A hot, late-spring day and I'm watering my pots by the
back door in the early morning. I'm nowhere near any roses but suddenly there's
a sweet scent in the air and I have to find out where it's coming from. I'm
getting warmer, then colder...could it possibly be the hydrangeas (no), Thalictrum (no), Asiatic lilies
(unlikely, and no)?
I'm sniffing about like some half-crazed blood hound
until I track it down: metres away are that tough-as-old-boots evergreen shrub,
mock orange (Philadelphus (named for
`brotherly love') coronarius (Syn. Philadelphus mexicanus) below), many of them,
all suddenly covered in down-turned cream cups exuding sweet perfume. Who knew
it could waft so effectively?
What a great moment to discover, or rediscover, a
creamy-white flower in the garden; I've been contemplating white flowers: I love
the way they gleam at dusk.
Near the dining room door is a dwarf mock orange with
sweet white flowers just now too. And beyond this is a new bed where I've been
replanting dwarf white dahlias from a new path area, need to plant a dwarf
white Gladiolus (a seedling of `The
Bride' that I spied at Kallista market), and had that dreaded thought, what if
I had a white (and green) garden. Noooo!
My brother-in-law would call this `Little Sissy' and
quite right. How easy to fall into the trap of mimicking that sensational,
beloved garden room at Sissinghurst Castle, the White(-and-Green) Garden where
Vita Sackville-West thought aloud, so to speak, via her newspaper articles, as
she planned it in the 1930's.
I'll never do it 1/10
as well as Vita and I refuse to try. And yet, the mind wanders...
I love the way white flowers come alive, and glimmer and
shimmer at dusk, as all the colours recede. And this bed is between the
pink-and-crimson roses and the blue-and-yellow cut flower bed (with just one
other bulb bed between them as well). White separating them seems like a good
idea, if a little harsh.
An email from a sister seems to set the seal on the plan:
` Do you want white bearded irises, I want to get rid of some. See you Sunday.'
(I reply: ` I'd LOVE some white bearded iris, thank you. Would you like
belladonna lilies, hellebores or obedient plant (tall, mauve)? I am enjoying
the garden so much. Roses! Iris! Did I mention roses? And would you like some
eggs?) (Please remember that my roses have never flowered before, kind reader.
The munching marsupials have access, now, to only a dozen of our 13 acres. But
not my ½ acre garden any longer. Hurrah.)
White iris...
My imagination takes flight far too quickly. I'm peopling
the bed: peonies, poppies, Plectranthus,
pansies even. All white.
This will be no grand plot but a little patch of evening
glow. Let's add Bouvardia for perfume,
too.
Maybe some scattering of seeds: tall perfumed Nicotiana; Cleome and cosmos for autumn; most of all, that flower I met in the
Mediterranean 5 years ago, Orlaya
grandiflora, with flat Queen Anne's Lace-heads unusually dappled with their
outer ring of larger tear-drop petals. (I have Orlaya near the front door and must collect seeds of this exquisite
ephemeral, top.)
Add bulbs like winter snowdrops, and winter and spring white
daffodils, and spring and summer lilies to extend the season, all arctic white.
Even Galtonia candicans, that elegant
bulb, with tall stalks of clipped bell flowers, bridal-white in mid-summer; these
were blooms in my sister's wedding bouquet, I believe, in the 1970's. Or so Mum
used to say; I like these family stories. (I was 10.)
Suddenly my mere dozen square metres are stuffed full. I
need to take some plants out again - quickly.
It needs lashings of green and so for edging, along with
white cranesbills I might plant white Scaevola,
neat, green with a sprinkling of small flowers which don't overwhelm. And dwarf
greenish Nicotiana, below, maybe; almost
invisible by day, but beaming light at dusk; extraordinary.
But...I've already planted a pale pink Thryptomene in the centre, perfect for
its height and width (that sounds dreary) and its so-elegant arching branches
of little myrtaceous flowers. Perhaps I'll add pale pink flowers to the white plants;
a link to the adjacent pink rose bed; and hope my pale pink Astrantia (currently in pots) will like
this hot sunny spot.
No, I think a touch, just a touch of burgundy as well, amongst
all the baby-doll-pink and white will lift the bed enormously. Maybe Sanguisorbia `Red Thunder' with little
heads of strong hue held on wiry stems - nearer burgundy than red, I hasten to
add (like too many misnamed plants). I think this will work really well.
Unlike...I too often mention my silver and raspberry bed,
perhaps, expanded now with blackberry and cherry and strawberry colours to
become a summer pudding kaleidoscope. It's given me a lot of pleasure this
spring and I expected cherry-coloured Asiatic lilies to continue the joy. But
Oh No! Blood Red! (Below.) They clash and look hideous against the raspberry Salvia,
against the black (blackberry) hollyhock, cherry Nicotiana, and the various
other pinks. Out they'll come tout de
suite. (Maybe they need their own bed. And may the odds be ever in their
favour.)
And then I'll be
back to enjoying again the plume poppy (Macleaya)
in particular at the back, tossing its gorgeous silvery leaves in this breeze. (I've
been longing to grow this perennial for a score years or more. (Wandering wallabies
found it delicious.)) With the lilies gone I'll assess the pink-lilac Centaurea: great foliage, silver, and so
perfect here, but are the flowers too mauve? Let's wait a few days to evaluate that one.
Jill Weatherhead is
horticulturist, writer, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of
Melbourne, and works throughout Victoria (www.jillweatherheadgardendesign.com.au)
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