Buy small plants – and consider a ‘bulb lasagne': how to give your garden a late-summer glow-up

The Guardian

a day ago

'It is not always necessary to rip out everything and start again,' says Ella Malt, who runs the gardening company Soil and Soul Norfolk. 'It is much more sustainable to work with what you have. You can make such a difference with a bit of cutting back, clearing up leaves, cutting an edge on a lawn. People notice edges: you could spend hours making a herbaceous border perfect but if the edge of that border isn't crisp, it will automatically look untidy.'
'Never underestimate how much a good tidy will help things,' agrees Glaswegian gardener Colin Stewart, who was at Great Dixter in East Sussex and now works with private clients. 'Even just sweeping up dead leaves from paths makes a huge difference. Sharpen up fuzzy edges. Be brutal: if you've got plants that are going over, maybe sweet peas which have bolted and look a bit sad, rather than hanging on to them, it is probably best to be ruthless and pull those things out and put in something new – there is still a lot of time before the frosts are coming. Deadheading flowers will help to replenish plants so they can flower again.' Leave anything that could become a seedhead, like Digitalis lutea or verbascums, Stewart says.
Giving paving a good sweep and scrub can make an immediate impression. 'Even sweeping up dead leaves from paths makes a huge difference,' says Stewart. 'Neat paths always make any chaos feel instantly more intentional. If you have really cracked concrete or paving slabs, putting gravel down is a good idea. If you put a thick enough layer down, some plants will self sow into it. It is preferable to decking, which always rots and becomes a hideout for vermin.' And don't forget to sort out any sad-looking fencing, which can be painted if not replaced: 'I go into a lot of gardens that are really let down by boundaries,' says Stewart. 'Painting all the fences and walls around the space in the same colour, in a uniform way, makes an astonishing difference and elevates the whole garden.'
Planting 'depends on whether you're in sun or shade', says Malt. 'If you've got a sunny garden that gets dry in summer, obviously Mediterranean plants will do well; things like Artemesia, Eryngium, myrtle and Phlomis. For dry shade, ferns give lovely texture.'
'It is important to think about where the light falls, not just in terms of plants, but also where you want to sit,' says Stewart. 'You probably want your seating area to be in the sunniest spot where the light falls in winter, spring and autumn. But in the summer, you probably want it to be in the shadiest part of the garden. And maybe that ends up being almost the same place, because of the way the position of the sun changes and because of the things coming into leaf. The classic advice is always to wait a year and observe your garden before you commit to doing anything major: look at where the light falls at every point in the year.'
'You can do a soil test,' says garden designer and presenter Danny Clarke, which you can get from a garden centre, to find out whether it is sandy, clay or loam. 'If you've got soil that is a bit challenging – for example it's deficient in nutrients, has poor drainage, or is clay, which makes it hard to work with in dry or wet conditions – you can always put in a raised bed. Then you control the medium and can put the plants you want in your space.'
Clarke adds: 'I believe in gardening on the edge: give it a go and see what happens. If you are unsure as to where to put a plant, put it in the ground, and it will soon tell you if it is unhappy. When the leaves are drooping, it is going to need watering or feeding. If that doesn't work, you have probably put it in the wrong place, so move it and see what happens. That's what being green-fingered is all about.'
Whatever kind of outdoor space you have, containers are a good idea, says Malt. 'You can moderate the environment for the plants, so you can grow almost anything in a container. Normal rules don't apply. Some people will say, 'You can only put bedding plants in, or you can only do roses or certain types of small shrub' – I think that is rubbish. Go to a nursery, see what you like, and just try it.'
Containers are particularly good for edibles: 'I've got cucumbers growing in pots up a trellis,' says Malt. 'Strawberries are great in containers,' says Clarke. 'They are very drought-tolerant and children love them, as do the birds.'
Malt is always relocating her pots: 'If they don't thrive in one part of the patio, balcony, or whatever you've got, you can just move it over. If you've got full sun, it is better to choose things that thrive in full sun. But if you've got a patio that faces lots of different aspects, you can move things around a bit.'
Malt uses old sinks, olive oil tins and chimney pipes as homes for cardoons, Althaea cannabina and salvias. 'They are all pretty drought-tolerant plants that can take not being watered as much. Having said that, if you are growing in pots, they will always need a fair amount of water. If you've got the option of capturing rain with a water butt, that is really helpful. The other thing with pots is to make sure you feed them regularly. Some people think you have to change the soil all the time, but you don't, you just keep them fed. Make sure you get a really good liquid seaweed, and if you feed that every week or fortnight, they are going to be fine.'
