GARDEN visiting is not just about a day out and escapism, nice and all as that may be. It is about opening eyes; sharpening perceptions; learning about new plants; and seeing interesting things done with old plants.
Observing how another gardener puts a picture together can be most instructive. The ingredients do not have to be rare treasures to cause excitement - on the contrary, real pleasure and delight will be generated by combinations of more ordinary things.
One outing last week sent me home with copious notes - no, it is not pretentious to go armed with pencil and paper, just common sense. Apart from noting down new names and awarding stars to particular plants, I noted charming combinations where foliage was used to enhance flower colours. First to attract my attention was the large climbing rose New Dawn silhouetted against a copper beech hedge. The pale silvery pink of the flowers looked especially fetching when seen against the dark foliage of the purple beech.
Not everyone will have a suitable hedge or even tree, but a purple leaved plum could be just as good. A little further on I noted the same recipe repeated but with different plants pink, mauve and purple.
Not everyone will have space for a large rose, so the pairing of the purple-leaved berberis with Acanthus spinosus will be good in a smaller space. The spiny, deeply cut and arching shiny dark green foliage of the acanthus provides a structured focus near the front of a border during the growing season. The three feet tall flower spikes in mauve, pink and green however were the real attraction, looking quite sensational in front of the purple berberis. Two very ordinary things, so commonplace that some would disregard them and not consider them worthy of space.
Then I spotted the glaucous, grey-leaved Rosa glauca. That obliging foliage shrub which can be quite happy in a shady corner was here in an open sunny place. Some of the leaves had taken on a pinkish tinge, blushing perhaps at Clematis Madame Julia Correvon, which was twining nicely through the rose. They made a charming couple, the dusky velvety red of the clematis flowers being shown off so well with the leaves of the rose.
Nearby, a clematis of almost similar colouring - I took it to be a Clematis kermesina - was entwined with an elegant willow Salix purpurea Nancy "Saunders". The willow, at six or seven feet high and as much across, was the perfect partner for the clematis. Nancy has thin reddish stems and narrow grey-green foliage. As a specimen on its own it would be very lovely and refined, but teamed up with the right company it soared to much greater heights.
Near the willow, thin spikes of Veronica exaltata made pale lavender blue spires three or four feet high. This happy veronica was seeding itself about in happy abandon, its colouring being enhanced by the graceful, airy, greygreen of the willow.
Why do we not see more of this veronica around? Seemingly it was introduced from Siberia early in the last century - an old-fashioned plant which deserves to be revived and would be so useful for late slimmer and early autumn. It has something of the presence and habit of Lineria purpurea but is a much nicer plant in every way.
Old fashioned too is the Heliotrope Cherry Pie which was being used as an annual in large pots. This has such a distinctive aroma of cherries on a warm day that it will not be forgotten. Seed sown in February indoors had produced bushy plants almost two feet high clothed with dark green wrinkled leaves, shiny and burnished as if they had been touched up with varnish. Towards the edge the leaves showed a greenish purple. Above the foliage, broad, rounded heads of deep violet blue flowers were held in profusion, scenting the air powerfully.
This plant, a tender shrub, can be over-wintered indoors safe from frost, but the best plants seem to be grown from seed each year. To contrast with this dark show, an underplanting of the summer bedding Helichrysum petiolare was used. In some pots the silvery-leaved version was the choice. It was cool and pleasing in its own way, but the real eye-catcher was the combination of Heliotropium arborescens "Marine", with the lime green Helichrysum petiolare Limelight". Those lime-green leaves just shone and lifted the composition, filling it with light. That is one sensation I will try to emulate next year.