Tags
cottage garden planting, herbaceous perennials, Hydrangea 'Limelight', liquidambar, planting using shrubs
Hydrangea ‘Limelight’
It’s taken a while I’ll admit, but I’m finally starting to love shrubs. Cottage gardens packed full of exuberant herbaceous perennials have always been my ultimate in garden style. As soon as we acquired our own growing space the aim was to cram in as many plants as possible. I love the hotchpotch of cottage garden planting. We used to live in a house in an impossibly pretty village by the Thames. It was all brick and flint houses and long narrow gardens with meandering paths. The house we rented had a garden that had become a little neglected and unloved, as the gardens of rented houses tend to be. Having a rummage and a poke about through the borders I could tell this had been a garden of someone who loved plants. I have an old sepia photo of my great-aunt Dora from the 1920s, all horn-rimmed glasses and pin curls, standing in a similar garden next to towering hollyhocks and sweet peas.
This type of cottage garden planting, created over time through propagation and seed sowing, rather than the more modern approach of mass purchases for a more instant effect appeals to me. But the charming higgledy-piggledy nature of cottage gardens belies the design skills that go into creating that natural looking ‘undesigned’ space. It’s a bit like trying to create the au naturel look with make-up; it’s harder than it looks and often requires more effort than going for the more obvious option. The best cottage gardens were created by gardeners who had an innate ability to work with plants. Their plonking of a particular plant at the front of a border might not have had much conscious thought but deep down there was a plan or some deep-rooted understanding that it would work in that spot.
The appropriately named liquidambar
What I’ve learnt in the last 6 years is that a backbone and structure need to be there for the stars of the show – the herbaceous perennials – to shine. And this is where my new-found love for shrubs has come in. It’s not as if my early planting plans were a shrub-free zone. The teeny fatsia I bought is now an impressive specimen in my shady border and the box balls planted at intervals along the paths to provide evergreen focal points throughout the year have worked well. The idea that we’ll probably be moving has made me start to evaluate the garden and what has worked and what hasn’t. I’ve been thinking about how I have tackled creating my first garden. Looking back I was quite tentative about what to plant. Shrubs and trees are expensive purchases and I was so keen not to get my choices wrong that in some cases it was easier not to buy at all. And that’s how more herbaceous perennials crept in.
I was a little scarred by the 1980s desire for shrubberies and conifer beds. This idea for low maintenance gardens seemed pointless to the young me just becoming interested in plants. Why would you want a garden that was bland and boring, a garden that didn’t change with the seasons? There’s a form of this still out there, the highly designed, restricted palette look that is suggested as the best way forward for small spaces. And so I brought this shrubby baggage with me to my first garden. Some of my early purchases were a reluctant concession to the fact that I didn’t want to be staring out on to a barren, plant-less space over winter. I’ve discovered though that I need shrubs and my garden needs shrubs.
Choosing carefully seems to be the key. Firstly I don’t want my garden to resemble a supermarket car park, the home to so many a shrub. Secondly they take a while to get growing and finally there’s the hit to the bank balance. It’s tempting when considering this last factor to accept shrubby freebies when they become available. Of course, like any gardener my eyes light up at the prospect of free plants and any semblance of discernment tends to disappear out of the window. Much as I love the now substantial winter flowering honeysuckle that came as a rooted sucker from the grounds at college it’s straggly, sprawling nature doesn’t warrant such a prominent position in my garden. The problem is in a small garden everywhere is fairly prominent. This shrub’s days were numbered and its removal was part of a border redesign planned for this autumn. It has a stay of execution now until we have more idea of when and where we might be moving to. I’ve even found some more rooted suckers which I’ve potted up just in case our next space has the perfect tucked away corner where I’ll still be able to smell its heady winter fragrance.
