Problems with Symmetry ⚖️

Anyone studying this garden for just a minute would see that I am a sucker for symmetry. It’s a weakness. The late great Christopher Lloyd warned against the ‘one on this corner, one on that corner’ mentality. Even identical varieties of plant in perfectly analogous positions (ie not one facing south and the other facing north) would never develop exactly the same way, so it is best, the master said, to go for balanced asymmetry,     Alas, that seems too sophisticated for me. Fortunately, the well regulated and forbearing nature of box and yew coupled with the fact that they can be forced into shape via clipping, allows me to get away with symmetry in a lot of places. Nevertheless, there are flourishing groups of Stipa gigantea opposite sulky ones that testify all too clearly to the wisdom of the master’s advice.

    So, as regards the problem of Skimmia Gap, the horticultural challenge is actually smaller than my own proclivities which scream thus : ‘There were big shrubs here before so I want big shrubs here now … There’s big shrubs opposite so I want big shrubs here’ … Well you can’t.  ‘But I hate dysmaturity!’ Too bad !

      Then the gods took pity on me - Seagrave nurseries  had a sale and we had the opportunity to acquire evergreen  potted plants of significant size at a reasonable price, together with some hefty bareroots. We ordered from this same nursery last autumn when we were making the changes necessitated by Merlin’s Garden. One of the cheapest ways to acquire big plants is as bare roots and, in spite of serious reservations, I learned just how resilient bareroot evergreens - 5ft yews and laurels and photinias - can actually be. Our timing was off and so the plants had to hang about on the pallet for over a week. I felt sure they’d die. Their rootballs were nothing like as big as I would have predicted and I kept anxiously dampening them through their hessian wraps. But I can report that they are still alive and thriving in their allotted positions. Since planting them, we have always been very conscientious about keeping them well watered - every week or more during these hot and drought ridden months.

     However, gods are notorious tricksters and just as I was basking in the comfort of not having to survive the psychic pain of planting little shrubs opposite big shrubs, we were informed that Seagraves had gone bust. There would be no big plants at affordable prices but, as compensation, a complicated system to navigate in order to get our money back plus pages of legalese from the receivers to discourage us from trying.

      Moreover, Pershore College, another long standing source of well grown, well priced plants is undertaking some sort of self-evaluation process that doesn’t involve selling plants as before and isn’t remotely convenient for those of us who are surrounded by a plethora of newly acquired garden gaps.

        All of this finds me staring at some 4 foot Choisya x dewitteana White Dazzlers that are not fulfilling my dreams where they are, and wondering if we could draft them into Skimmia Gap without their getting transplant shock? Or dying. These are classifiable as mature plants - perfect practice would be to prepare their rootballs a year in advance. Maybe Seagraves used to do that. Spring is preferred by some as the time for moving evergreens but if the Choisyas took fright next March and dropped their leaves or died we’d have a new Skimmia gap problem to contend with in the busy time before we open. If they are going to sulk or die, isn’t it better to find out now? Or not. Decisions, decisions…

Skimmia Gap.

    Fortunately, the supporting cast may be predisposed to survive - we cut the straggly Sarcococca confusa ( sweet box) down to about 9 inches and there are signs of new growth, plus the common, native male fern Dryopteris filix-mas is a generous self seeder that will grow on fresh air and excitement and we have been able to round up a significant number of big specimens to dig up and pot ready for filling inauspicious gaps and corners. They are very accommodating of this sort of abuse. As is Aruncus Horatio - a cross from the much bigger and apparently unkillable Aruncus dioicus ( goats beard)They both withstand dry shade well. We have a couple of Horatios on the benches as it happens, plus some Helleborus x hybridus of unexciting provenance. A few tufts of Carex Irish Green (recommend it for an evergreen ‘grass’ that grows in dry shade) to loosen things up if necessary, possibly some foxgloves, maybe some low key geums eg (Lemon Drop) or Tellima grandiflora round the edges and it should be job done.  If the Choisyas play ball. It’s not so easy to be cavalier about losing things when there’s no Pershore. Plants, especially mature ones, are getting expensive - understandably so with all the increasing overheads for growers.

Meanwhile, in further efforts to avoid another spectre of dysmaturity that has been looming in the rose border, we are now in possession of some potted David Austin Roses that were very good plants when they arrived. Nurtured and mammied in their pots over the last couple of months they have put on a surpring amount of growth. A lot of it will be pruned away, of course, but the other consideration was that Austin’s might run out of the potted ones I wanted.  I also  wanted the job done before the bareroots were available. Unfortunately, the drought rather upset the planned schedule.

     The main rose border was planted 20 years ago with approx. 40 David Austin roses. Twenty years is longer than their expected lifespan. Nevertheless, a few - notably Hyde Hall, The Mayflower, Scarborough Fair, Queen of Sweden and one or two others (they’re in sets of 3 of the same as was recommended at the time to create a continuous flowering effect) are still doing the job …

    However, the spot replacement of roses that have reached the end of their lifespan even though their neighbours haven’t, may be short sighted. Primarily, there is rose sickness to deal with via soil replacement - which won’t be easy in patches.  Mycorrhizal bacteria are a help but not a substitute for soil replacement. But the thought of replacing the entire border - tons of new soil and forty new roses …

      Don’t replace the soil, have a different type of border, I hear you say. That would be much too sensible - besides which roses work well there. It’s a bank, it’s dry - they stuck the drought pretty well - and I don’t want another Mediterranean lavender look or more grasses. Being on light well drained soil, we have those already and the roses are not a lot more work and do a fine job design wise in that particular location. The flanking yew balls and low box hedges compensate for their winter bareness. In the end, we’ve compromised.

