The Very Mixed Border
The best of all possible worlds
28 September 2024
By: James Lennox
I've come to the conclusion that gardening and writing are incompatible activities. At least simultaneously. Lacking staff to see to the heavy lifting in the garden and discipline to sit at a desk on a sunny day when the garden is calling, something has to give - and for me, it's the writing that's the loser. Spring planting is followed by staking and shaping, deadheading gives way to weeding and watering - and before you know it we've somehow landed in autumn.
Some gardeners manage to juggle both tasks - often by dividing the year between gardening months (early spring to late autumn) and writing months (the dark, cold, wet weeks when all respectable gardens used to be tucked up for the duration). Graham Thomas and his split year with the National Trust springs to mind.
Some writers, on the other hand, turn to gardening in times of adversity - and then write about their experiences. George Orwell is an obvious example - although I wouldn't necessarily advocate catching TB and moving to the windswept Hebrides as the most rewarding route into horticulture. His diaries detail his travails. I'm sure there are those who are inspired by the thought of scrabbling around in peat bogs unearthing shrivelled potatoes and molly-coddling marigolds through the rigours of a Scottish summer. It comes as no surprise he wrote 1984 as a spot of light relief.
For an object lesson in combining gardening and writing, I'm much more likely to turn to Christopher Lloyd. With a wide and deep knowledge of plants and their successful cultivation, his waspish wit, particularly when railing against received wisdom and the stultifying effects of good taste on gardening, enlivens many a page.
And so, I've spent large chunks of the summer re-reading some of his pearls of wisdom and day-dreaming about inheriting a house and garden enhanced by Lutyens together with the means to employ a phalanx of eager young staff.
His first published work, The Mixed Border, is a joy. Yes, it obviously has its problematic moments, as the kids would say. Extolling the wonders of DDT is unlikely to win many plaudits these days - the past is definitely a foreign country and the gardeners of 1957 did things differently there.
But the substance of the book still rings true. And, somewhat unwittingly, without having first read his thoughts on the matter, I seem to have landed on the same solution to the conundrum of how to gain maximum interest from a long border as Mr Lloyd did way back in the mists of time. The solution, my friends, is to mix it up.
The stakes are particularly high for me. The mixed border is the first thing I see when I open the bedroom curtains in the morning, and the last garden view I glimpse at night. Whatever the weather, I've had plenty of time to study what does and doesn't work, both in my own garden and in those I've visited on my travels. There really is no mystery: a mixed border's success simply boils down to three vital ingredients: rhythm, generosity and variety.
Rhythm
A lack of rhythm can be fatal to any long border, mixed or otherwise. Some permanent evergreen structure doesn't go amiss - in my case, a trio of random shrubby veronicas (the plants formerly known as hebes reverting to their previous name … ), a couple of Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum ‘Fire Dance’ and a woefully misplaced x Gordlinia grandiflora which is already outgrowing its allocated slot.
Five carefully chosen roses complete the structural line-up - the repeat-flowering ‘Rose du Roi’ (Portland); ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ (Bourbon) which promises so much but rarely delivers; ‘Tuscany Superb’ which like all Gallicas grown on their own roots loves to run around; ‘Salet’ (Moss), prone to balling but charming enough to be forgiven; and ‘Leda’, a Damask curiosity, the flowers of which could be mistaken for carnations. If a rose has been grown for the best part of 200 years, as all these have been, then who am I to doubt their garden-worthiness? Ruthless pruning and generous feeding are the order of the day in this border's free-draining soil and, with the exception of the ever-inquisitive ‘Tuscany Superb’, they're unlikely to cause any real headaches.
Generosity
Generosity is all - whether in the mixed border or life more generally. Nothing is worse than a pinched look. As in other areas of the garden, I'm a firm believer in the ‘more is more’ approach. Nobody wants to see bare soil where there is room to paint a picture with plants. Don't skimp on the geraniums, let the lupins self-seed with gay abandon and allow the achilleas and phlox to fill out to their full potential.
Avoid bittiness at all costs - stick to a few tried and tested plant favourites and just keep a watching brief that they're all playing together nicely, particularly at their moment of peak interest.
Unfortunately, there are certain plants that are perhaps too giving, at times verging on the world-conquering. Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ excels at carrying the border's interest into autumn. After a couple of years settling in, she's off with a vengeance. But one man's invasive nuisance is merely another man's labour-saving space-filler. As soon as she strays too far, simply pull up shoots by the handful and discard or distribute.
And yes, the patch of Iris japonica ‘Variegata’ halfway along the border is probably a touch too generous, but what are friends for if not to receive surplus stock.
Variety
The very essence of the mixed border is variety. Who wants a monoculture extending as far as the bored eye can see? I should know - I planted a grass border that is ripe for revision. Too much, well, grass.
The aim here is to keep the party going for as long as possible with a reasonable number of plant types all living in harmony. Evergreens jostle with annuals (where would we be without Eschscholzia californica?), early summer flowers (lupins) give way to late summer/autumn stalwarts (asters). Then there are scattered salvias to fire off pops of colour all summer long until the first frosts.
All of which wax and wane with the seasons, never combining in the exact same way from one year to the next. At times the lupins will dominate, at others (such as following this year’s slug-infested spring) only a few brave survivors will reach their full potential. That's nature's way of shaking things up. The gardener can also get in on the action - herbaceous plants can be moved around the border like pieces on a chess board to achieve more felicitous combinations or to respond to changing conditions, in my case encroaching shade from a particularly lusty walnut.
With the onset of autumn, for me the beginning of the new gardening year, plans are already afoot to make a few tweaks. For one, I'll definitely be adding more bulbs, preferably those that can withstand the local rodent population. And one or two of the smaller grasses might make their way there from the soon-to-be-revamped grass terrace above.
Onward and upward
But what of the future of the mixed border as a style of planting? While it probably never left private gardens, it’s definitely been slightly overlooked of late, shunned by fickle fashionistas in favour of newer naturalistic tendencies with swaying grasses and swathes of tall perennials, with talk of matrix planting all the rage.
But perhaps the pendulum is swinging back slightly - dare I hope that the new perennial monopoly might be nearing its end? Surely there has to be room for the odd shrub, an old rose (or twenty!), ephemeral spring bulbs and the occasional evergreen to provide a longer season of interest than can be gained from an exclusively herbaceous planting that dazzles in summer and autumn, but can look a bedraggled, soggy brown mess in winter and stubbly bare earth in spring.
Surely the revival of the mixed border's fortunes is just around the corner.
