Garden Journal: 13.1.25

Horrible, awkward little bed

There is a very awkward little bed by the backdoor. At this time of year, the sun doesn’t touch it (not even close) where in the summer it gets a tiny little tickle of light, but no more. Of all the garden, this is the area I have payed the least attention. It is a sad, grubby little area compared to its handsome (if I do say so myself) neighbouring beds.

With my new plan for the garden, however, I am starting off with a little love for this horrible, awkward, tiny wasteland.

Even as I write this, hatred swells in my chest. How could such a small patch of earth be so affecting to an otherwise open-hearted gardener? Attempting to set aside my oddly hostile feelings towards this ugly little corner, I have dug into the enormous and comprehensive literature on the perennial issue of shade. Susanna Grant’s ‘Shade’ and ‘Beth Chatto’s Shade Garden’ by Beth Chatto are imperative to have to hand. After all, every garden does have some shade.

This constant eyesore bed is the most immediately visible part of the garden from my kitchen table so it ought to be a joy. With this in mind, I’m adding colour.

The bed already contains saxifraga × urbium, a cornus (I wish I’d written down what it is), as well as a holly, star jasmine, sarcococca, myrtle, and a hydrangea. Each a small specimen, each slow growing. Nothing much to get excited about.

That said, I do love saxifraga x urbium, also known as ‘London Pride'. I read about it first in Ben Dark’s ‘The Grove’. Dark describes the bomb sites of post-Blitz London covered in self-seeded ‘London Pride’ and I wanted to mark that shattered chapter of my beloved city’s past by including it. While I tend to think saxifraga are hideous, sentimentality got the better of me and in fact - when in flower - it is beautiful.

So the bed already has some structure and, to jolly it up a bit, I have this morning put in a very garish wallflower ‘Spring Breeze Sunset’, my first ever Epimedium (Epimedium x warleyense), and a dog’s tooth violet very properly named ‘Pagoda’ for its elegant flowers.

As I scribbled out this little plan I worried that it might be a hideous mess but then I thought: how bad can a bed of flowers ever be? Well, we will soon find out I suppose. Stay tuned…