Margery Fish - An All The Year Garden

I think all gardeners have some definite aim as to what they want to achieve in their gardens. Some people are collectors pure and simple, while others want a magnificent floral display from May to September.

Ever since I started gardening, I have felt that the garden to strive for is one that has no off-moments but is interesting and attractive whatever the time of year.

In my first book, We Made a Garden, I told how we made our all-the-year-round garden, but there was no space then for details of all the plants for such a garden.

A garden that is to be good always needs careful planting. To get flowers for every day in the year means that no space must be wasted and the plants chosen must have flowering seasons to cover the whole year.

My first thought is for the difficult months from late autumn onwards. Then the hellebores are in bloom, and, if the varieties are selected carefully, they will go on till late May and early June. Violets are not spectacular, but they bloom in the winter and early spring and make welcome groundcover among the shrubs. Spring is the real time for primroses, but they do not stick to rigid rules and many flower in autumn and in mild weather during the winter, when every little flower brings pleasure.

That is why I have devoted a chapter to hardy cyclamen. There are cyclamen for every month in the year, and the ones that bloom in the dark days are just as easy to grow as the summer ones, and often they flower more freely.

Bulbs are not merely a spring-time delight. There are bulbs that can add to the beauty of the garden in every month, and irises, too, can be chosen to furnish flowers for every season.

I always think geraniums are good plants to grow in an all-theyear garden. Most of them have an exceptionally long flowering season, and many have attractive evergreen foliage that colours in autumn and is a blessing throughout the winter.

Flowers that have a long season of blooming have always seemed to me to be worth growing; they can help us through the dull times in the garden, and are usually easy to grow and need little attention.

There was a time when the criterion of a good garden was colour and the vivid colour of massed flowers the main aim. We still want colour, but not necessarily strong colour. I am glad that we have come to appreciate the beauty of foliage in all its colours and textures, because I am convinced that though we love our flowers and wouldnt be without them, it is foliage that gives that settled, finished look that makes a good garden. Silver plants, too, can be as effective as clumps of flowers, but the effect is permanent and gardeners are using silver subjects more and more.

No one could have an all-the-year garden without heathers. There are many that bloom in winter, and though those of us with lime in our soils can grow Erica carnea in all its forms and colours, there are many that must have an acid soil. I made my peat garden in the first place so that I could grow all the heathers I wanted, and then I discovered how many other lovely things, many of them winter-flowering, I could grow as well.

Most good gardeners prefer to see their flowers growing rather than picked for the house. But there are ways of having part of your garden indoors without spoiling the outside effect.

I suppose the winter is the best test of a good garden. Spring-time brings its own beauty, and one can be dazzled by the brilliance of summer and autumn; but the winter garden needs careful planning with plants that keep their attractiveness. If I can enjoy a garden in the winter, I am quite certain that it is a good one.

Margery Fish