The shrub I have fallen in love with is the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ I bought two years ago. I have a while to wait for it to put on show. From spring until August it provides an unobtrusive background to geraniums and Iris sibirica, and then delicate ivory panicles of flowers start to appear, lighting up the shady border. I love the contrast between it and the hot colours of my raised beds on the other side of the path zinging with pinks and yellows. And then, as autumn approaches, the flowers take on a tinge of pink which spreads and deepens as the temperature drops and light lessens. It’s a cracker of a plant. Other additions this year included a sarcocca to provide scent by the path to the front door and I finally got round to purchasing some perennial euphorbia. Why it took me so long I don’t know.
Autumnal colour at the start of November
Looking at my garden over the last week I see how I’m evolving and learning as a gardener. I’m often hard on myself about my gardening ability. There’s a desire to have that ‘perfect’ look, wanting my plants to work together and thrive. They do their own thing though, one will grow a little too well, swamping everything else in sight; another, supposedly slug-resistant addition, will be devoured over night. Despondency does occasionally creep in as my gardening pride is dented. But then I’ll catch a glimpse of something that makes my heart swell and I remember why I love it all so much. I was absent-mindedly staring out of the window the other day and focussed on a part of the garden which really captures what I had hoped I might be able to achieve. The view of the liquidambar in all its autumn glory with the pink of Hydrangea ‘Lime Light’, the dramatic leaves of fatsia and fading colour of the sedums. Even the soggy, black seed pods of the irises add form and interest.
I bought a shiny new notebook when I was in Edinburgh. It has sat on my desk since. I’m aware of the blank pages but a sense of creativity has eluded me. I’ve finally decided it will be my garden notebook. It’s going to be filled with ideas from my current garden, from garden visits and from any inspiration I come across from the blogs and magazines I read. The idea is that wherever we end up I will be more confident and less tentative about designing a new garden. In the past I’ve made notes and copious lists but they’re always on scraps of paper which I lose and don’t have with me when I need them. And so, to get me started, I’d love to know the shrubs you wouldn’t be without.
wellywoman 
A beautiful post 🙂
I’m really enjoying your thoughts on which plants are important to you and which you will take with you when you move. What I have learnt while gardening here is that perennials do need a backdrop to show them off. There were a few shrubs here when we came, not necessarily in the right place, but they survived being moved. I think my best shrub, that gives 12 months of interest are the Cornus alba sibirica Westonbirt. Flowers in the spring, green foliage behind all the perennials in the bee and butterfly border for summer, wonderful deep maroon foliage in the autumn, then fantastic red stems all winter, what more could you ask for!
Thank you Pauline. That will be the first recommendation to go in the book. 🙂 I’m going to have a look back through your posts at your beautiful planting combos for a few more tips too.
😉 I loved that sentence ‘my eyes light up at the prospect of free plants and any semblance of discernment tends to disappear out of the window’ – how easily we fall into that trap!! I too am much better these days. Interesting what you say about shrubs as we so easily decide we ‘don’t like’ certain kinds of plants and then we find ourselves overlooking potential stars like that very attractive hydrangea (and I ‘don’t like’ hydrangeas very much!). It looks delightful, especially with your liquidamber
Thank you Cathy. I’m not so keen on a lot of hydraneas too which is why I went for this one. It’s much more delicate than many of the others.
It is indeed
Your maturity as a gardener is beginning to shine. We all grow with our gardens, so take time to enjoy the transformation from novice to more experienced novice. After 35 years I’m still only an apprentice and still learning.
There’s a desire to be good NOW. 😉 But I realise the best gardeners are those who learn along the way. I just wish I’d come to it a bit sooner. I feel there is so much to learn. But that is the sheer joy of gardening – the idea that there is so much more out there to discover.
I remember my first time introduction to Sarcococca outside the front door of an Irish garden designer friend. I now have it outside my kitchen door and will never be without that delightful shrub. I would probably always find a corner for the evergreen Fatsia japonica and definitely space for my increasing obsession with hydrangeas to cut for the house. Old roses allowed to grow into large shrubs will also have a role in any future garden. The challenge with shrubs is finding good herbaceous plant and bulb combinations to mix with them and a notebook is helpful to record inspiring magazine images or visits to good gardens.
