I find I learn a lot from visiting gardens. I visited two over the weekend so I thought it might be fun to share some of what I learnt:
Cut things back
I am always nervous to cut things that are flowering back. I am thinking of things that I feel detract from how the garden looks over all, rather than a good deadhead. I love taking photos where I capture a vignette of the garden, a little story so to speak. I have, of late, found that I can see a possible story but it is sometimes obscured by other plants. One of the gardens I visited the owner is comfortable with giving things a chop if the colour or shape is not working. It has been inspiration for me to embrace the chop. I realised that the Bishops’ flower that gives a lovely mystical atmosphere to the garden, does tend to dominate and hide many other things that are worthy of attention. So I left some in a few corners of the garden but cut back in parts that it was dominating and inhibiting the view. It felt kinda liberating.
Think how things will look at different times of the year
I have a knowledge of plants but not an extensive knowledge. I do plan what I plant a bit to ensure I have something flowering most of the time but I learnt from my garden visits that while I have been focused on making sure I have something flowering I need to think more about how what is flowering is interacting with each other at different times of year. Right now I have a flower bed where sage plants that I first planted a number of years ago have faded which has changed the nature of the garden. The sage plants provided a lovely pop of purple blue flowers in the spring and then once the flowers had faded, the foliage of stunning soft silver grey hue became the focus. This was an excellent background to the soft peach dahlias I have planted that flower late summer. Now that the sage is no longer so prominent the space has a solid green background and looks rather different. It made me realise I want to think more about the flow of colour through the seasons.
Repeat repeat repeat
Both gardens reminded me of the power of a repeating a plant, either for visual reasons or as a food source for pollinators, (a repeat of plant makes it easier for bees to find what is in flower if it is all in one spot). Mass colour can be used as a pop of repeat colour here and there or as a consistent mass of colour. Beautiful either way.
Think about the soil and what will grow well there
Understanding soil types and conditions is important to gardening, increasingly so as we navigate changing gardens due to inconsistent weather. I’ve always believed it is best to plant to the conditions you have. I think this is becoming increasingly harder as the effects of global warming occur with weather changing from one season to another. This season has been cold, next season might be hot. It means as a gardener we need to think about these things a bit more and be a bit more nimble in how we plant and support our plants.
Review and edit the garden
I was flicking through some photos from a year or so ago. The lightroom app where I store all my photos has got rather full, so I have been deleting photos. It was interesting to look at the garden from different times, seeing what has changed and stayed the same. Reflection I realised is important and encourages you to edit out what is not working.
Inspiration
Probably the most obvious but I have found that visiting other gardens is a great way to learn about new plants and how they like to grow.