“I don’t do frilly,” say Diane Schaub, director of gardens at Central Park Conservancy. We are standing under the shade of an old magnolia in the English garden, one of three smaller gardens within Central Park’s six-acre Conservatory Garden near the northeast corner of the park. Schaub, who earned a diploma from the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture, has been curating the Conservatory Garden for more than 30 years. And while she does not do frilly, she does do color and texture, breathtakingly well. She has a painter’s eye for composition and an architect’s instinct for structural detail.
Below, we share her best color combinations for fall garden beds:
Above: “This is as frilly as I go,” she clarifies, indicating a velvet-leafed plant with burgundy leaves, beside the bluestone path. The plant in question is a Solenostemon (formerly classified as Coleus) and the cultivar is ‘Lancelot.’ Above: Solenostemon ‘Lancelot’ (paired with Salvia ‘Paul’) belongs to a crew of leafy annuals whose impact is felt dramatically in this garden, where the seasonal spectacle owes a great deal to plants whose interest lies in their foliage.
Purple + Yellow + Blue
Above: If you thought leaves were boring, think again. Solenostemon ‘Purple Prince’, black-leafed Dahlia ‘Mystic Illusion’, and Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria Blue.’
Above: A bed of Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’, Salvia x ‘Indigo Spires’, the leafy and lilac-striped Strobilanthes dyeranus, and elephant-eared Colocasia esculenta ‘Blue Hawaii’. The latter “makes the whole composition work,” says Schaub. Dark purple Pennisetum ‘Vertigo’ is in the background. Above: The English Garden is arranged in beds radiating from a central pond overhung by the largest crabapple tree in Central Park, leaves now turning yellow. Designed by Betty Sprout and opened in 1937, this part of the park was by the 1970s considered one of the most dangerous places in New York City. In 1980, the Central Park Conservancy was formed in response to the neglect the park had suffered in the previous two decades. Its founding director, Elizabeth Rogers, earmarked the Conservatory Gardens for renovation.
For their historic home in the enclave of Clifton in Bristol, UK, an energetic couple wanted an informal, biodiverse, and sustainable landscape where their grandchildren and dogs could romp. They called on landscape architecture firm Artisan Landscapes to come up with their dream garden, but the firm recognized that the grand Georgian-style home imposed a degree of formality on its landscape that couldn’t be ignored. As a compromise, they kept the classic formal courtyard layout and overlaid “soft, naturalistic meadow planting” to fulfill the clients’ desires for an environmentally friendly garden.
Above: “The homeowners are lucky enough to have both a front and a back garden,” say the architects, “so we could devote the entire back garden to ‘garden,’ while the front garden has a large lawn for the dogs and grandkids, a greenhouse, and informal borders of vegetables intermingled with perennials.” The back garden, they say, is a more intimate space, “although the grandchildren love whirling about the paths.” Above: The sunken octagon is a focal point of the garden but was also one of the more challenging features to install. “There was a one-meter-thick piece of limestone bedrock located under it that had to be removed to install drainage,” say the architects.
Before
Above: The courtyard had a generous footprint, but the neglected landscape was uninspiring.
After
Above: An antique urn is a focal point in the garden. For more inspiration, see Landscaping: 8 Ideas to Add Antiques Artfully to Any Garden. Above: A long, slim reflecting pool is one of two major water features in the project. “They have a combined volume of five thousand cubic liters,” say the architects, and both are controlled by pumps on remote-control switches. Above: Salvia surrounds the pool. For everything you need to know about growing it, see Salvia: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.
In general, flowers are probably less important than form. Some have a fleeting season, perhaps blooming just once before doing nothing for the remaining eleven months of the year (I’m looking at you Iris germanica). Others have an important support act, providing an abundance of flowers or beautiful foliage for the majority of the year.
Yes, I want plants that are beautiful (and that work well together), but I also want them not to be too much trouble. So increasingly, as I’ve realized that you can never really fight the existing conditions in your garden, I just plant more of these low-work plants. If something does well, and needs little to no TLC then it’s very welcome in my garden.
