Gardens
Shady dealings
Ursula Buchan
hen one is single, the world seems full of ugly men; when one wishes to make a lovely garden, the world seems equally full of ugly plants. These may be false Perceptions but beautiful species are in the minority and the rest, when not actively displeasing, are nondescript. Our own ?native flora, though the best documented m the world, has more than its fair share of unalluring weeds. Native and foreign, many uglies find their way into our gar- dens, thanks to an intellectual indolence which refuses to reject them. As a result (space being always limited) they take the Place of those that would add to the general sum of beauty and happiness. They Particularly inhabit those parts of the garden which are shaded and where the majority of plants will not thrive. No one would (surely?) ever grow the Yellow-speckled evergreen Aucuba japoni- ca `Maculata' if it required a rich loam soil at the bottom of a south wall. It is because !r will grow in shade, under dripping trees, m poor, dry soil that it seems acceptable. There are many others whose main virtue is a willingness to please, but in our small and overcrowded gardens that may not be enough. I write this in the hope that the green Euonymus fort unei, Lonicera Pileata, Prunus laurocerasus 'Otto Luykens', Pachysandra terminalis, Skim- mitt rubella, the snowberry Symphoricar- pos, and all the other shady-space-fillers of httle intrinsic merit beyond an equable temperament, will languish in their pots in garden centres and fade gradually from our gardens.
I realise that my fingers will grow numb ,attempting to plug the holes in this particu- 'ar dyke and that a flood of unattractive Plants will continue to engulf us. Ugly Plants are often easy to grow, so there is strong incentive for nurseries and garden centres to rear and sell them. The argu- ment in their favour is given powerful impetus by the widespread, though un- realistic, demand for plants for every situa- tion, fostered particularly by the 'ground- cover as universal panacea' lobby. Nasty carmine-flowered bergenias, unpleasantly dusty ivies, rampageous lamiums are re- commended by people of the highest aes- thetic sensibility in a panic because they feel they have to suggest something. However, I would almost rather see the ground around the bole of a tree made bare by the use of 'Tumbleweed' than covered in a carpet of dark green Euphor- bia robbiae. Does the man, I wonder, who plants this under his trees say to himself, 'I think this plant is beautiful; it is fortuitous that it will grow in shade', or does he rather sigh thankfully that he has found any old thing which will cover the ground and discourage the weeds? I think I can guess. It is the accommodating nature of these Cinderellas which turns them, at a stroke, into the princesses of nursery catalogues.
I do not have to be told that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that if I bothered to look closely I should find a serene, if quiet, beauty in the green leaves of the Butcher's Broom, Ruscus aculeatus, or the Alexandrian laurel, Danae racemo- sa. The first proposition may be true, but the second certainly is not. There may be no absolute canons of taste (discuss, using only one side of the paper and taking no more than 30 minutes over your answer), but do people genuinely like many of the shade-lovers they feel constrained to plant in difficult places?
What puzzles me is that there are other shade-tolerant plants which give a higher return than dull green leaves and insignifi- cant flowers for their culture, yet feature much less often in gardens. How many people grow the brilliant-blue forget-me- not flowers of Omphalodes cappadocica and its relation Brunnera macrophylla; or the delicate strawberry-coloured foxglove, Digitalis x mertonensis; the variegated comfrey Symphytum x uplandicum Wariegatum'; or Waldsteinia temata, which has bright yellow flowers in spring? Neither Berberis rubrostilla or B. Wilsonae is very popular, yet these plants, though evergreen, have flowers in the spring and necklaces of bright red berries in the 'Here's my card.' autumn. Their problem is that they are not fashionable.
Fashion can be a wretched thing. To admit plants into one's garden simply because they are everywhere recom- mended and in ready supply without hav- ing a positive feeling for them, seems to me to undermine the point of cultivating a garden. Hostas are a good example: though pretty in leaf (if slugs are kept at bay), they die down in the autumn in a self-conscious, yellowing, wet rag way, which is little short of revolting. Despite that, they are frequently commended for the most prominent positions. Astilbes are other well-publicised plants, whose stiff, unspreading habit, and fluffy pyramids of chalky pink flowers give me little pleasure.
One must resist all those plants towards which one feels indifferent, even if their planting removes a practical difficulty. We are so spoiled for choice in gardening, as in so much else, that if we do not rigorously exercise informed choice we cannot expect to improve our gardens or promote the demand for better plants.
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