"in the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer" Potting shed chat continues here

[funnyperson]

So as agreed (by 2 other people!) I have started this thread for spring gardeners follwing on from the previous thread : Welcome one and all. experts and novices alike and draw up your chairs and join in discussion on all things garden related (and even not garden related)

Congratulations holly

I think they may be all about the cool, damp yet slightly sheltered conditions... so my north facing clay in Sheffield suits them. I reckon they have the reputation for difficulty because few places are as cool and wet as here!! As some of you may remember from my incandescence at the time, they were rudely trampled by DH when hedge cutting, and again by a fox (though I forgave the fox on grounds of cuteness). So they've not been pampered and yet have come through, which speaks to conditions rather than the gardener (much as though I'd love to claim credit). I think they would be exceedingly difficult to grow in the south or on very free drained soil.

I agree re conditions, I do nothing to mine , they just live in the border along with everyhthing else . Of course I mulch, weed and feed the whole border, but they don't get any special treatment .

That is so lovely - do few flowers are that colour.

I have a mystery rose about to flower - bought at school fete so not well labelled - so may post s pic asking for help in id-ing it.

shovetheholly its nice of you to post a picture of your garden which isnt at all how I thought it would be! Its lovely. Very neat and tidy and so many wonderful plants! But where do you sit to enjoy it?

My garden is growing and flowering but tidy it is not! Still, I have now worked out where to plant the salvia caradonna and the hostas.

One of the nicest things about the Chelsea flower show was that many of the gardens had planting for shade and with oak trees, and used plants which you or I might have in our gardens: foxgloves, ferns, hostas, astrantia, ammi, aquilegia, viburnum plicatum in shady spots. The designers are geniuses , there is no doubt, and the way they group and place the plants is truly magical. They vary the height within the bed so that the eye moves not just from front to back but side to side and around and through too; and grasses such as Brizia and Stipa are dotted through in small clumps to provide movement and shimmer when the sun comes out.

Were the roses out at Sissinghurst? Their rose garden is the best. I wonder if their new head gardener has made any changes?

There weren't many roses in the gardens at Chelsea this year. Its always a bit early for them, though one year they had a beautiful garden planted up with a repeat pattern of Queen of Sweden roses.

So any way we saw many beautiful flowers and gardens at Chelsea but were sensible to go early, as it opened, so as to be among the first in. As a consequence we had peaceful views of the little artisan gardens and chats with the designers, before a healthy light breakfast on the pleasant picnic benches in Ranelagh, and then a very nice time seeing the large show gardens before Pimms and rose and pistachio cake at 11 o clock.

After this, the place was too crowded for comfort, and though the delights in the Great Pavilion were no doubt phenomenal, we found it very unpleasant to be in, and after viewing the hepaticas, fuschias and delphiniums, hastened to withdraw to gasp for air and space and following a welcome cup of tea, decided to leave.

By the time we left at 3.30 pm the place was not only heaving but there was a sea of people with evening tickets pouring in. What they will have managed to see I really do not know.

Given the effort that goes into the show, and the marvels to be seen, I think it a great shame that it is so cramped and blame no one for consequently not wanting to go.

Your garden looks beautiful, shovetheholly. I'm intrigued by your comments about 'rules' of planting and 'washing machine' borders. Would you (or anyone else) care to elaborate for the benefit of a beginner?

There is a small Dan Pearson garden within strolling distance of work, I shall have to give it more attention. I enjoy it for the running water and artfully curved beds and seating, but I have less of an opinion about the planting. But bearing in mind it's a public space in central London, I assume low maintenance is a priority.

I'm having an enforced break from gardening this week as we are in Cornwall for half term. I am marvelling at the giant spiky things growing everywhere. We managed a stop at Lanhydrock on the way down, and I am hopeful of visiting more gardens while we are here, as we have NT membership and the two-for-one card from GW mag. The DCs just want to spend all day on the beach digging holes though. Some negotiation may be needed.

Supervising the digging of holes of the beach sounds like the perfect job for a dad. There are some wonderful gardens in Cornwall .

A friend of mine has arranged tickets for both of us to Hampton Court in July. I am hoping it will be a gentler experience than Chelsea! That sounds as though it has as much unfulfilled promise as a bank holiday at Legoland.

Crossed posts Kr1stina, but yes indeed!!!

Argh. Just lost huge post!

Gist was ... Washing machine garden is usually one where thin beds surround a lawn ... Detractors say this makes it look as if plants have been spun in a WM and flung to the edges by centrifugal (centripetal?) force ... Even so, this generally looks better in very small gardens than scaling down the undulating beds/ meandering paths look ... Some of the most beautiful, classical gardens are essentially WM gardens ... Key to a successful WM garden (I think) is the depth of the beds. Anthony Noel has made some lovely small gardens and avoided the stingy WM look.

Echium Pininana aka tall spikey things are out! Really easy to grow in the South.
We're camping but I've snook back to check on the greenhouse and get yet more stuff. mme Alfred Carriere is blooming what a lovely surprise and thankyou to everyone that recommended it.

Ooh vermicular where in Cornwall are you? If you get chance, go to Trengwainton if the primulas are out - it is just stunning seeing those. There is a huge walled garden in which they usually do lots of child-friendly displays. Excellent tea rooms too.

Funny not many of the Sissinghurst roses were out which surprised me as they are in a walled garden and loads of roses are out around here.