Earlier this week I read a quote from the late plantswoman Beth Chatto, about her much-copied borders in Essex, England. “The point I need to stress,” she wrote in her ground-breaking book Drought-Resistant Planting, “is that copies of my gravel garden will not necessarily be successful or suitable if the principles underlying my planting designs are not understood. When visitors to my garden tell me they have attempted to make a gravel garden but the plants don’t look or behave as they do in mine, they wonder what they have done wrong. I ask ‘What type of soil do you have?’, ‘Very good,’ they reply. The amount of rainfall? ‘Twice what we have here,’ they tell me. I laugh and tell them if I had good soil and adequate rainfall I would not be growing drought-resistant plants.”
Favorite plants should always come with this disclaimer—what works in one garden may not work in another, because the soil, moisture, and conditions will vary immeasurably. Some of my most cherished plants will flourish in all conditions, but some do particularly well because they are especially suited to my garden, which has very free-draining sandy soil and is largely in full sun.
With that in mind, here are the plants I would not be without.
Above: I love almost all salvias and they all tend to love my garden, too, so long as I put them in a sunny spot. ‘Caradonna’ has the most intense deep purple flowers that will be smothered in bees for weeks on end. Once it’s finished flowering I cut it back and it will re-flower again, although less prolifically. This is a very upright salvia and looks best softened with hazy grasses or more unruly perennials such as Knautia macedonica.
Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’
Above: Arguably the most prolific, no-trouble plant I grow. Catmint springs into life early in the season, often flowering well before any other herbaceous perennial. It’s healthy, seems to cope with almost any conditions, and is particularly beloved by bees that smother this plant while it’s in flower. As soon as it starts to go over, I cut the whole plant back to a few inches from the base and it will usually regrow and flower again within a few weeks. It’s also very easy to divide and replant and looks fabulous flopping over a pathway.
Verbena bonariensis
Above: All the verbenas work really well in my garden, but the tall, billowing Verbena bonariensis is a brilliant border plant, emerging in mid-summer amongst other perennials and grasses. It’s a favorite of many butterflies and has an extremely long season. It looks wonderful though the autumn and winter as it holds its structure, but it will also happily self-seed so I am normally selective in how much of it I leave standing. Finches love to eat the seeds in winter, too.
So you’re finally ready to plant up an area of your garden. How do you ensure you’re giving your plants the best possible start? In part 5 of my series on making A Garden from Scratch (scroll to the bottom for the other installments), I look at one border in my own garden and explain how I prepared it and put it together.
1. Get the timing right.
Above: What I started with. This was a tired lavender walk that needed a lot of plants replaced and was interspersed with climbing roses. I wanted a more substantial border as this was also a key view through the garden, so I removed everything except for the established ‘Blush Noisette’ rose on the right-hand side of the border.
Autumn and spring are perfect times to get a border planted, giving plants a chance to settle and send out roots when soil is likely to be warm and moist. Because I am nearly always running behind, the new border here would eventually go into the ground in early May. It’s not ideal timing as they need a lot more attention and irrigation if there is prolonged hot weather, but in reality it’s feasible to plant perennials at any time the ground is not frozen—just be prepared to keep an eye on them in summer.
Make sure you have all your plants gathered, ready for planting. If you are buying plants and want to keep costs down, know that 9-cm plants will be the most economical, while 1-liter or 2-liter plants will provide more instant impact. That said, those small plants will have caught up with the larger plants within one season and definitely within two seasons. If you’ve got time, growing some of the plants from seeds or cuttings will be the most economical of all. You can also divide plants from elsewhere in the garden, too, creating more plants for free. (See Your First Garden: How to Start a Garden for Practically Free for other ideas.)
2. Enrich the soil.
Above: Preparing the planting area.
I widened the existing border as much as I could while still leaving a path through the middle. At this point it can feel like there’s a lot of space, but once plants mature and grow over the edges this central path will narrow considerably. As this area has poor very free-draining soil, I dug in well-rotted manure through the whole border to prepare it for planting; whatever your soil type, the most beneficial thing you can do at the outset is to add as much compost as you can to enrich the soil.
