The garden in June 2004

Planting with “key” colour blocks for structured informality.

The planting composition for the Ashley Combe Rope Garden is based on a theme created with blocks of silver plants. The beds are divided into a patchwork of planting blocks, some with a shallow timber frame to keep the plants in bounds - each one metre square, set approximately a metre apart and with one variety of plant in each block. These blocks run the length of the borders, with the blocks either centred or staggered. The blocks each contain either silver leafed plants or one plant species, and all the species are repeated throughout the scheme.

The plants between the silver blocks achieve informality through the use of differing but sympathetic leaf colour, size and shape. Each block is thus the “key” for its surrounding planting. The plant contents of the blocks differ in variety but plant group size is similar, in groups numbering up to 16 plants. The plant leaf colours between the blocks vary between shades of gold, purple, silver, grey green, light green, mid green, and dark green. The immediate leaf shapes and colour are those plants matched closest to the block plants, for example silver and gold leaves. Colour matching between the ‘blocks’ and informal plants allows the flexibility for the darker greens and contrasting colours to be placed further away from the silver “key” blocks on the ground plane.

Above the ground plane, vertical posts connected with thick rope visually relate to the surrounding trees and buildings, and provide another level of foliage and flower above the beds. On this upper plane the dark green leaves of roses and clematis, and grey green leaves of Jasminum stephanese link together, running over the top of the silver “key” blocks and plants below.

In late autumn/fall, the silver blocks of plants shimmer and resonate with the golden leaves of the surrounding deciduous tree and shrubs. Interest can be prolonged well into the late autumn with the secondary large white flowers of Clematis ‘Marie Boisselot’ picking up the lightness of the silver leafed plants.

Summer 2004

Autumn 2003

The idea is to create a controlled mix of formal and informal planting. In this instance the key blocks are silver, but they could be gold or any other single colour. The block “keys” of one colour with intimately related plants can progress and change to other colour block “keys” with other related plants as one progresses through the garden, keeping within an overall composition of differing vertical planes, for example trees, or as in this garden, wooden posts.

By following the planting plan and themes, and noting the compositional changes of leaf colour, shape and size, the client was able to substitute some of her own plants in some places.

Some of the plants used on the plan

Silver blocks: Stachys ‘Silver Carpet’, Senecio, ‘Sunshine’ (Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’), Santolina chamaecyparissus.

Gold leaves between blocks: Aucuba ‘Gold Strike’, Choisya ‘Sundance’, Euonymus ‘Emerald and Gold’, Lysimachia nummularia, Spiraea ‘Gold Flame’.

Grey/Silver leaves between blocks: Artemisia ‘Lambrook Silver’, Iris ‘Frost & Flame’, Iris ‘Party Dress’, Iris ‘Berkeley Gold’. Indigofera heterantha, ‘Lavandula Hidcote’, Lavandula angustifolia, Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Blue Spire’.

Light/mid green leaves: Alchemilla mollis, Cimicifuga americana, Diascia ‘Ruby Field’, Hebe rakaiensis, Hemerocallis in variety, Monarda ‘Cambridge Scarlet’, Sisyrinchium striatum, Scabiosa ‘Clive Greaves’.

Climbers: Clematis ‘Duchess of Edinburgh’, Clematis ‘Marie Boissebt’, Jasminium stephanense, Rosa ‘Iceberg Climber’.

An excellent database of plants can be found on the BBC Gardening website. Here you can look up detailed information about thousands of plants using their searchable database - you will find descriptions of the plants and tips about growing them.