Some of our garden areas such as the Dragon garden, the Decennium border, the Mill End borders and the Gravel Garden are at their peak interest from mid summer into autumn and then well into the winter. They are then cut down from late winter to early spring and at that time can seem rather flat and uninteresting. This is the time of year when we rely on the gardens collection of early flowering bulbs and woody plants such as berberis, rhododendron, camellia, and azaleas to provide the always welcome spring flowers.
The Mill End borders offer a subtly beautiful tapestry of green as a foretaste to the fabulous floral display that is yet to come.
However, while we are enjoying the spring flowers elsewhere something almost magical takes place in those borders as the plants start to regrow after their annual cut back. At first there seems only a green shoot or two, as a hint as to what is to come, and then as the temperatures warm and the days lengthen the grasses and perennials start their annual cycle of amazing fast growth that always leads to a summer time bonanza of flower, shape and form. Clothing the ground with myriad leaf shapes in innumerable shades of green these areas now offer a kind of green tapestry that is as pleasing to the eye, and soul, as the spectacular show that they will offer a little later in the year.
Almost covering the gravel that coats the surface of the Gravel Garden the myriad shapes and shades of green foliage are punctuated by the early season flowers of Stipa gigantea, Poa labillardierei and the first of the seasons foxgloves. In the Decennium border the green tapesty is delicately enhanced by the flowers of nepeta, phlomis, chelidonium and some impressive dark red poppies.Looking across the Dragon garden the green tapestry includes the foliage of persicaria, tellima, veronicastrum, aster, miscanthus, calamagrostis and panicum.In the Dragon garden the sky blue flowers of Amsonia tabernaemontana punctuate the green tapestry consisting of miscanthus, persicaria, veronicastrum and tellima.Fast growing miscanthus, veronicastrum, arundo, macleaya and solidago create an ever changing tapestry of multiple shapes and shades of green.Poa, gaura, panicum, euphorbia and verbascum are just some of the plants contributing to the tapestry effect in the Gravel garden. While the first foxglove and an orange poppy offer a hint of the flower that is to come.The soft pink flowers of the spring flowering Persicaria bistorta Superba and a few foxgloves contrast effectively with the massed foliage of echinops, agapanthus, persicaria, miscanthus and calamagrostis in the Long Walk. Looking from the Mill End borders across the Lower Lawn towards the Decennium border and the Gravel Garden. An early summer symphony of shape and form in myriad shades of green.
