

ARUNCUS

(Rosaceae) goatsbeard northern hemisphere A. dioicus is a deciduous perennial that makes an attractive clump of elegant fern-like foliage.

ASARUM

(Aristolochiaceae) wild ginger

A. europaeum (Europe) is an evergreen rhizomatous perennial that makes creeping ground cover in moist shade or part shade. Handsome dark green glossy leaves, shaped like a rounded heart, hide inconspicuous greenish-brown flowers in spring. Attractive to slugs.

H: 12-15cm/5-6in s: 20-30cm/8-12in

z: 4[4.-8]

ASPHODELINE

 (Liliaceae/Asphodelaceae) Jacob's rod Mediterranean

A. lutea (king's spear, yellow asphodel) makes architectural perennial clumps of stiff stems clad in semi-evergreen grey-green grassy leaves. Tall racemes of shiny yellow starry flowers in early summer are followed by attractive seed-heads. A. liburnica is a shorter form. Rhizomatous rootstock increases slowly. Sun or part shade and well- drained soil.             -

41: 90-120cm/36-48in s: 30cm/12in z: 6[6-10]

ASTER

(Compositae) N: America

'Herbaceous perennials grown for daisy-like flowers. Sun or part shade and rich but well- _drained soil, -

A. divaricatus (white wood aster) has sprawling wiry black stems that bear a profusion of little white starry' frower-heads in late summer to autumn. Tolerate i dry shade.

& s: 45-60cm/18-24in z: 3[3-9]

A. x frikartii is one of the best later-flowering plants, with freely borne yellow-centred lavender- blue flowers from late summer onwards. A. x f. 'Meech' is the best.

H: 60-90cm/24-36in s: 38-45cm115-18in

z: 5[5-10]             -

A. lateriflorus 'Horizontal& has compact twiggy stems that bear small dark green leaves with distinctive horizontal habit. Is crowned with a hedge-like mass of tiny palest silvery-lilac flowers with browny-pink centres in autumn.

H: 60-90cm/24-36in s: 30cm/12in z: 3[3-10] A. novae-angliae "Andenken an Alma Potschke' (Michaelmas daisy, New England aster) bears

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Plants For The Flower Garden

Trees and shrubs for structure

A number of shapely evergreen shrubs provide the border with winter structure and, planted at regular intervals to give a definite rhythm, hold the border design together throughout the year. Their shapes and foliage contribute more than their flowers, and they set off the flowers of neighboring plants. Conifers such as tall junipers, feathery chamaecyparis, Irish yews and, in milder areas, Italian fastigiate cypresses all give this emphasis.

Some shrubs may be pruned into topiary shapes and figures to give a more formal air to a planting scheme. Traditional topiary subjects are evergreen bay, holly, Portugal laurel and yew (both English and Irish at Hidcote trimmed English yews give border structure in the famous Pillar Garden). The neglected phillyrea (especially Phillyrea angustifolia and the tree-like P. latifolia), pyracantha, Quercus ilex and box may also be trimmed into many different outlines. Silver- and grey- leaved shrubs may acquire a formal air by tight clipping — indeed many that grow woody with age benefit from a spring cutting.

Small deciduous trees with green or colored leaves and a naturally regular outline are also effective design plants. Mop-headed and umbrella-shaped trees are especially useful when space is limited as neighboring plants can be grown up close to the trunk. Robinias. 

PLANT BREEDING AND SELECTION

Surprisingly few of the palette of plants available in nurseries and garden centre are original species. Most have been 'improved' by special breeding programmes in search of more desirable and robust qualities in flower, leaf or form. Sometimes these changes are just to obtain shorter or longer flower-stems, but all are aimed at enhancing the gardening possibilities. This breeding for improvement is a sexual process, not a vegetative one whereby cuttings are taken or grafts made to reproduce a particular plant such as one that has attractive gold and silver foliage.. To be certain of obtaining the same'freak' appearance, it is not possible to use a sexual process.

