16 May 1, 2022The Sunday Times
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STARS
SIGNS OF SPRING
1 Arum italicum
‘Marmoratum’2 Daphne bholua
‘Jacqueline Postill’3 Erythronium
‘Pagoda’4 Helleborus x
hybridus5 Tulipa ‘Prinses
Irene’SPRING TURNS TO
SUMMER
6 Allium schubertii7 Cistus x cyprius8 Dryopteris
wallichiana9 Euphorbia
characias subsp.
wulfenii10 Exochorda x
macrantha ‘The
Bride’11 Iris ‘Jane Phillips’12 Paeonia
delavayi13 Polystichum
setiferum
‘Pulcherrimum
Bevis’14 Rhododendron
luteum15 Viola ‘Ardross
Gem’HIGH SUMMER
16 Campanula(they have a starring role in my
book too) or reach out to join
the lovely bleeding heart
(Dicentra ‘Stuart Boothman’)
that is another of my star
plants for late spring.
Now you are beginning to
weave the blanket that will
eventually stretch to cover all
your garden with an ever-
changing arrangement of
leaves and flowers. The
dicentra, planted perhaps
with the hosta ‘Devon Green’
and early-flowering wood
anemones (A. nemorosa) make
their own little web, which can
spread to touch other webs
that you may be spinning in
neighbouring patches of
ground and before you know it
you have a joined-up garden.
Of course, this isn’t how
professional designers do it.
They plant an entire border
all at once. But we ordinary
gardeners don’t usually have
that kind of cash to splash.
Often, circumstances force us
to work in a more sporadic
manner. Perhaps you’ll be
looking at a sun rose (Cistus
x cyprius) that you fell in
love with — quite rightly —
last year. Now, it seems a bit
lonely and you decide it needs
some friends.
There are plenty of plants
that will be happy to chat with
the cistus and I’ve suggested
two easy, self-seeding annuals,
orlaya and the opium poppy
(P. somniferum). The cistus is
evergreen, bursting into flower
in early summer with big,
papery white blooms. The two
annuals will generously flicker
around it all summer, adding
good foliage to underpin a long
supply of flowers. No gardener
wants these months of late
spring and early summer
ever to finish. Making sure
there is still more to come
softens the blow.The Seasonal Gardener:
Creative Planting Combinations
by Anna Pavord is published by
Phaidon, £29.95WW CONTINUED FROM P15
in the same season — a grand-
slam planting such as
wallflowers and tulips, or
dahlias and salvias? Grand
slams are wonderful, and we
love the drama of them, but
they leave gaps, either before
or after the one-off show.
Plant groups will be more
sustaining if they have at least
one plant in them that has
more than just its flowers to
contribute to the garden
scene. In this respect,
hellebores and spurges
(euphorbias) are terrific allies
and you’ll find plenty of both
in my book. They have
splendid foliage, and in the
case of the big spurges, an
eye-catching, sculptural
way of holding themselves
so that they remain an
important part of the scene
throughout the year.
I’ve used the big spurge,
Euphorbia characias subsp.
wulfenii as a star plant for the
late spring season, but it will
already be flowering earlier in
spring with great domes of
sulphurous yellow-green
flowers. Each season, new
shoots spring up from the base
of the plant, so there is a
never-ending supply of new
growth and no off-season gap.
The two companions I’ve
suggested are cranesbill (the
easy-going Geranium pratense)
and a rich blue agapanthus
called ‘Isis’ to provide a burst
of excitement in summer. The
cranesbill will be at its peak
between the last flowers of the
spurge and the first of the
agapanthus.
Of course, these
threesomes I’m suggesting
don’t stand in isolation.
Gradually, different trios of
plants can link up to spread
their magic over a bigger patch
of ground. The geranium that
perhaps you’d originally
planted as a companion to the
spurge may spread its arms
out towards a clump of ferns123 7 124 8 139 1415JASON INGRAM; CLIVE NICHOLS; CLAIRE TAKACS; VISIONSPREMIUM/GAP PHOTOS; JACKY PARKER/GETTY IMAGES; GARY K SMITH/FLOWERPHOTOS/BIOSPHOTO/JAN SMITH/EMELE/AGEFOTOSTOCK/DEBORAH VERNON/JANET HORTON/TIM GAINEY/RM FLORAL/ALAMY