Heaven Scent

Tags

Dianthus 'Sweet Black Cherry', hanging baskets, Night-scented stock, Plant Me Now, scented flowers

Night-scented stock

A few weeks ago I was asked to come up with a design for a hanging basket for the online plant nursery Plant Me Now. The design had to include a selection of plants which would fit a 30cm rattan basket, there would be no side holes for planting, there should be no more than 7 plants and they had to come from the Plant Me Now bedding plants range or were plants which could be easily sourced.

Oddly, I’ve never made a hanging basket before. I’m not sure why. My neighbour had a beautiful one by her front door this summer and they are an integral part of my village’s Britain in Bloom entry, with shops and pubs producing a spectacular show every year. Because my focus for the last couple of years has been the allotment and the cut flower patch I haven’t even planted containers to have by the front door or on the patio, but this year I did do a few decorative pots for the back garden. The simplest, and what turned out to be the most effective, was a zinc container filled full of night-scented stock. It was one of the first plants I remember growing from seed when I was about seven but for some reason I hadn’t grown them in years. The scent was so fabulous; one pot filled the garden with scent throughout the summer. The fragrance drifted into the house on those warm summer evenings that seem such a distant memory now. It was also so easy to grow from seed and just kept on flowering. I love the element of scent in a garden, something that makes you linger and stops you in your tracks, and that’s where the idea for my summer evening fragrant hanging basket started to form.

I had a quick look around the Plant Me Now website and a few old Gardens Illustrated and Gardeners’ World magazines for inspiration and then set about deciding on the planting criteria for my basket. There would have to be scent obviously, the plants should flower over a long period, they should be compact and there would need to be an element of trailing and tumbling plants to dangle down the sides of the basket.

Dianthus ‘Sweet Black Cherry’

Buying a bunch of sweet Williams from a local cut flower grower at a farmers’ market was one of the reasons why I started growing my own cut flowers. They have an old-fashioned charm, the sort of flowers you remember being given by your granddad when you were a child. Most sweet Williams are biennials so they are often forgotten about, and when you do come to think about adding them to your planting plans you realise it’s too late. That’s why I was so pleased to discover a range of annual sweet Williams. The subtle clove-like fragrance and compact upright habit makes them perfect for planting in the centre of my hanging basket. I chose the gorgeous claret coloured ‘Sweet Black Cherry’.

Nemesia ‘Lady Scented’

Around this central planting I plumped for Nemesia ‘Lady Scented’ with its pretty lilac/pink flowers and its strong fragrance. It forms neat mounds and is very free-flowering.

Petunia tumbelina ‘Melissa’

As this hanging basket has no space for side planting I wanted to include a selection of trailing plants which would tumble out of the top and spill over the sides softening the edges of the basket. Petunia ‘Tumbelina Melissa’ with its frilly, double ivory-coloured flowers fitted this role with the added bonus of scented blooms.

Planted amongst the petunias would be night-scented stock. They have a naturally leggy, sprawling habit perfect for cascading out of a hanging basket. The flowers of night-scented stock open in the evening to release their perfume providing a source of nectar for moths. The flowers aren’t especially showy but I love the pale lilac, pink and white four-petalled blooms for their daintiness. If you would prefer a flower that opens during the day you could grow Virginian stock instead which is scented too.

Verbena ‘Aztec White Magic’

Finally, to add some extra flowery oomph, I plumped for Verbena ‘Aztec White Magic’ as the last addition to the planting. Although not scented it makes up for this with its long season of flower production and it will tumble and trail out of the basket too. Verbenas come in a range of colours but I chose white because I love how white flowers almost ‘glow’ as light fades in the evening.

So that’s my summer evening scented hanging basket. Perfect for hanging by French doors where the scent will waft into the house and linger in the air around an outdoor seating area.

*I received a fee from Plant Me Now for working on this project and I will be donating a proportion of this to the Crisis at Christmas Appeal.

The Final Push

Tags

cold frames, cut flower patch, Dahlias, scented flowers, stocks, zinnias

The sun shone on Saturday, after another week of heavy rain, giving me the opportunity to get up to the plot for the final push. This is the latest I have left the planting out of half hardies and tender plants. Often dictated by an upcoming holiday, I would normally expect to have empty cold frames by the start of June but not this year. Difficult weather conditions have meant a slow start to the growing season. Plants such as rudbeckias and zinnias are a quarter of the size they were this time last year.

Whilst some plants have struggled, it has been great weather for grass and weeds, unfortunately. Wellyman was on hand to tidy up the paths at the plot. With no strimmer and only hand shears to keep everything in check its a job neither of us enjoy but a trim every 3 weeks or so is better than leaving it and letting it get out of control.

Nigella damascena ‘Double White’ on the cut flower patch

I weeded the whole plot, which took an hour and a half. The ground was nice and soft after the rain making the weed removal easy. My problem weeds are speedwell, hairy bittercress and, in one bed, bindweed but none of them are too bad, mainly because I do as little digging as possible.