In breeding, the main objective is to exaggerate features considered useful or decorative and to lose others less obviously desirable. The results of breeding and hybridizing are complicated. In the past breeders would spend years looking for one desirable seedling that demonstrated a noticeable improvement in quality. Today, in theory, the selector or hybridizer chooses two good wild or garden forms (species or cultivars) of a genus and breeds from them, deliberately hoping to produce a strain that inherits the best characteristics of both 'parents'. Of course it may still take time to find the desired combinations, and breeding is aimed not only at producing plants that look good but also at producing those that are disease-resistant, have extra hatdiness or some such other more 'hidden' qualities. For final marketing of new hybrids a crucial discovery has been made: that first generation hybrids (called F1 hybrids on the nurseryman's seed packet) are both uniformly reliable and possess the benefit of hybrid vigour. Such a discovery has transformed the horticultural trade and means that, once a strain is chosen, garden perennials and annuals may be produced by annual cross-breeding from two chosen parents. An additional marketing 'plus' is that the amateur does not find the same uniformity in saved seed but has to buy fresh F1 hybrid seed each year.

Sometimes scientific breeding alters an harmonious natural balance, and highly bred 'improved' plants, selected for certain exaggerated characteristics such as flowering potential, lack the simple grace of their wild parents. Personally the more I garden, the more I prefer the elegant natural proportions of true species, even though I know that their performance is muted. With trees and shrubs such reticence would cause no problem, but in the flower garden my choice of perennials and annuals wood be more limited and less satisfactory without 'improved' plants. However I do think it would be interesting to lay out a whole scheme using true species alone. I would certainly do this if I had a woodland garden in parts of the United States, where nature's 'produce' can hardly be bettered. But in general we use and are grateful for the thousand and one 'possibilities' provided by the dedicated breeders; from amongst their products we can choose plants exactly suited to any garden scheme. In 'natural'-type gardening, true species often look appropriate; in the formal border we need plants that give precise effects, and those specially bred for longer flowering periods.

The Flower Border Style And Framed Garden

Annuals and biennials

The jungle effects created by the free-style planting of woody plants, hardy perennials and bulbs are further enriched by biennials and annuals that are encouraged to seed themselves in haphazard groups and drifts to colonize any patch of bare soil. The crafty gardener may well direct events by scattering seed (never using a hoe or hand-cultivator) in available spaces.

In spring, biennial honesties (forms of Lunaria annua — known as the silver dollar plant in North America) will thrive and spread in the dappled shade of a fruit tree or ornamental cherry. Its mauve flowers make a striking color contrast to the pale yellow bracts of the almost evergreen perennial spur uphorbia amygdaloides robbiae, or the smaller . cypar sias, both of which spread in similar sites. A white-flowered honesty (Lunaria annua alba) may flower at the back of beds where shade-loving perennials take over later in the season and if isolated comes true from seed.

Biennial forget-me-nots (forms of Myosotis sylvatica) may be allowed to seed freely after flowering each spring and will happily multiply in any shady corner. Plants can be pulled up after flowering is over. Brighter blue flowers and sturdier plants are obtained in named seed packets; they should be sown in early summer and transferred to their flowering sites by autumn.

Biennial foxgloves, for sun and shade, are excellent in an informal garden. The ordinary Digitalis purpurea has a dingy pink flower, but white-flowering seedlings, as at Knightshayes Court, may be selected to add grace and interest to a border. The southern European D. ferruginea, with coppery-yellow flowers, looks exotic but is not too glamorous for the natural garden. Although a perennial, it is best treated as a biennial.

In open situations statuesque angelicas, evening primroses, tall silvery thistles (forms of onopordum), silybums with green leaves veined with white, and thistle-flowered Miss Willmott's ghost are all worthwhile biennials that mix well with groups of permanent shrubs and perennials; all are species and come true from seed.

The floppy horned poppy (Glaucium flavum) with greyish foliage and bright yellow papery flowers will sprawl at the front of a sunny border. Some of the biennial mulleins seed as single specimens between groups of perennials. They provide height, while prolifically seeding violas and verbenas carpet the ground, filling up space at the front of borders.

The Natural Garden

Pure and tinted whites

An unrelieved laundry-white invariably draws the eye and may attract undue attention. The annual Lavatera trimestris 'Mont 'Blanc', Rosa 'Frau Karl Druschki', white Japanese anemones and groups of white ox are all flowers of this perfect whiteness, but fortunately these flowers are seldom seen in isolation; they are almost always accompanied by leaves and other floral or foliage color, which tends to shadow and soften their extreme whiteness.

In fact, few white flowers are pure white. More often they are faintly tinged with lavender, cream, pale blue or green, or — when set among leaves of strong green — seem suffused with a pinkish tint. The whiteness of others is modified by their shape and texture. Whites such as those of Rosa 'Iceberg' and tulip flowers have a solid, three-dimensional mass with glowing white petals moulded by highlights and shadows. Other whites such as poppies and romneya produce papery almost see-through fragile petals around central stamens, while Clematis recta, gypsokhila and crambes bear small starry flowers held on branched stems togive misty cloud-like diffused color effects. I much prefer to use the tinted whites: the more glaring laundry- whites are dazzling and seldom restful.

