June, and the garden is at its most sensuous, inviting – no, imploring me – to look, touch and sniff. It is a wonderful month for smelling the garden. I do this first thing in the morning and again in the evening when everything is at its olfactory best.
Perfume was one of the first considerations when I started this little garden. The lavender bushes, I planted along the path to run my fingers through as I walked past, didn’t last long in my London clay, but the high hedges planted to trap the scent of wallflowers and the vanilla notes of sweet box (Sarcococca hookeriana) have worked as I had hoped. Wallflowers are the smell of my childhood; as sweet as the tin of Parma Violets my grandmother kept in her handbag, perfuming her lace handkerchief and purse. Their scent is an essential part of this space.
The perfume that plants so generously give to this garden starts in March, when I catch the first fleeting scent of Viburnum x bodnantense. I know her and her sugar-pink pompoms simply as ‘Dawn’. The soft, clove notes always take me by surprise, a reminder that even though the stems are bare, spring will soon be here. It is as if the garden is whispering: “Don’t worry, it won’t be long.”
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 2024-Ausgabe von Gardens Illustrated.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der June 2024-Ausgabe von Gardens Illustrated.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
STEPS TO SUCCESS
Enclosed within a rustic barn conversion, this courtyard garden contrasts riotous Mediterranean-inspired gravel planting with clean lines and a reflective pool
ANNIE GUILFOYLE
The garden polymath on the pleasures of passing on knowledge, the rewards of close observation and the circuitous route towards grounding her itchy feet
HEAVEN SCENT
As summer adds a new dimension to his garden, Nigel Slater reflects on the rewards of planting for perfume
Colour therapy
Ann-Maree Winter's joyful Australian garden became a place of solace and nurture in hard times
30 plants with interest all year
These hard-working plants provide several seasons of interest in your garden through flowers, fruit, foliage, bark and even spring shoots
PERFECT HARMONY
Rosarian Michael Marriott and TV producer Rosie Irving have very different ideas on gardening, but they have discovered the secret to sharing a single plot amicably
SUMMERFLOWERING ALLIUMS
Loved for their showy spheres, alliums have long been stalwarts of late spring, but now new introductions are extending the party through summer
Faith in the future
Marian Boswall's contemporary design for the garden of a former chapel respects the property's history while looking to the future
Summertime at Sissinghurst
Ensuring Sissinghurst’s famous roses look fabulous throughout the season is one of the many tasks keeping head gardener Troy Scott Smith and his team busy right now
FRESH APPROACH
Colm Joseph’s design for this new garden, which surrounds a modern house within a heritage setting, uses clever planting to give a historic site a contemporary feel