     Whilst there has always been an edging of the indefatigable Nepeta Wailker’s Low which has crept ‘in and amongst’ plus an underplanting of verbena bonariensis that grow up later to enhance things when the roses ease off, we are going to introduce more patches of Thalictrum Black Stockings.

       We’ve had Thalictrum flavum subsp, glaucum for years - used it, moved it, divided it and generally abused it and it has always stepped up nobly. Oddly, I never felt inclined to try any of the other thalictrums. Then, last year,  I discovered Black Stockings - a curiosity buy at Pershore’s ever reasonable prices and it was great - supported the failing roses visually late May to June with its lavender coloured flowers (the black bit being the stems) and the foliage is nice and lasted well. Pershore’s wholesale dept was a great place … Cue sobs.

       Roses are well known for being prone to replant disease. Soil imbalances and pathogen build-up disproportionately affect the Rosaceae plant family - including some fruit trees. Evidence suggests that certain compounds excreted by rose roots may attract, or support, those bacteria etc implicated in replant disease, but direct secretion to “attract” them is not fully proven. According to the experts, it’s more that the root exudates shape the overall balance of microbial communities, leading to higher numbers of the pathogens. In short, it’s all about roses fostering harmful microbes and possibly a concurrent promotion of nutrient imbalances.

        Overall, it doesn’t seem like a very helpful thing to do if you’re a plant but it has been suggested that this is an evolved natural defence to reduce competition from seedlings close to their parent plants. It’s certainly not a helpful thing to do as regards gardeners ….

        I talked to staff at David Austin’s about the amount of soil to replace per rose - typically the advice has been an area 60cm wide and at least 30cm deep to replace with fresh soil from another part of the garden or with new compost. David Austin’s staff actually said deeper than that but this may not be possible. There is also the cardboard box device but planting into a load of cardboard boxes seems even less feasible. We’ll just have to do the best we can, though faced with almost a dozen expensive roses we’re possibly about to kill, it’s beginning to feel like an expensive learning experience. Not that we haven’t done this successfully before, elsewhere - just not this interplanting en masse in such a long established area of roses.

     We’ll do our best with mycorrhizal fungi on the roots, bagged topsoil fortified with homemade compost and fertiliser and then mulch with composted manure.

      In terms of sheer durability, the oldest modern rose we have is Flower Carpet Pink developed by Reinhard Noack in Germany in 1988 and introduced in the UK in 1991. This was classed as a disease resistant ground cover/ minimum care type and I bought three for my mother in the mid nineties. When she died in 2008, I brought them here - a purely sentimental gesture. They are as healthy and robust as ever, have not gone excessively ‘woody’ which has happened to the David Austin’s and once they start flowering, which they do slightly later than most, they are indefatigable.

    Flower Carpet Pink was not wholeheartedly approved of by the cognoscenti. The colour was considered to be of rather a vulgar shade and Austin’s English Roses which were developed for repeat flowering from the Old Roses ie Gallicas, Damasks, Albas, Centifolias and Mosses had tapped into a romantic flower type and had pretty much stolen the limelight from everybody else including the once dominant Hybrid Teas and Floribundas. It was thus the very high level of disease resistance that was the selling point for the Flower Carpet stable.

   Flower Carpet White was next off the presses and we have a couple of those as very successful standards. Its drawback is a tendency for flowering heads to drop petals if you catch them while dead heading. For a resilient alternative white whose petals seem more effectively attached we use Kent from the County Series. We haven’t had great success with some in this series - rather disappointingly, Worcestershire didn’t play well with us. I suspect that Kent’s disease resistance is starting to breakdown a little but I’d still recommend it.

    Still flowering nicely, less flamboyant than the David Austin varieties but very versatile and healthy, is Sweet Haze (see photo below taken 23 Sept. this year)

         It’s from Tantau Roses and it won the RHS Rose of the Year award in 2008. It also received the prestigious ADR award in 2004 for its disease resistance and flowering, as well as a Certificate of Merit at the Glasgow International Rose Trials in 2007. 

      It works equally in a formal situation or, having single flowers, a semi-wild setting. It is healthy, nicely shaped, up to four feet depending how you prune it and we must have pushing a dozen of these in all kinds of locations and they serve us well.

        Though there’s a lot of work ahead, it’s a relief to have this summer over and to be able to get some of the biennials etc. off the benches and into the ground. It was easier, water wise to keep them alive on the benches. Whilst autumn is a good time to plant, for plants eg carex grasses ( sedges really) that maintain their foliage there’s always the thought that, depending upon the winter, they could be kept a lot smarter looking in the relative protection of the nursery areas. There’s currently almost forty Carex ‘Frosted Curls’, grown from seed last year and now filling 2 litre pots. I’m not sure why we have so many - we need to be more ruthless while pricking out, ignoring the plaintive cries of those seedlings surplus to requirements. However, it’s surprising how many plants an area can absorb- I once read that designers reckon on an average of 5 per square yard.

       We have planted the carex now to save work in the more pressured months just before we open - and we must hope that they don’t get too storm battered over the worst months. It’s a gamble.

        Who would have thought that gardening that is supposed to be good for your health could involve so much endless, and frequently expensive, decision making?

          But then again, what else that’s just outside the door can bring fresh air, contact with nature and beauty?