I would like a few more hydrangeas too, although the take up too much space for my current garden. Are there any varieties you would recommend? I don’t like the colour of some when in bloom but like it when they fade and others I like the the bloom colour but then they fade to something which looks too muddy.
Great post, Ifind it so fascinating to learn a little about how someone else is evolving as a gardener. I had to smile though, because I have travelled in almost the opposite direction. I began with shrubs and trees, heavily influenced by an article by Architectural Plants in a magazine shortly after I got my first garden. Perennials crept in slowly and carefully, and I am still an ignoramus about so very many of them. I use the Evernote app on my tablet and desktop to keep notes of success and failures,, the ver growing plant wishlist, and images that inspire me from blogs, magazines etc. I think having notes and scrapbooks is a wonderful way to help you pln and dream a garden. As for shrubs I wouldn’t be without, you have already mentioned one of mine, fatsia. I am also very partial to well behaved bamboos for year round rustle and movement and colour, oak-leaved hydrangea for dramatic foliage, great autumn colour and wonderful white flowers, and the very common but oh so fragrant choisya ternata.
PS Photos – lots of them – of the bits in your current garden that make your heart sign. Invaluable.
Thanks Janet. I’m an herbaceous girl at heart still. I would love an oak leaf hydrangea. I’ve always avoided choisya because I’ve seen it in such unflattering planting schemes that it has put me off. But its scent is gorgeous so I should include it in my ideas. And bamboos have always scared me. I’ve seen the damage they have done to a path in the village where they are lifting the tarmac. I even heard of a house which had it pushing up into the lounge from under the foundations. *eeekkkkk* We spent so long getting rid of willow from this garden which was heading towards the drains when we were lifting some decking that I didn’t fancy adding bamboo. I know there are some which are better behaved though and I agree about the rustling noise being so lovely. I love stroking the canes too.
This was such a great post, I have loved reading the comments, and have gained more plants for my wishlist too. Re bamboos, you do indeed have o be careful about which you pick, but there are some very beautiful clump forming ones that I have never had problems with. Famous last words! I guess so much will depend on where you end up living. I have had to change so many of my assumptions about what I would grow since moving here and getting to know the climate and the soil etc.
I know, I’m probably jumping the gun a little to be focussing on a non-existent garden when I have no idea about the growing conditions and micro-climate, still good to be prepared. 😉 I always marvel in the subtle and not so subtle differences in climate we have in such a relatively small country. Somewhere with a little less rain would be nice but then I’d only whinge about having to water things. Do you think where you are now is more or less wet than where you were before? Or is it too early to say? We used to live near London and it was much, much drier than here in the west.
We’re in a funny little microclimate in cemaes so it tends to be drier than elsewhere on Anglesey, and my feeling is that it is drier than South Glos. too. Certainly had more fine dry winter days last year than I am used to, which is great, I hate winter wet! Very exciting though also probably stressful not knowing when, if or where yet. Making lists of lovely plants seems like a great way to sidestep it all and you are bound to come up with some things that work well!
Great Blog. Thanks for sharing your journey. That’s what gardening is to me a journey into new places, plants, and ways to use them. Ever changing and easy to change. One of my favorites shrubs is a helwingia chinensis, narrow leafed form.
It has an epiphyllous inflorescence , or flower in the middle of the leaf. It is evergreen and well mannered. I like something unusual next to more common things to stir up the plant pot so to speak.
Thank you. I’ve never heard of Helwingia before so had a quick look online. What a fascinating plant. Unfortunately I don’t think it would survive the winter temperatures in my garden but if we ever get to move closer to the coast I’ll remember it as a possibility. 🙂
A most enjoyable, and informative, post.
My mother had lots of shrubs in her garden including hydrangeas, peonies and roses so it’s not surprising that I like them, especially the first of these, and would certainly have them in my garden, if I had one.