To counteract their potentially eye-catching properties, white flowers are best matched with pastel tints and grey, and silver-leaved foliage, gentle color values that blend with the whiteness to make gradations of—tones, rather than being juxtaposed with dark or bright foliage which emphasizes the strong contrast. For more contrived schemes, the arresting quality of blocks of white flowers may be deliberately exploited to make architectural points, most effectively as repeats along the edge or centre of a border scheme.

White flowers become luminous at dusk and even glow through the night, and so are perfect for beds that may be viewed only at the end of the day. With white- variegated foliage, they will lighten a shady corner.

Neighboring colors retain their truest appearance when placed beside white flowers, and are optically deepened and enriched, so whites can be used to separate colors that might otherwise clash. Tinted whites do this more gently. The 'white' of the white flowers becomes tinted with the complementary color of its neighbor. Cream flowers seem perfect companions for all garden flowers. They set off blues, soften harsher yellows, oranges and reds, and are -cool and restful.

 

Achieving The Natural Look Of Garden

Stalwart companions

A handful of good perennials provide long-term underpinning in border schemes, partnering a series of less enduring plant stars. Leathery-leaved bergenias with creeping rhizomes flower as winter turns to spring. Most are an undistinguished purplish-pink, but B. `Silberliche bears white flowers tinged with pink as they age. Mainly evergreen, with the leaves of some forms suffused with purple tones after frost, bergenias give good winter ground cover and may be planted in drifts or even as edging, formally setting off neighboring flower groups of hellebores, Brunnera macrophylla, perennial or biennial honesties and overhead canopies of flowering cherries. Gertrude Jekyll Used bergenias in many of her planting schemes. In the Great Plat at Hestercombe, B. x schmidtii lines flower beds set in the mown grass where roses, lilies and delphiniums flower later in the season. For early-autumn effects Miss Jekyll allowed Aster divaricatus with starry white daisy-flowers on floppy black stems to cascade over bergenias along the edge of a north-facing bed.

Many perennials grown for -beautiful flowers contribute foliage interest over a much longer period. The grass-like leaves of day-lilies make a good foil to neighboring plants: those of the old favorite Hemerocallis fulva 'Fiore Pleno' emerge golden-yellow in spring. Such leaf colors look wonderful against sweeps of blue-flowered bulbs or forget-me-nots. Earliest to flower is H. hlio-asphodelus (until recently more familiar as H. flava) with clear yellow flowers: although each flower lasts only a day, a succession of blooms ensures a long flowering period. Mid- to late-summer species and cultivars produce coarser leaves and lemon-yellow, bronze or orange flowers, which are attractive with neighboring blues or more startling in 'hot' red and yellow schemes.

Herbaceous peonies flower at the same time as the first roses, to give a border early summer color and interest, and also look good under the skirts of gracefully arching deciduous shrubs. Both the old-fashioned Paeonia officinalis, with its blowzy heads of cottage- garden luxuriance, and the more aristocratic P. lactiflora hybrids have valuable foliage that remains decorative — especially if sprayed at intervals against botrytis — through the summer months.

Some of the hardy cranesbill geraniums are more suitable for massing, but the less vigorous associate well with shrub roses and may be planted to make front-of border drifts in sun and shade. Cutting back after early flowering produces new leafy growth that remains attractive all summer and sometimes colors with the first frosts. Geranium renardii has gray-green leaves and white flowers veined appealingly with streaks of maroon. Revelling in full sun, it contrasts with the more architectural leaves of irises. G. x magnificum has deeply cut hairy green leaves, which tint red in autumn, and violet-blue flowers. It grows well under the arching branches of the pale yellow Rosa Triihlingsgold' and around the base of some of the fan- shaped Hybrid Musks such as pale pink R. 'Penelope' or subtle apricot-tinged R. 'Buff Beauty'. The taller more upright Geranium psilostemon also has leaves that color, but we grow it for its glorious black-center magenta flowers, which glow next to silvery-leaved artemisias or tower above neighboring frothy- flowered alchemillas.

