Page 35 - Garden News

NAOMI SLADE

Notes from a

SMALL GARDEN

Award-winning horticultural journalist, author, broadcaster and designer

Adding scent

and stature

Cornus and sarcococca will lift
my plot from the January blues!

s I eye up my new plot, my thoughts out. But plain old
are of the verdant lushness that evergreens can
A will surely come. Ferns and hostas be boring – and
should thrive in the shadier spots and there nobody really
are plenty of these – I’ve discovered that wants the graveyard
in the weeks around the winter solstice, look – so I’m busy
my garden receives no direct sun at all. introducing new
The present reality is greyer, however. levels of interest,
And any herbaceous frivolity is still colour and scent.
some way off. But a garden really shows Cornus alba
its mettle in January; building up ‘Sibirica’ has always
good bones now will reap dividends in served me well,
winters to come and provide strength but I’m planting
and structure in summer, too. the newer variety
My containers of clipped box balls and ‘Baton Rouge’ (www.
small, soon-to-be-conical yews are parked thompson-morgan.
in prominent positions, awaiting planting com), which has a
brighter red colour, The sarcococca’s
Sarcococca hookeriana and I may add an going in!
has a reddish tinge Naomi Slade
orange dogwood as
well – C. sanguinea
‘Midwinter Fire’ is popular but ‘Anny’s of job and are at least as tolerant, but the
Winter Orange’ is said to be better still. risk of them getting out of hand in such a
While dogwoods are sometimes small space is not one I’m willing to take!
derided as an obvious choice, this is a I also never make a garden without
little unfair. They’re hardy, relatively sweet box, sarcococca. In the front I’ve put
compact and will take the shade and rather adaptable S. confusa, and to the back, by
claggy soil on offer here. Young stems the deck, S. hookeriana, which likes partial
offer the best colour, so I’ll be cutting or deep shade and has pleasing, plummy
back pretty hard in spring and feeding stems. Both have evergreen leaves and tiny
liberally for vigorous new growth. but perfumed flowers, so, whichever door I
A
Of course, willows will do the same sort leave by, I’ll catch an uplifting whiff of scent!
y
Avoiding invasion Prey grape S
hyacinths can k
It’s fine to have large or dramatic My own garden contains a clump of soon take over!
statement plants in a small garden, but what looks suspiciously like Muscari
anything invasive or badly behaved armeniacum, and while I have nothing
simply has to be a no-no. against grape hyacinths in principle,
When my parents bought their first this one has straggly, weedy leaves
family home, like so many people do, and a tendency for overzealous
they stuck in a few cheap and easy self-seeding. To my mind, there are
plants such as ivy, jasmine and beer candidates for the space and
Japanese anemone. It rapidly became beer small bulbs, so its eviction is
a lush wildlife haven, but we’ve been underway, but tiny bulbils will be
trying to get it under control, on and off, hard to spot and I fear it’ll be popping
since about 1983! up for years to come!

Subscribe and get 4 issues for just £1! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn January 27 2018 /Garden News35