More Flowers and Foliage

At the top of my list when visiting other peoples’ gardens is seeing new plants – their structure, foliage and of course, their colourful flowers. I also look for design ideas that elevate the planting above the ordinary. Aberdeenshire is blessed with many castles and country houses with large gardens of all types that are open to the public for much of the year. There are formal walled kitchen gardens, where vegetables and fruit trees star along-side the flowers. In other gardens it may be all about borders and flowers. There are also wooded glens, augmented with specimen trees and ‘natural planting’. There are meandering herbaceous borders filled with drifts of flower colour; there are parterres and mind-boggling topiary; rolling parklands and woodland walks passing exotic conifers more at home in western USA. There is something for everyone. Here are a few plants that caught my eye this summer.

Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’ cropped up more than once. It is a fully hardy flowering herbaceous perennial growing to about 1.5m, that really catches the eye with its delicate pink / purple ‘squirrels tails’. The one in the photo was growing in the beautiful meandering garden border at Leith Hall. There are also a number of examples growing in the enormous walled garden at Gordons Castle.

@Leith_Hall Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’

I first came across Dierama at RHS Wisley some years ago and was captivated by its simple elegance. It is evergreen and fully hardy. Dierama is a visually striking plant, combining good lower foliage, tall structure and especially, the vibrant colours of the pendulous flowers that seem to hover above the border like small lanterns. The photo shows the plant in combination with Verbena bonariensis in one of the borders in the walled garden at Gordons Castle. Like the Sanguisorba described earlier, these plants allow views through - glimpses to other spaces beyond, encouraging further exploration.

@Gordons_Castle Dierama is also known as ‘Angel’s Fishing Rod’, ‘Fairybells’ and ‘Wandflower’ amongst many other names. It is easy to see why.

Roses grow wonderfully well here in Aberdeenshire. The climate seems to suit them perfectly and there are some real show-stopping displays in many peoples’ gardens. The photo below shows a small climbing rose growing up a trellis in the Delgatie Castle garden. Although the rose blooms were individually small, they had the most unexpected and intoxicating fragrance. Growing to no more than 2m in height, the rose was covered in clusters of small, very pretty rose-pink blooms. This rose would be perfect for any small garden, growing by a door or window where the fragrance could be appreciated. It is one I’m going to look out for.

@Delgatie Castle – a fragrant rose (may be the rambler 'Open Arms), alluring to bees, other insects and humans too!

Another show-stopper is the herbaceous perennial, Inula magnifica. I came across it in several castle gardens this year, growing in large drifts. The sheer quantity of blooms per plant make it perfect for this kind of ‘Jekyllesque’ planting, creating a sea of yellow. The large display in the meandering border at Leith Hall was superb. But I have also seen this plant in small gardens too and it looks equally effective. This is one for the next volume of seeHow!

@Leith_Hall Inula Magnifica – a deciduous perennial with bright yellow daisy-like flowers above large leaves that fill the border. It grows to between 1m and 1.5m depending on local conditions

Nepeta is a popular garden plant, found in most garden centres (and in SeeHow). I like its foliage of mixed grey-greens and its pinkish-purple flower spikes. At Leith hall it has been used to edge one of the meandering footpaths from the top of the slope to bottom, creating a ‘river’ of blue running down one side of the path, balanced by the multicoloured drifts of the herbaceous perennial border opposite (yellow Inula in the foreground). It was a real pleasure to be able to walk slowly through this border, amongst the plants.

@Leith_Hall - Nepata flows down the slope, enhancing the colourful herbaceous border opposite. This is not a walled garden as such, although there is a high stone wall just out of the photograph to the left side which provides some protection and additional warmth. The microclimate in the area is perfect for plants – a south-facing slope sheltered by trees and nearby small hills.

The walled garden at Fraser Castle is located a short distance away from the castle itself, which stands alone in the rolling green landscape. The garden is rectangular in plan and has planted borders that wrap around the outside of the walls, including a wide range of Hostas on the north-facing wall and a wide mixed border on the outside of the south-facing wall. The wall itself is very tall, particularly the north wall, creating a superb microclimate inside, keeping out chilly winds and radiating stored heat back into the garden. There are a wide range of perennials growing within the walls including one of my favourite plants, Eryngiums – both the silver flowered and electric-blue flowered varieties. Bees seem to love Eryngiums.

@Fraser_castle – no labels, so I’m guessing the blue one is Eryngium ‘Picos Blue’ and the silver one not shown, may be Eryngium ‘Miss Wilmott’s Ghost’. Both can be found in SeeHow

Most of these gardens began life centuries ago for the most practical of purposes – to feed the owners – so I thought I’d finish with a look at one of the many colourful veg beds at Gordons Castle.

@Gardons_Castle There are number of beds given over to veg growing interspersed amongst the flower beds, making a fine contribution in terms of colour and foliage texture. They provide food for the castle and for the garden restaurant. 

Many castle and estate gardens stay open all year round, which means they can be visited all year round. This provides the opportunity to see the same plants growing for much of the year. But there is a natural tendency for gardeners to clear plants as soon as they have passed their flowering best. I’m not a fan of this unless absolutely necessary, as it takes away the habitats of many insects. The issue of how a plant dies (which can look good too) and how it may support biodiversity during this process, becomes lost. That’s why SeeHow was invented – to show the importance of the whole annual lifecycle of each plant.

The above Text and all Photographs are copyright of Wincenty (Wicek) Sosna. Please contact SeeHow (07939 226417) for permission to reproduce in any way, in part or as the complete text.

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