Like Pauline, I have a cornus sibirica on the plot which provides all year round interest. xx
Thank you Flighty. I would have more hydrangeas although they do take up quite a bit of space. I love peony flowers but find them a bit too easily damaged by the weather. One minute they’re in full bloom and looking gorgeous, the next it has rained and the flower is just a crumpled pile of petals on the ground. 🙂 Opium poppies are similar. Stunning flowers just don’t last long enough for me. Cornus sibirica is definitely on the list. x
Lovely thoughtful post – so many fave plants but the shrub lilacs (eg syringa meyeri palibin), winter-flowering honeysuckles (eg lonicera purpusii winter beauty), and enkianthus campanulatus for its dainty summer bells are among those I wouldn’t be without.
Thank you. I love lilac but have been put off by the size they can reach so thank you so much for this tip. It is going in my notebook. I’m hoping I have space in any future garden to plant a cutting from my winter flowering honeysuckle. It’s fragrant flowers do lift the spirits in winter. And enkianthus is so sweet. Oh dear! At this rate my wish list is going to be huge. 😉
That looks a great hydrangea. Am I really alone in loving so many of them? The subtlety of their colours during their long fade and the sheer gorgeousness of much of that colour delights me. It’s as if that long changing fade brackets the year – hellebores to start and hydrangeas to finish.
I’m always wanting more and wondering where to fit them…..
Hi Anne. I can highly recommend ‘Limelight’. I’m coming around to hydrangeas. I think they are plants that have so often been misused, plonked in an island bed, or in a pot that is too small outside a doctors where they have to eke out an existance. I’m not keen on the colour of some and some fade to a very muddy colour. Others however are stunners so I’m hoping to build up a list of the best varieties in the hope I’ll have some space for a few more in any future garden.
I love shrubs, and those plants that can be pruned to shrubby or tree. When they flower they are magnificent, not just a grudging few blooms.
Thanks Diana. I agree shrubs really can be show pieces of a border and garden.
Structure (often from shrubs) is essential as you say to be the backdrop to the fleeting perennial stars. Winter honeysuckle 8do you mean L. fragrntissima?) is a shrub I wouldn’t want to do without, it flowers for so long and with such a stunning fragrance but I know what you mean – it isn’t a beautiful shrub all summer but once it is established it makes a great green support for a clematis or even two! The shrub I wouldn’t want to be without is the evergreen Elaeagnus x ebbingie, another winter flowering fragrant shrub with silvery green foliage that forms a nice shaped shrub or can be pruned to maintain its size.
Hi Christina, I love my winter honeysuckle but it just doesn’t work where it is. I really need something that is a better shape and evergreen. Well that was the plan any way. At the moment it will stay as I don’t see the point in replacing it. I do hope I can fit one in any future garden though because there is nothing like the smell of the flowers in winter. Thanks for the recommendation of the eleagnus. Another to add to the list . 🙂
That’s one of the lovely things about gardening, your style and preferences keep evolving:)
I know, it is brilliant isn’t it?
I too love ‘Limelight’ and if I ever stop moving it about, the poor thing might get established and strut its stuff. Now is a perfect time to snap up shrubs at bargain prices – the dreaded B&Q is especially good for plants screaming out for rescue. (It’s akin to going to a dog’s home and not being able to come away without a puppy). So, I don’t think cost need be a deterrent. One quick word re Liquidamber – gosh but it is slow-growing. I planted one about four years ago and it has grown, what? two inches. Drives me mad (especially as it is in deer country and I so wanted it to get away and out of their reach). Dave
Generally I can never face going into B&Q but that is a really good tip. A few of our local garden centres have bargain bins with forlorn looking plants. As for the liquidambar, it was one of the reasons we picked it. After having to remove trees from the garden planted by the previous owners because they were just too big and out of proportion with the garden we wanted a slow growing tree. Although saying that it has put on about 6 inches of growth each year since we bought it. It seems to be the way with plants. The plants you don’t like, which you would perhaps like to die so you have an excuse to get rid of them thrive, and the ones you want to flourish and grow the most are inevitably the ones devoured by every available pest or the ones which sulk for years after planting. 😉
My fave shrubs have to be the Buddliea’s. I love the different colours…especially the purples…and how they bring the Butterflies into the garden. Easy to propogate too.
