Contain Yourself

Contain Yourself 

The gardener’s lot is not a glamorous one – dirt in your fingernails, twigs in your hair and don’t even get me started on the sore knees and aching back – and there are some jobs even the most committed gardeners might want to swerve occasionally. So at this time of year I’m always itching to get started on the pretty stuff, you know: getting some flowers into the garden and planting up containers – I mean I do have my pick when it comes to some rather nice steel containers.

So I asked Amanda for some planting advice: “Hold your horses,” was her reply, “by all means get your troughs and planters into position, but don’t go binge shopping on all the bright sweeties in the shops at the moment – tempting as they might be – a bit of patience and planning will help stave off the multi-coloured vomit approach”.

Well, that told me!

I’ll let her explain…

It’s easy to think that containers have to be in that pub garden style – all bright geraniums and tumbling aubretia, the clashier the better – but that’s really not the case. Containers can be elegant and sophisticated, evergreen and textural, or colourful and fragrant. And they are brilliant for adding interest to your garden throughout the year, not just in the height of summer when they have to compete for attention with other garden plants.

You can use containers all around the garden to create different atmospheres, block an unsightly view, or deal with tricky ground conditions where plants might otherwise fail. And you can use trees, shrubs and other perennial (permanent) plants, not just the traditional eye-catching but short-lived annuals.

Like I said: a little planning can go a long way, so look beyond the obvious and experiment with different types of plant.

For spring you could create a woodland-style arrangement – get a nice, big, deep container, fill it with a good topsoil and compost mix and then add a small silver birch, ferns (Polystichum and Asplenium are easy care), grasses (Luzula nivea is evergreen and has lovely white ‘flowers’), and a few flowering plants such as Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’ and Geranium sylvaticum, and finally put in some potted daffs and bluebells or add some new bulbs in autumn for next spring.

Got a hot spot? Head for the Med. Keep the soil sandy or gravelly so it’s well drained (at Hampton Court I used a load of old builders’ rubble on top of poor garden soil) and choose drought-tolerant plants that won’t mind if you forget to water them occasionally. You could have an olive tree or mock privet (Phillyrea) for height, then add a mix of mounds, wafts, fragrances and flowers: Nasella (aka Stipa) tenuissima is the grass to go for, Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ will billow with lilac flowers and sweet smelling foliage, and Gaura lindheirmerii provides a mass of flowers until early winter. Herbs like thyme and oregano are a useful addition. And Eryngiums will bring a nice contrast with their blue spikes.

You could even have your own mini meadow. Choose a shallow but wide container, fill with sandy topsoil (not compost or the plants will flop) scatter over a good quality seed mix and wait for what pops up.

And if going for one or two big containers is too much of a commitment, take inspiration from the gardening team at Great Dixter who are renowned for creating amazing displays of different size pots and containers outside the porch of the main house. It’s a great way to try out combinations of plants – flower colours and leaf shapes, tall and sproinky or low and mounded forms – that can be a huge inspiration and later translate into the garden border – great news because you get to play around and make your mistakes before doing all that digging!