'Use trailing plants for your balcony pots to cover the container,' says Clarke. 'Use a cheap container, fill it with soil, put in flowers for height, which could be poppies or roses, then some trailing rosemary. There is a saying: 'Thriller, filler, spiller.' A thriller such as a canna lily would be a centrepiece; you might say it's a show-off. A filler such as a geranium acts in a supporting role and fills out the space. The spillers, such as ivy, are planted at the edge of the container and trail downwards.'
'Concentrate watering on new plantings and pots,' says Stewart. 'I would never water a lawn. Let your grass go brown and it will revive when the rain comes. I've got gardens I work on where the lawn is almost like a short meadow and is allowed to flower and get to a certain height, and it stays greener. If you have a very close-cropped, immaculately cut lawn, that will go brown much sooner.'
If you go on holiday and come back to a dead-looking garden, don't panic, says Stewart: 'Just give it a consistent water for a couple of weeks, and it will probably start to show signs of life.' Unpredictable summer weather can be difficult to plan for but 'fennel is brilliant', says Malt, 'because it is really tolerant of dry spells and seems to be quite happy when it is wet. Cistus are having a real moment; they have a very long season of interest and don't mind dry.'
'Be patient and buy smaller plants,' says Malt. 'Bare root is best, but 9cm plants are good. They will take a bit longer to get going but they catch up quickly, and they're much hardier and better for the planet in terms of plastic waste, and much cheaper.' Water them thoroughly when you plant, says Malt, to make sure they are well established.
'It is so much better, if you're going to buy 15 plants, to buy three varieties – five of three different plants – because things look great in big clumps,' says Malt. 'I generally buy in fives. That's my number.'
'Always plant in odd numbers because it doesn't look contrived,' says Clarke. 'It is almost like just throwing the plants up in the air, and you're planting them where they land.'
'Adding festoon lights into a garden makes it instantly feel really intimate and a nice place to sit out in the evening,' says Malt. 'That is a tip from my own garden that I think has made such a difference. A mirror is brilliant in a small space too.'
'I'm not a massive fan of outdoor lighting,' says Stewart. 'Similarly to irrigation, you end up with wires through the soil, and it makes it much less comfortable to garden. Also it's not good for wildlife: lights going on and off at night can be really disruptive for them. A few lanterns or candles on tables, to me, is much more romantic and inviting.'
'It's not just about your plants, it's about everything else that may visit your space, whether that's a fox or a pigeon,' says Clarke. 'Some form of water is always good,' says Malt. 'It doesn't have to be a water feature. You can make tiny ponds out of any container. Just have something for birds to drink from.'
'Ponds can attract all manner of wildlife,' says Clarke, 'like insects, frogs and hedgehogs.' Malt also advises putting in pollinator-friendly plants: 'Provide really good sources of nectar and look at winter-flowering plants, such as ivy.'
'Look at weeds in a different light,' says Clarke. 'Often, the weeds in our gardens are indigenous, and the bees tend to go for them more than they do the plants that we import. So I'm one for being a bit more relaxed: don't trim your lawn to within an inch of its life; maybe let the shrubs get a bit shaggy. They don't have to be neat and prim and proper. Let them do their own thing. The wildlife will thank you for it.'
'Gardens planted in autumn seem to be the happiest,' says Malt. It is the ideal time to plan for the year ahead and planting bulbs is a good starting point: 'There isn't a mega rush, but start thinking about planting in the autumn.
'Doing a bulb lasagne – layering bulbs in a container so there is a succession of flowers throughout the spring, with later flowering ones at the bottom, and earlier flowering ones at the top – is flipping brilliant. We do really outrageously clashing, distasteful pots of tulips, muscari and smaller daffodils.'
'In terms of planting, you want a bit of a discordant, jarring note to it,' says Stewart, 'like a pastel scheme with really bright orange dahlias in among it. That will give it more depth.'
'If you're just starting out, and you don't know what to combine with another plant, ornamental grasses are great,' says Clarke. 'If you have a rose in your garden that doesn't quite go with a pittosporum, split it with a grass – that will bridge the gap between two plants.' Feather grass is his go-to.
'Most hardy geraniums are brilliant,' says Malt, 'such as Ann Folkard and Tiny Monster. They fill up a space really quickly, and they are gorgeous. Peonies and dahlias are pretty easy to grow, and you can do them in pots.'
'One of my favourites is Erigeron, a little trailing daisy that is so useful in containers,' says Stewart. 'It is one of those plants that if you repeat it, it will unite everything in a container scheme beautifully. But it becomes even more magical when it starts to self-sow, jumping into the cracks in paths and paving. It flowers all summer, and is one of those plants that makes a garden feel really established and lived in.'