With Fiona, my faithful greyhound by my side, long walks through the Shropshire lanes are a regular occurrence. Fiona likes to stroll, which provides time to take in the beauty of the natural landscape. On late summer evenings the sound and site of bats and fallow deer in the fields surrounding our home, makes for a truly magical experience.
With a hedgeline of Hazel, Dogwood, Bramble, Field maple and Hawthorn, plus field edges of Nettle, Cow parsley, Buttercup, Red campion, Thistle, Foxglove and Barley grass, their graduated heights really do make for quite the most beautiful (and very long) native herbaceous border.
My cultivated garden border, in it’s leaf and flower form actually resembles a country lane . It is very much shorter though – coming in at just under 6 metres.
When less keen gardening friends call round I feel compelled to inform them, that my borders are not full of nettles, they are in fact nettle leaved bell flower foliage, and the broad leaf dock looking like plant is in actual fact one of my favourite perennials – Persicaria amplexicaulis Alba. And the giant thistle is a Giant Cotton thistle. I can tell they are fascinated…
Over summer my borders will transform from green to intense orange by using Tithonia, burgundy and cream from Sunflowers, purple from Veronicastrum, and a whole of range of colour from Dahlias and Gladioli, all of which you are unlikely to find in a native field line ! I honestly don’t think I could garden without using these flowers (Images below from 2018)
Do you have a favourite plant which your garden could not be without ?
Sally Wicks 