I love buddleias. I saw one a while ago with the most stunning burgundy coloured flowers. And they do truly justify their name of the butterfly bush.
My biggest regret is not planting more shrubs when we started our garden off from scratch but it was very much a matter of pennies as well as lack of awareness about what I could grow. Your hydrangea is a beauty WW and is going down in my notebook 🙂 Thinking about the overriding planting theme of what is important to you, cottage gardeners rarely grew anything on the basis of appearance or sentiment. alone. The plants they grew had to earn their place by providing something useful whether edible or medicinal so you may want to think about those factors when choosing shrubs. My favourite shrub rosa rubiginosa is one that has been around for a long time – it has apple scented foliage and small pink flowers that eventually bear hips which both birds and humans can use 🙂
Hi Anna, I had been planning to incorporate a species rose with some beautiful hips in my border redesign. I’ll take a look at rubiginosa – I love the idea of apple scented foliage. I agree about the idea of the true cottage gardens being about useful plants. I think mine is going to become a more loose interpretation of the style to be honest. I’m not such a great fan of the planting edibles in amongst ornamental. I’ve had a few close calls with the wrong plants being picked with the intention of eating and it’s surprisingly easy to do, even to the trained eye to get them confused. But I do have a plan to make it a productive cottage garden wherever we end up. Will make a note of rubiginosa. 🙂
Limelight is one of my favourite hydrangeas, although I haven’t added one here yet. I do think about it… We do have an oak-leaved hydrangea ‘Ice Crystal’ whose leaves are vibrant and red at the moment, and a compact paniculata called Bombshell which I adore.
I started this garden with a dozen or so shrubs, some cuttings given to me by family, and one or two small plants mostly bought for a song, which I threw into the garden before concentrating on the faster, fun herbaceous perennials and zippy annuals for the next couple of years. Every winter when most of the garden is laid low, those shrubs stand a little taller and I’m willing them on to really fill in the winter garden in the years to come – they really come into their own at the turn of the year.
My favourites so far? I love the two hydrangeas; Ice Crystal is really getting into its stride this year. Sambucus Nigra ‘Black Lace’ too, its interest changing throughout the year, from unfurling leaves, to flowers, then berries. Acers, magnolia stellata and dogwoods are indispensable too (we have plenty of midwinter fire, and another one of the cornus, a dark red-stemmed one with variegated pale leaves, was from a cutting taken at municipal planting near our old house… but in a garden it has all the punch without the car park look … I hope!)
Leycesteria formosa grew quickly from cuttings to create a screen where we wanted one, and does have pretty flowers and berries, being popular with pollinators over a long period. I can’t quite find a wow factor in it, and yet it provides good structure and seems to earn its keep in our small garden despite being slightly more dependable rather than showy.
I’ve a tiny Euonymus quinquecornutus grown from seed, still in a pot. I look forward to it getting a bit bigger, especially for its autumn interest. I’ve also bought a tiny replacement for our Euonymus alatus which mysteriously died off this year, but had such stunning autumn colour the year before.
We have three lovely acers here, but I hanker after A. Chitose-yama which my Mum has a beautiful specimen of. Its foliage is well shaped and the new leaves look beautiful in the spring, is littered with striking red and green keys in the spring/summer, and beautiful fiery red foliage in autumn, and a good fairly compact shape.
Also on my current wishlist are Mahonia ‘Cabaret’ and Physocarpus ‘Diable d’Or’. We saw the latter in the hydrangea gardens in Normandy, France, some years ago and it was stunning. We tracked it down last year and bought one for my MIL on her request… and I still hanker for one here too.