3. Lay out the plants.
Above: Laying out the plants.
Place all of your plants along the border where you think you’ll want to plant them. Then spend some time considering how the plants will look as they grow. Think about how wide they will spread and allow enough space for plants to grow (check the plant label for approximate dimensions). Group perennials together in threes or loose triangles which will create more impact with blocks and color. What you are trying to create is a naturalistic feeling rather than regimented order. (See A Garden from Scratch: How to Choose Plants and Put Them Together for my tips on plant composition.)
Repeat some plants through the length of the border to help create rhythm. In this border, Alchemilla mollis, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foester’ are repeated down the length of the bed. And leave space for self seeders—over time, if you prefer a more naturalistic look and you’re happy to encourage self-seeders, your border will fill out with these volunteer plants. This border has several self-seeders, especially Salvia turkestanica, Digitalis parviflora and D. ferruginea gigantea, and occasionally Baptisia australis and Alchemilla mollis, creating free plants and a more abundant and lush border.
Recently, one of my clients asked if I would add some blue flowers to her garden. Her young daughter had learned that dogs are color-blind and can see only blues and yellows, and now she wanted to make sure their garden had blue flowers in it so that their dog would be able to enjoy them. Naturally my heart swelled and my list of blue flowers grew. I bolted to the nursery and picked up some favorites.
Because of this project, I learned to truly appreciate how blues add a cooling and calming splash of color. I also learned, after reading the book, How the Rose Got its Thorns and Other Botanical Stories, by Andrew Ormerod, that few plants produce anthocyanins, the pigments responsible for the blue hue, which is why blue flowers are relatively rare in nature. “They are most commonly found in environmentally impoverished habitats where pollinators are scarce—with its short wavelength, the color blue stands out and attracts bee pollinators,” he writes.
Here are eight of my favorite blue flowers (and possibly dog and bee favorites, too).
1. Lobelia, Lobelia erinus ‘Magadi Compact Dark Blue’
Above: Photograph by Kier Holmes.
Sometimes you need a fast-growing annual to add to pots, containers, and window boxes that are in a sunny spot. This lobelia is so good at filling planting gaps with color. With a trailing habit, it’s slightly upright, slightly relaxed, and produces vibrant blue flowers in the spring through summer if deadheaded. In mild climates this annual can reseed—in a good way. Hardy in USDA Zones 8-11. I like to plant mine from six-packs or from seed.
What makes this perennial extra cute are the heart-shaped leaves and the tiny baby-blue flowers that arrive in the spring and continue through the summer. Add this deer-resistant, easy-to-grow ground cover to a partly shaded cottage or woodland garden and pair it with hellebores, bleeding hearts, and ferns. Grows to 1 to 2 feet high and as wide. Hardy in USDA Zones 3-9.
Native to California, this darling annual gifts you with bright blue dainty flowers in the spring. Easy to sow from seed, it is commonly added to wildflower seed mixes. Pro tip: Sow your seeds in a partly sunny spot and provide them with ample water. I sowed my seeds in the fall for my spring bloom, but I live in a warm-winter areas. In cold-winter areas, sow your seeds in the spring. The flower grows to a petite 10 inches high and in a container, will tumble playfully over the edges. You can purchase seeds through Larner Seeds.
4. Pincushion flower, Scabiosa Caucasica ‘Fama Deep Blue’
Above: Photograph by Kier Holmes.
I grow this flower in my garden and and am rewarded with mega large ruffled blue blooms—4 inches across! I swear, these flowers are constantly buzzing with bees and butterflies from spring to fall. It also makes an excellent long-lasting cut flower, and the more I cut, the more blooms I get. Grows to 2 feet tall and wide and likes full sun and well-draining soil. Perfect when added to pots or edging a perennial bed or cutting garden. Hardy in USDA Zones 4-9.
