Chelsea Flower Show has come and gone, leaving visitors dazzled by the brilliance of top designers and the wealth of plants available. But at the more down to earth Royal Horticultural Society Malvern Spring Festival last month, in particular its Green Living Spaces category, there was more approachable inspiration.
These exhibits illustrated the importance of plants in our homes, both indoors and out, and consisted of a balcony or patio garden joined to an interior room. They perfectly encapsulated the current houseplant craze and how it is influencing the outdoor gardener.
John Brookes, the influential garden designer who died last year, was famous partly for helping develop the inside-outside design for living spaces.
He drew on the idea of the Roman courtyard or atrium and the Islamic paradise garden. He created a visual interaction between the inside of a house and its garden with tricks such as using the same flooring materials and key colours across the divide, indoor plants and outdoor furniture.
Now the outdoor room has more relevance than ever. Living accommodation in the UK is getting smaller and so are our gardens. Research by Ipsos Mori for the Horticultural Trades Association last year found that the average UK garden size is 14 sq m, falling to 12 sq m for those aged 25-44.
When the sun shines we want to use that space as an extension to our pressured interiors. In winter it may be used less but, viewed from within, will continue to make the indoor space feel larger.
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Plants for the outdoor room need to work hard. In a traditional border the art is in managing a relay of seasonal interest, with one plant or group of plants taking over where another has left off. A smaller space needs specimens that keep on giving by sheer architectural presence or flower power. As with houseplants, they need to be well groomed, tough and dependable.
With an emphasis on container growing, plants and pots need to be considered as a whole. Plants with strong individual characters need to be united by common threads running through the space — visual links in colour or texture between containers or plants or both.
Thus, tall and strappy Cordyline “Pink Passion”, floriferous semi-climbing Pelargonium “Clorinda” and succulent Echeveria “Duchess of Nuremberg” have completely different forms but share harmonising shades of pink and therefore work together in a scheme.
Emerging designer Sara Edwards won Best Green Living Space Garden for her entry, called “Defiance”, with lush, architectural, contrasting foliage in the balcony-style garden and phormiums as an important feature.
She used “Jester”, “Evening Glow”, “Flamingo”, “Gold Ray” and Phormium cookianum subsp. hookeri “Tricolor”. On placing pots she offered some advice: “Think about the space three-dimensionally. I put my containers at different heights, propped up on upturned pots, bricks, blocks of wood etc. This brings more height and layering into the planting and can help obscure the boundaries of a small garden, making it feel larger than it is.”
Sculptural evergreens
A gum tree might not immediately spring to mind for a small garden, but Hilary Collins of Grafton Nursery in the Midlands recommends a multistemmed Eucalyptus pauciflora “Mount Buffalo” for a patio pot. It needs to be grown in an Air-Pot, a futuristic-looking plastic container covered in holes, which can be hidden inside a more conventional container.
Eucalyptus can easily become pot-bound and by preventing root-circling, the Air-Pot keeps roots happy. This in turn stimulates new top growth that the gardener can shape by pinching out growing tips.
Fatsia japonica “Spider’s Web” is a lovely variegated variety of the castor oil plant that lights up a semi-shaded corner. Pick out its white stippled leaf edges with white flowers nearby.
Palms are perfect for the outdoor room. Chamaerops humilis has a bushy habit or, for a clear-stemmed palm, try Trachycarpus fortunei. Both are hardy.
A tropical touch
For a dramatic patio display it is hard to beat Angel’s Trumpets or brugmansias. Grown in a large pot, they reach a few feet tall with huge hanging funnel shaped flowers that pour out an intoxicating scent in the evening. They need to be overwintered somewhere frost-free, however.
Along with those other staples of exotic gardening — species of banana belonging to the genus Musa — brugmansia can be grown from seed, and a warm spell in June is a good time to sow for decent-sized plants next summer.
Shade lovers
Chris Potts of Sienna Hosta nursery in Surrey recommends fresh huge green-leaved Hosta “Sum & Substance”, which is less attractive to slugs than softer-leaved varieties; H. “Sagae” with creamy-edged glaucous leaves streaked with celadon; and puckered grey-blue H. “Love Pat”. Hostas die back to ground level in the autumn.
For winter foliage, use the soft shield fern, Polystichum setiferum, and contrast its feathery texture with the linearity of the hart’s tongue fern, Asplenium scolopendrium.
You can also liven up a shady corner by giving your houseplants a working holiday outdoors during the summer.
Table-top display
The Small Plants for Small Spaces range from outdoor plant supplier The Farplants Group is a new collection of more than 200 small hardy plants for gardeners with limited space.
Many would be traditionally referred to as alpines. Emma Glue, marketing manager, recommends houseleeks such as Sempervivum arachnoideum, S. calcareum and S. “Ruby Heart”. These are perfectly hardy. A shallow bowl containing a mixture of echeveria or a single Aeonium “Zwartkop” in a simple modern pot would both make striking focal points but would need some winter protection.
For stylish flowers, Gerbera “Sweet Love” belongs to a new generation of hardy gerberas that deserve centre stage.
Hanging containers
If you think of hanging baskets as a bit fussy and old-fashioned, how about a delicate plant suspended in a moss-ball (kokedama)? It could house an ivy, prostrate rosemary — or any small plant. Or consider a perfectly formed succulent in a hanging ceramic bowl.
Crocus has attractive contemporary hanging containers. If you are not a succulent fan, plant up with a Ficus pumila for simple trailing leaves, or Erigeron karvinskianus for a cloud of daisies.
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