The last patch of stocks was removed. They had been such great plants, straggly looking things I’ll grant you, but they had been flowering since last October and had provided so many bunches of gloriously scented flowers, I’m slightly sad to see them go. They were finally giving up the ghost, though and I needed the space, so in their place are now some larkspurs and zinnias.

The plot in June

I managed to squeeze in two dahlias which I’d stored in the downstairs loo over winter. Potted up in April they have spent the last couple of months in the cold frame and have made good-sized plants, one is even about to flower. I have no idea which varieties they are, somewhere along the line their labels have disappeared. Still, it’ll be a nice surprise when they do flower.

The last plants went into the cut flower patch; cornflowers, gypsophila, rudbeckias and godetia. The plants were a little smaller than I would have liked them to be but I’m going to be away for a while, so they need to fend for themselves. I’m hoping I’m going to have enough flowers to take me through to October and for my first foray into the world of the horticulture show. If I can get myself organised I’ve decided to enter some flowers into one of my local shows. I haven’t decided which show yet or had a look at the schedules to see which class I’ll enter. See what I mean about needing to get organised.

Sweet Williams – I possibly didn’t need quite so many plants

Fortunately, the heavy rain and gale force winds didn’t do too much damage but some extra staking and tying in was necessary. The broad beans were now tall enough to pinch out the growing tips, this encourages the plants to divert their energy into producing pods and also helps to discourage black fly. Don’t put them on the compost heap though, they are really nice steamed – a bit like spinach but with a mild broad bean flavour.

So that’s it for another year, the seed sowing and plant nurturing frenzy of spring is over. I always feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief when the cold frames and window sills are emptied and the plot fills up with plants. But there’s little time to rest on my laurels as June is the perfect time to sow biennials. Better go and dig out my seed tins.

Plant of the Moment – Philadelphus

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Alan Titchmarsh, mock orange, orange blossom, Philadelphus 'Manteau d'Hermine, Philadelphus x lemoinei, scented flowers

Philadelphus x lemoinei

There are times in the gardening calendar when it’s a struggle to find a ‘plant of the moment’ but in burgeoning June with flowers at every turn it is much less of a challenge. I try to pick plants for my ‘Plant of the Month’ posts that are ‘good doers’, as Alan Titchmarsh would say, and therefore will work well in small gardens. However, occasionally a plant might sneak in that doesn’t fit this criteria and the choice for this post is in that category.

Philadelphus is a plant that means a lot to me. We had one growing by the garden gate when I was a child. I don’t know which one it was but it was about 5ft tall and would be smothered in beautiful ivory flowers in early summer. I loved standing by the gate and inhaling the intoxicating perfume reminiscent of orange blossom, hence its common name the mock orange. But, for some reason my dad took against this shrub and with his ‘slash and burn’ policy towards gardening (I really have no idea where my green genes come from) its days were numbered. Many a plant went the same way, Forsythia, Buddleia, Weigela, I could go on, all to be replaced, and it pains me to say this, by . . . conifers.

Now I’ll freely admit for ten and a bit months of the year a Philadelphus shrub is a fairly nondescript looking plant. Its season of interest is short, flowering from June into July, it’s deciduous, its mid green leaves are not particularly interesting and neither is its form. Garden designers would say it was the wrong plant to use, especially in a small garden, suggesting something like Choisya instead, which is evergreen and produces scented flowers for a much longer period. And to be honest, I agree with them but gardening isn’t always about the perfect design and the perfect plant for the perfect place, which can sometimes result in ‘designing by numbers’. Plants can mean things to people and therefore don’t fit these logical principles. This is why you can often tell the gardens that have been designed by someone for a client and the gardens that have evolved and have been created by the owners.  A Philadelphus might not have been the ‘right’ choice for my small front garden but it is the scent from my childhood, a time when I was discovering the natural world and plants and learning to love them and for those reasons it was inevitable that when I took on my first garden a Philadelphus would find its way in there.

The intention was to follow some sort of logic and I chose the compact and double-flowered ‘Manteau d’Hermine’ however, when it flowered I discovered that the nursery must have labelled it up incorrectly as mine wasn’t double-flowered. After some research I found that I had actually bought Philadelphus x lemoinei, a hybrid created by Victor Lemoine in 1884 when he crossed Philadelphus microphyllus and Philadelphus coronarius. Not only is it not double-flowered, it isn’t dwarf either. I could do a whole post on garden centres and nurseries labelling plants incorrectly. Anyway, it is not a complete disaster as with a bit of judicious pruning I should be able to maintain my Philadelphus in the years to come. In some ways growing this variety is better as the simplicity of its single flowers are much more attractive to bees and hoverflies. My plant, lemoinei, grows to about 1.5 metres tall with a similar spread so is still manageable in a small space but for those of you looking for something smaller ‘Manteau d’Hermine grows to half this size.

Philadelphus are fully hardy and love full sun. They are easy plants to grow and are tolerant of most growing conditions making them good choices for seaside gardens and urban areas suffering from pollution. Most garden centres and nurseries stocking shrubs will sell at least one variety but there are some great mail order nurseries if you would like a bit more choice.

So, Philadelphus, a plant that makes my heart overrule my head. I’d love to hear about plants that you grow for sentimental reasons or that go against design principles.