White Garden, Modern Mint

THE MODERN MINT BLOG

May23

White Garden Plants

We have often been cited Sissinghurst and its White Garden as the ideal look a client wants.

It is easy to see why this is – being easy on the eye, having plants people can recognise and encapsulating a fullness, a romantic notion, that can be easily described by clients who may otherwise struggle to express themselves.

Originally the concept for Vita Sackville-West’s white garden was for it to be a ‘Grey’ garden…

“I am trying to make a grey, green, and white garden… I visualize the white trumpets of dozens of Regale lilies, grown three years ago from seed, coming up through the grey of southernwood and artemisia and cotton-lavender, with grey-and-white edging plants such as Dianthus Mrs. Sinkins and the silvery mats of Stachys Lanata, more familiar and so much nicer under its English names of Rabbits’ Ears or Saviour’s Flannel. There will be white pansies, and white peonies, and white irises with their grey leaves… at least, I hope there will be all these things. I don’t want to boost in advance about my grey, green and white garden. It may be a terrible failure. I wanted only to suggest that such experiments are worth trying, and that you can adapt them to your own taste and your own opportunities.

All the same, I cannot help hoping that the great ghostly barn-owl will sweep silently across a pale garden, next summer, in the twilight – the pale garden that I am now planting, under the first flakes of snow.”

Vita was right – such experiments are worth trying. But a white garden nowadays is not an experiment, it is an ideal or a fashion statement a garden designer is expected to achieve.

So what can be used? We found this list of plants from a Gardens Illustrated article as a starting point to move you in the right direction…

Spring:

Tulips

Cardoon

Sweet Rocket

Summer:

Foxtail lilly

Nigella

Argentine forget-me-not

Lychnis

Orlaya

Borage

Allium

Mullein

Sidalcea

Ammi

Foxglove

Gaura

Onopordum

Eryngium

Rose-bay willowherb

Meadow Rue

Sium

Veronicastrum

Browallia

Spider flower

Solanum

Aster

Penstemon

Cosmos

Erigeron

Sweet peas

Eucomis

Hydrangea

Petunia

Romneya

For examples of a good white garden you could visit Furzelea, or Ulting Wick…

But what we encourage most, if you are inspired by Vita, is not to try and reproduce a white garden – but take the spirit in which it was made – an experiment worth trying. And adapt it to your own taste and needs.

Buxus the Norfolk Terrier In Modern Topiary Book

This is Buxus, our Norfolk Terrier, who I acknowledge in the acknowledgments of the book of Modern Topiary. The book of Modern Topiary can be read, for free, here. There you go. Buxus the dog on ‘doorstep duty’ at a friend’s house in Edinburgh. For those asking what he looked like!

Jan30

What People Think Of Modern Topiary, The Book

Yesterday I put out the book – Modern Topiary – that I have spent the last six years writing. Download for free a pdf of Modern Topiary here. And what seems amazing to me, is that not only have people actually been reading it, but then responding to it. So below are a number of comments I have been sent from those who read it last night, and this morning…. “Brilliant read, exactly the right amount of info to take in and digest.” Rachel, a gardener “Just finished reading – absolutely brilliant!” Camilla (she shared with me lots she highlighted) …

Jan30

Modern Topiary Book

Over the last six years I have been writing a book. It is called Modern Topiary and I have finally finished it, and now made it available for people to read. This is the blurb on the back…. This is the topiary book I wish I had when I began trying to clip plants into a shape others would consider beautiful. Split into two parts – the craft and then the art of topiary – I have tried to share everything I know. It’s not a long book. I hope this gives you the foundation for good technique, alongside ideas …