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.

Art In A Topiary Garden

Just inc are you are free in the following dates in June, you can visit my mentor Charlotte Molesworth’s topiary garden… Check out the dates the garden is open here. And you can of course join both Charlotte and I for a topiary workshop in the garden in July, as well as September. Hope to see you there!

Apr30

Nunki Weeder In The Newspaper

The Nunki weeder has been talked about by Jane Perrone in the newspaper (the Guardian, if you are interested. At the weekend.) She said this about our lovely weeding tool… “Getting on top of annual weeds such as hairy bittercress and speedwell can be tedious. The Nunki weeder has a curved blade that allows for precision work around plants….” There you go – a weeder for precision work, not an avocado destoner as someone once said to me. Take a closer look at the Nunki weeder now.

Apr28

Turn Your Lawn Into A Meadow

There has been some great articles around recently, what with the gardening season upon us and the Extinction Rebellion happening. I particularly liked this from Alys Fowler – Turn Your Lawn Into A Meadow “(Most lawns) are biodiversity deserts… and worse still, we pursue this. There are aisles in garden centres promising ever-greener sward, with no moss and weeds. Let there be no misunderstanding; these are chemicals that silence the soil.” Raise your mower height. Don’t cut until June. Then just once a month afterwards. Love that advice. And it is saving petrol for your mower too! This article also …