It’s Just an Illusion

I’m a very impatient gardener. With a very short memory. As every late spring comes around, I anxiously scrutinise my borders for gaps, wondering where on earth - no pun intended - this or that perennial has got to. In fact, it still takes me by surprise how quickly a border can fill out in the few short weeks between May and June.

So off I go to the nurseries every Easter, to buy new plants to fill said gaps, only to watch them gradually disappear under the renewed growth of the more mature perennials, come back to life, bigger and better than the previous year.

Now decisions have to be made. Sometimes nature does it for you; the particularly wet spring of 2024 brought the slugs and snails out in force, demolishing young perennials overnight. In contrast, this hot, sunny spring, followed by lots of lovely rain, has resulted in thoroughly flourishing borders full of triffids, all ahead of themselves by at least a month.

And the answer to this dilemma? Either move to a bigger garden or remove some of the plants. That’s like being asked to choose between your children!

But I’ve learnt to be quite ruthless. If a plant is ailing, and frankly why wouldn’t it, being underneath a boisterous neighbour, it gets dug out and potted up. It will either recover, to be relocated to a more appropriate spot at a later date, or it will die, thus creating a potential planting opportunity in its wake. And the neighbour? It can be lifted and divided at the end of the season, thus reducing its plant footprint the following season. I justify my plant buying habit by sharing perennial divisions with friends and clients, so that they can go on living their best lives elsewhere.

So, as I work my way through the borders, pruning and staking, deadheading and feeding, I’ve realised that what you are actually doing is curating your garden, every day of every week of every month, to create the illusion that it has all evolved quite naturally.

Love, Caroline x