Time and Leisure

As you look out at the green shoots bursting through the soil in your garden, are you looking forward to spending the summer in a lovely garden? Or are you wondering why the garden never seems to live up to your expectations? Now is the time to take a long, critical look at your garden. Build on what is working and get rid of the disappointments. Spring is a great time for planting, so act now to give your garden a boost for the summer.

This time of year is a good opportunity to review your garden as you can clearly see the structure – or lack of it! Just as a building needs firm foundations on which to build, a garden needs the support of a strong backbone. It is the structural planting that gives the garden shape in winter and provides a backdrop for showier planting in spring, summer and autumn. Structural planting provides enclosure, emphasis and scale.

A good way to think about the structural planting in your garden is to compare it to a natural woodland glade. In a woodland, the planting falls into three layers. The trees form one layer, clearly a very strong structural element. The shrubs form the second layer. The third layer is made up of ground cover herbaceous planting such as bulbs, ferns, grasses or flowering plants such as foxgloves.

Does your garden have a good balance of all three layers? Many gardens have too many shrubs with no trees to provide some scale contrast. Or lots of flowering herbaceous plants that die down in winter, leaving no backbone in the garden. There should be variety of shape, colour and seasonality within each layer. A shrub layer that consists entirely of round, hummocky, evergreen species will not provide a great deal of interest. And you will want to ensure that your herbaceous planting provides a succession of flower interest throughout the seasons.

Having achieved a strong three layer structure, the next step is to identify some divas for your garden. Every garden needs one or more focal points, and there are literally hundreds of plants that can provide a dramatic focus in any of your layers. Trees such as magnolias or Japanese maples. Shrubs such as roses, daphnes or witchhazels. Herbaceous plants such as delphiniums, paeonies or kniphofias. A diva needs her space, however. So make sure your diva planting has some shy, retiring types planted alongside who will let her shine. Evergreen, small leaved shrubs make great backdrops for attention seeking divas. These plants are often called ‘infill planting’.

So now you should have a strong, three layered structure with some dramatic focal point planting. But what do you do when your diva is dormant? Seasonal, accent planting will help you sustain interest in the garden during these quiet times. Bulbs are a great stand-by for seasonal accents. Bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, anemones and crocus will provide a splash of spring colour for many years. They are easy going but you need to plant a good number, never less than 20, to create an impact. Bulbs aren’t just for spring, however, cyclamens and colchicums provide colour in autumn and snowdrops provide some winter cheer. Bedding plants such as busy lizzies or winter pansies in containers are also a good way of creating seasonal accents.

Gardens, of course, have a habit of growing. Trees and shrubs that were planted several years ago may have outgrown their original space to become shapeless blobs. Before you start any major overhauls, examine existing planting to see if a good hard prune could re-establish the structure. Early spring is a good time to prune most summer and autumn flowering shrubs and trees. Leave spring flowering shrubs to later in the summer.

Decide what you want to do this month and get any new plants in the ground before summer starts. Prune trees and shrubs you are keeping, if they need it, and cover the soil with a good layer of mulch. And start planning that summer garden party!