Both their light green leaves and their feathery lime- yellow flower-sprays make alchemillas indispensable as low-profile companion plants over a long season. They perform at the same time as pink- or red-flowered heucheras and heucherellas, creating garden pictures when combined with tall glaucous-leaved Thalictrum flavum glaucum with fluffy yellow plumes, and groups of blue-flowered delphiniums. Sedums also furnish sunny front-of-border situations with handsome gray-green foliage and have flower-heads composed of a myriad small stars, which are much beloved by butterflies. They look attractive when bronzed by frosts in winter. Above decorative fleshy leaves, the stiff stems of Sedum `Herbstfreude' hold large pink flower-heads which later turn coppery-red.

The Palette Of Flowering Plants

The Attraction Of Flowers

The stamens — the male organs consisting of filaments topped with pollen-carrying anthers — are also often decorative features. In winter-flowering shrubs such as hamamelis, winter sweet (Chimonanthus praecox) and sarcococcas the flowers are little more than bundles of scented stamens, less susceptible than soft petals to frost and rain damage. Australian trees -and shrubs including acacias and callistemons also have flowers in which stamens are most prominent.

Stamens are modified into petals in some plants, resulting in 'double' flowers. These are less likely to produce fertile seed; in the wild they would not reproduce, and in the garden they generally have to be propagated from vegetative cuttings. (For the gardener this is a mixed blessing. A double-flowered Rugosa rose is less likely than a single one to produce the autumn bonus of attractive hips; on the other hand double flowers usually last many more days than single ones, since they are not hurrying to form seed.)

In other flowers it is the female organs that have evolved into a particularly decorative form. In the bearded iris, for example, the true petals are the three 'falls' and the three 'standards Each of the three innermost 'petals', however, is actually a female style modified into A flattened petal-like form, with the frill);'crest'- arching outwards to, protect its fertile stigmatic surface.

Bracts are a form of modified leaf at the base of a flower stalk or on the stem of a cluster of flowers. When the bracts are bright and decorative they are generally grouped around clusters of very small flowers that have no petals. The pocket handkerchief tree (forms of davidia), all euphorbias (including the exotic-looking poinsettia) and many dogwoods as well as the tropical bougainvilleas have sterile bracts instead of petals. The small flowers are fertile, but the sterile bracts provide an insect- or bird-attracting display. With lace-cap hydrangeas what are loosely identified as decorative flowers are in fact large flattened corymbs of fertile flowers surrounded by a ring of more conspicuous infertile ray florets. In the familiar mop-headed hortensia hydrangeas all the florets are sterile.

The 'flower' of members of the arum family is really a showy bract or spathe, with an interesting role in the pollination mechanism.- The actual flowers Are enfolded in, the swollen base of the spathe, clustered around the central spadix, the lower female ones maturing earlier than the male ones higher up. The spathe's inner surface is lined with minute downward: slanting hairs: these trap flies that have crawled or fallen in, lured by the nectar, for long enough to fertilize the receptive females with pollen brought from a previously visited flower. Gradually the hair wither and allow the flies to crawl upwards and escape — on their way passing the now-mature male towers, and so becoming dusted with the pollen, which they may transport to a new flower.

In some species coloring and patterning such as spots or lines, as in horse chestnut, mimulus and eye- bright, are designed to provide insects with a route to the nectar. Not all these signals are perceived by the human eye. Bees, wasps, beetles and birds have slightly different vision. Bees, for instance, perceive short wavelengths of light in the ultraviolet range invisible to humans (stamens are often 'lit up' in this way) but cannot distinguish longer-wavelength reds. Birds possess excellent color awareness, though they lack a sense of smell. Despite their poor sight, beetles can locate large white plants and strong scents.

Having achieved their role in attracting a pollinator, petals normally .start to wither, but some, such as those on double flowers, being sterile are not transformed by fertilization. Those flowers with fragile petals are very transient: rock roses and cistus, day- lilies and giant water lilies last only for a day, while morning glory flowers shrivel by afternoon. Many flowers that open at specific times perform only for their pollinators: marvel of Peru is called the four o'clock plant for this reason. Most of these plants produce a succession of short-lived flowers, and this quality assures them a place in the garden.

Some of the longer-lasting flowers change appearance dramatically during the flowering period. Buds about to open are often very different in color from open petals; fading blossoms are tinged with a new range of tones. Some flowers actually change color once effectively pollinated, usually becoming less rich and vivid as the need to attract pasns; leaves also, especially those of crisp grey or silver plants, fade after the flowers have been fertilized.