There were a few meconopsis at Sissinghurst- tucked away - an ethereal pale blue and some yellow Welsh poppies- which looked super in the same bed, with some ferns. It was just outside the back door of the south cottage so maybe easy to keep watered if needed.

One of these days I'll grow Echium pininana- I love them.

Those are the things! Thanks geoff for providing the name for me. I'll try to post a photo of one (among other things) in the gardens of St Michaels Mount, which we visited today.

Searabbit, we are in Carbis Bay near St Ives, so just a few miles from Trengwainton. Your tips are very timely as we are planning to go there tomorrow! I shall report back.

Spiky thing. And other exotic looking items on St Michaels Mount.

I love the echiums in Devon in the Abbey Garen in Torquay.They are ancient and hardy and wonderful

Centrifugal force pushes stuff out of a spinning centre. I'm perfectly ok with a washing machine garden layout, I like the calm space in the centre. I agree re depth of borders. Actually one of the nicest gardens at Chelsea and the only one I really wanted to own was a washing machine garden. The centre space was enclosed by a rill and a stepped hedge. The flower beds were at two of the sides, above the stepped hedge, with pleached beeches providing height. One other side led to sreps upto the seating area with the rill going down the sides of the steps: like the Alhambra: lovely.

Thanks Maud and funnyperson for the explanation of 'washing machine', which pretty well describes our front garden. Small oblong lawn with beds about 1m deep around three sides. (The fourth being driveway.)

I have been struggling to work out whether the overall proportions are wrong, or just the way the borders are planted. And whether I can make the borders deeper, or if this will make the lawn pointlessly small.

Some neighbours have rounded the corners to make a sort of bean-shaped lawn, but I don't know if I like it or not! Others have done away with the lawn altogether, which actually looks nice in their garden but I had never considered for ours. I think funnyperson has managed to articulate the thing that would bother me, the lack of a calm space in the centre.

Plenty to think about. I'm off to read the Anthony Noel link now.

Vermicular if you get chance I also recommend chysauster not far from Trenwainton - it's a Stone Age settlement with lots of places for children to play, high up with gorgeous views and lots of wild flowers.

I agree about calm places in the middle of gardens.

I think I have a washing machine garden! It has beds along 2 edges and a large patio in one corner. This has created 2 more corners where I have dug out large triangular beds.
Everything is looking very green and lovely and I think our first crop of potatoes might be ready. My mixed boxes of radish, spring onions and spinach are coming up too.
The heucheras look fab but I'm not sure they are in quite the right place, they are taller than the plants behind them. Can they be moved?
I was also delighted to see that my dead clematis has a few green shoots and leaves growing back. Hooray!

The first person I heard use the phrase "washing machine garden" was Alan Gardner at Chelsea last year! As other have said, it refers to a garden with lawn in the middle and borders round the edge but also to a place where the tall things are at the periphery and the smaller things are towards the central lawn. As others have said, there's nothing wrong with that as a layout - it's just that it's been THE classic mould for the vast majority of British gardens for so long. That's partly because it doesn't require much thought as to design: all you need to do is figure out the eventual height of the plant you want and put it in the right section of the border for its height - bingo - you have something that looks like a half-decent domestic imitation of a grand herbaceous border. And when everyone is so pushed for time these days, there's a lot to be said for a design scheme that creates beauty with ease!

The other thing is that, on a level site, a washing machine garden often requires less hard landscaping than a more intricately shaped garden - which also tends to make it cheaper to do by a way. There are some absolutely stunning small gardens every year that are designed at the shows in order to fill small spaces without being strongly linear or centrifugal, but for most of them the price per square metre would be pretty high end - lots of corten steel and stone! So there is definitely a market to this - garden designers make their living by distinguishing someone's garden from the run-of-the mill offerings by amateurs (I very much include myself in that latter category) so there is a market to, and an interest in, offering something distinctive and different to the majority!

Some of it is about the market , but there are also the questions of

perspective, which is often maximised by curves
planting, which can be maximised with beds in the centre
a garden layout with 'rooms' or sections so that not all the garden is seen at once
or even a parterre
not wanting a lawn

etc etc

Big plants at the back, smaller plants at the front design has been really challenged with the advent of see- through planting, with tall verbena and stipas at the front or dotted through. Also the garden beds that have been lovely to gaze at have variations of height within the border so that one is looking side to side as well as from below to above. I do like this variation very much, especially when the light shines through, say, the stipa, or when a lupin pops up in the middle of the flower bed and says 'look at me, I'm not just the wall flower at the back, I'm here to dance'

That's soooo true funny, and such a good point that you can have peripheral beds that don't just 'step up' from front to back!

I personally like curves a lot, particularly when they are planted with 'fins' that place larger things in the centre and stop you seeing the entire space at one go. I went to York Gate garden at the weekend, which is masterful at putting circular shapes in arts and crafts-style garden rooms. I especially liked the one in this picture, a circle in a square that is about the size of a small suburban garden. I thought you might like it!

But I can also see the absolute beauty of a simple, rectangular form that is uncompromising about straight lines, which was also very much in evidence (second picture).

The lawn thing...I thought it was so sweet when Carol Klein was on the Chelsea coverage and her 'least favourite plant' was a lawn 'because you can fit more plants in without one'

I would happily get rid of the lawn and use the space for plants except we have a small child and she loves playing outside.

Yes that's the thing isn't it - if you only have a smallish space, and a family house, lawn in the middle makes sense.

York Gate looks lovely - that circle garden is very clever in its use of levels.