How to create a romantic garden - design tips and tricks, and my top 100 romantic plants
PLUS: the great garden furniture mystery, and a reminder about our next Zoom
If you’re landing here for the first time, welcome - I’m delighted you’ve found us. There’s lots going on here - garden design ideas, easy gardening how-tos, plant recommendations, general garden chat, border planting design tips and tricks and lots more. If you’d like to join in, I’d love it:
Our next Zoom will be on Tuesday 1st April at 6pm UK time, where I’ll be sharing the very first insights and peeks behind the scenes into my garden at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May. You get to hear it here on Substack first!
After some bonus Spring sunshine this week, I’m going to take you on a journey into sunny thoughts, romantic thoughts
That dash of warmth has got us all thinking about plants: sowing them, buying them, and planting them in beds and borders. This week we’re back looking at My Top 100 Romantic Plants - a timeless collection that I’ve been putting together for you over the year. I promise you, these plants will look perfectly at home both in the town and in the country. The collection is classic, with a twist.
How to design a border?
A bit like the old “How do you eat an elephant” conundrum, the answer to “How do you design a flower bed or border” is the same: one bite at a time. If you’re wondering how to use these plants but wondering where on earth to start with a border planting design, you can find how-to and ideas in these articles, where I break the whole process down for you into bite size chunks. Here are some of them:
There are lots more articles about border and planting design here in The Gardening Mind - I’ll be putting all of these together in one place for easy reference during this big border designing time.
Also this week, following on from yesterday’s magnolia post, there’s the list of the magnolias I eventually chose.
It was the spring equinox this week, and for a few days it really did feel like spring was here. The birds went from a tentative cheeping to properly singing their heads off, so it felt like a fitting time for this:
At the spring equinox, the length of the day finally equals the length of the night. New hope is breathed in, as we feel any or all of the sun gods - Osiris, Dionysus, Hun Hunahpu - are out there, battling darkness on our behalf and winning.
As the struggle continues, the seeds and bulbs wait in the soil, just beneath the earth’s surface, ready to pop through when the battle is won. For they know more about these cycles than we do. Spring will come, one day.
In those first weeks when the calendar tells us it’s approaching, even when it remains resolutely cold, I dare you to open your doors and windows and drink in the sounds. The birds are busier, and there’s just enough blue in the sky for a sailor’s waistcoat.
From The New Romantic Garden:
On that subject, I’ve been thinking A LOT about romantic gardens recently
Sometimes you find yourself in a garden where you want to stay for ever, such is the all-embracing prettiness and the feeling of lushness; a place full of mouthwatering planting, with surprises round every corner. What constitutes a romantic garden will be different for each of us, but for me it’s that feeling of abundance, of a story slowly to be revealed. Whether your garden is large or small, city or country, rooftop or rolling fields, there are some key ideas to bear in mind if you’re aiming for that touch of romance.
Every picture tells a story, and for many of us a garden is just that: a picture viewed from inside
Telling a romantic story means retaining a touch of mystery as well as a sense of gorgeousness, so if you’re laying things out from scratch, remember to hold something back - don’t reveal everything at once. You can do this even in a tiny courtyard by abandoning the standard rule that high planting goes at the back and low at the front. Bringing a flowerbed closer to the window and filling it with tall plants that have ‘naked’ stems, such as the spindly, purple-flowered Verbena bonariensis, will create a gorgeous haze that forms a veil over the rest of the space beyond, softening the immediate impact.
In long, narrow gardens, you can stagger hedges and flowerbeds along the space, with one hedge coming in from the left and another a little bit further down coming in from the right, rather than having them directly facing each other. This will mean that the end of the garden can’t be seen at all until you actually go out and explore.
Larger spaces offer different possibilities, but the concept is the same: keep in mind the sense of enigma and surprise. A lovely sculpture doesn’t need to go directly in the line of vision - place it instead to one side of where you’re immediately drawn to looking. Plant around it with soft perennials in textures and colours that work well with the sculpture: this will anchor it to its place, giving the impression that it is emerging from the flowers. As well as creating a touch of surprise, it will draw you into the garden as you take a closer look at whatever it is you can spy peeking out.
Choose the plants carefully and you’ll create instant romance
Flowering cherries such as Prunus ‘Shogetsu’ are heart-stoppingly beautiful, both in full bloom and as their beauty starts to fade, scattering a confetti of tiny petals. Walls smothered with climbing and rambling roses are among the most evocative sights in both front and back gardens: see below for my top recommendations which will help you achieve the effect.
As you walk through a garden, what could be more romantic than passing under an archway festooned with a tumble of roses?
Pergolas are an excellent way to gently guide one through a garden: a floriferous walkway to perhaps a hideaway beyond, although a garden seat under a tree is sometimes sufficient to achieve this feeling of a secret place at the end of the garden. Lightness of touch is important here - a simple bench in front of a patch of oxeye daisies could be enough to create a romantic spot.
Scent, colour and texture are all-important here - I absolutely love, love, LOVE these roses with clusters of pretty blooms tumbling casually off their support, like a floral guard of honour, and you can find out more about them below. Wisteria is another climber that, when in flower, offers one of the most uplifting sights of early summer; its delicate racemes, drooping though a pergola, create an incredibly romantic atmosphere.
Where space allows, you can be more ambitious with the idea of a hideaway
My dream - though I just don’t have the space - would be to have a shepherd’s hut tucked around a corner, or an oak-framed building overlooking a pond, would give the garden a dreamy sense of drama. But I can make do quite happily with a simpler solution: a garden bench, perhaps. Sometimes it’s good to gaze at inspirational images, and take them as a starting point for something achievable within our own gardens.
Add scent, and you add atmosphere. Place pots of night-scented stock and tobacco plants near where you sit in the evening and you’ll enjoy their fragrance for weeks. And the rest of the year? You might not be sitting outside in late winter and early spring, but I promise that you’ll be transported by the smell of Daphne bholua ‘Peter Smithers’ if you put it by the front door or along your garden path:
They’re such slow growers, these daphnes, so if you haven’t planted one yet and you’re thinking about it, DO IT NOW. The unexpected beautiful scent at a generally-unfragranced time of year, is like nothing else you’ve ever smelt before.
The top 100 romantic plants
These plants really conjure up an atmosphere of romance. Their colours, textures, forms and fragrance work the magic. Put them all together, and the magic happens. You’ll have seasons of utter bliss. I’m also going to be showing you how to put them all together in a border design so that you can actually create this look: