Green

Well I thought I had created a monster gallery of pink, but it turns out that Green really has the stage.

Again, all photographs from 2015, and pretty much everyone has the name of the plant embedded in the data. Very organised I was then, and how many photos, especially in July, August and September! I shall have to go back through my blog posts to see exactly where I was. The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens for certain, Kew, Wisley and maybe the Wisley Flower Show, but very likely further afield. Waterperry Gardens I think (they had an Aster Festival though maybe later than September).

But green in the theme and such a diversity of hue, texture, effect, impact, shape, size, boldness, delicacy, brightness, glossiness, matte-ness, in golds and greys, blues, infinite variegation, and bright greens, deeply dark and blushed with pink and rose and scarlet, and black. Spiked, fluffy, strappy, sword-like, mobile, barbed, dense, open, with tiny leaves, huge leaves, structural, architectural, ethereal …. And flowers and bark too, of course, in the mix. Nothing dull about green. There are trees here, conifers, evergreen and deciduous shrubs, ferns, grasses, perennials evergreen and deciduous (see the Heucheras), bulbs, exotics and natives, something for all of our gardens, large and small.

Of course, while I posted about orange, yellow, blue and white, and pink which I thought was a big gallery, green is an omnipresent factor in all of these plants and plant combinations. The backbone to everything, holding things together, melding diverse themes together and creating a harmonious and – delete as necessary – quiet/dramatic/daring/wallpaper/calming/textured/contrasting/setting off/standing out/ calming/ backdrop. Well, you get the idea.. But they can, as you might find from these images, also be the stars.

My little back garden is almost entirely green. Towering bamboos (Black and Yellow canes), A huge multi-headed Yucca, Laurel, Fatsia japonica, Viburnum davidii, Acers in my gardens and borrowed from my neighbours, Ivy-cloaked walls, Holly, Acanthus, Bananas, Japanese Forest Grass – Hakonechloa, Phormium, Vines, Cotinus, white roses (Bouquet de la Mariage and Madame Alfred Carriere though I have added Perennial Blue, Goldfinch and madly, Lady Banks’ Rose). Ferns of course, and in the shade of the Conker Tree, Daphne, Skimmia, Edgworthia …

A little Buxus and shrubby Lonicera fragrantissima, Euonymus, Sedum, more ivy and a strenuously vigorous Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia Creeper). And more bamboo – some of the culms (canes) are 7-8m tall. They spent their first six years in metal dustbins before being released into the ground and boy, have they excelled!

There is colour, a little, the Japanese Anemones have been in flower, a soft pink, for months, and the rambler roses do well. Nasturtiums and Pelargoniums add spikes of colour and I have a cool blue Clematis still in flower – but overall, the impression is green, cool, and very private, with large stands of Bamboo and evergreen shrubs, in really quite a small space, giving an unexpected sense of scale and surprise. Well, I think so …

But green definitely isn’t dull …. They are the backbone of a garden, allowing the colour to shine where you want it, and providing the calming influence of beautiful and diverse greenery. As someone once said to me, not everyone can be talking at the party at the same time. They are both stars and the supporting cast.