Our native hedging is start to fill out too with rosa rubrifolia glauca – beautiful smoky dark leaves, pretty pink flowers and glowing red hips – hazel, beech, hawthorn, blackthorn, some euonymus europaeus, and a cobnut that gave us its first small harvest this year.
Hmm.. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, rather surprisingly. I tend to feel that I have rather neglected shrubs in favour of mostly perennial planting, but when I start to contemplate things, our garden does have quite a collection of shrubs, it’s just that many are still small as they don’t tend to fill out as quickly as herbaceous plants and we’ve rarely, if ever, bought a mature shrub – as you say they can be rather expensive! A fascinating subject though – and I strongly agree that good shrubs and trees make the difference to even the smallest garden.
Thanks for your tips. 🙂 I’m not feeling too hot at the mo so have spent the day going through some of my favourite blogs, adding tips and recommendations to my garden sketchbook. I’ve already had a look back through your old posts for inspiration but I’m noting down these plants down too. I’d always have a garden which favoured perennials but I’m learning that shrubs too can add so much.
I’ve seen this particular hydrangea on a couple of blogs recently and fallen in love with it, it’s a real beauty. It’s a good idea to jot down plants and shrubs you come across, it’s handy to have all the information in one place for when you need it, especially if you just ‘happen’ to pass a nursery, you never know what you might find.
I’ve really enjoyed reading through this post and all the comments, Welly, as the planning and planting of structural shrubs is the main topic of study in my garden design course at the moment. An apparently simple subject with a million permutations and complications!
The shrubs here were all planted (and then neglected) by the landlord so have reached their full height and potential over the past decade – some of them, Elaeagnus x ebbingei for example, being a bit too vigorous. I’m doing a fair bit of winter pruning at the moment! I get to see so many of the above mentioned shrubs in the gardens at Capel and would say that there is absolutely no substitute for seeing for yourself how shrubs behave when allowed to grow. The hydrangeas at Wisley are massive! (but undoubtedly beautiful!) It’s good to watch a shrub through all the seasons because some are, frankly, quite dull in the summer months. If you have a wall to cover in your next garden, how about Hydrangea x anomala subsp. petiolaris? An excellent evergreen wall shrub with pretty white flowers in the summer. It would be a good substitute for Lonicera which, I agree, gets very tatty! My favourite shrub in the gardens here (more of a tiny tree now) is a multi-stemmed Viburnam x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ – deciduous, but lovely pink flowers and gorgeous heady smell in mid-winter; I’ve pruned the lower branches to create a canopy so that I can grow ground cover underneath – its canopy can get quite dense in summer!
My gardens never really satisfied me until I started including shrubs. They just add that ‘groundedness’ that really shows off perennials. One of my favourites for this is Cotinus coggygria, especially ‘Grace’ and ‘Velvet Cloak’. Keep them dense by cutting back quite hard in winter and they make a stunning backdrop to almost any colour of flower.
Thanks for your tip about cotinus. I do love the colour of them. We had one in the garden when we moved in but it had got too big, was in the wrong place and would have been impossible to move so we had to remove it. I agree they’re gorgeous plants.
Nice pictures of the hydrangeas, I grow a lot of these. I really enjoyed visiting your blog, nice pictures and good information. Our garden is already gone for this year, we had a cold from come thru last week.
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A really wonderful blog to read not just once but to return to again and again, for its eloquence and all the planting ideas. The many Comments also provide super reading and lots of tips and advice. I do hope you will continue your blog if and when you eventually move. I feel too much of a novice to make any worthy contributions on the plant/shrub front, except to say a garden notebook is invaluable!
Thank you Alison that’s so lovely of you to say. 🙂 I have noted all the suggestions down in my notebook. It’ll be nice when I come to choose plants from it to think about how the ideas came about. I hope to keep up the blog. Even if I don’t have a garden for a while I hope I can find something to write about still.