Gardens
And so to bed
Ursula Buchan
Bedding-out began as the exercise and diplay of economic muscle. A large gar- den full of half-hardy annuals said a great deal about its owner: he had the means not only to build but to heat and maintain large glasshouses and employ the army of out- door staff required to sow, prick off, and plant out the raised plants by the early summer and pull them all out again in the autumn. As an idea it was given impetus by the development, in the early 19th century, of the technique of curving cast-iron, use- ful for the building of glasshouses, and the abolition of the tax on glass in 1845.
As the prevailing fashion, it lasted little more than 50 years in the parterres of the rich but, despite the oil crises of the 1970s, continues to this day in diluted form in most gardens, large and small, and in public parks.
Ironically, the same human weakness of snobbery which partly engendered the movement now leads people to despise it. Many keen gardeners would die rather than admit a petunia to their flowerbeds. The reason is that summer bedding in parks is often (though not always) un- attractive in the colour mix and stiff and formal in the planting: ribbons of golden Pyrethrum and Coleus, and squat lumps of purple Perilla, with here and there 'dot' plants of variegated Abutilon and spikes of bronzy Canna. That being so, it is, I suppose, small wonder that there is a reaction against bedding-out and, most unfortunately, the plants used in the displays. However, I am prepared to admit that I grow a great many sorts of bedding- out plant and will ever continue to do so, even if any standing I may once have had as a discerning gardener is compromised in the process.
I use many of the plants, if not the planting, because there are always gaps in my borders. Plants die (I have been sick- ened by the slaughter in the aftermath of the last two winters) or they are moved, borders are emptied so that ground elder may be eradicated, and plants which are ordered from nurseries do not materialise. I can count the number of good August- flowering shrubs on the fingers of one hand (if you forget modern roses) and I do not wish to be entirely at the mercy of the daisy family (many of them coarse and badly behaved) in plantings of mainly herbacious perennials. Gaps may be partly filled by hardy annuals, but only partly, for these are often less robust and more ethereal than the tender annuals germinated earlier indoors. I can see the argument against the grosser half-hardy annuals like African marigolds and zinnias, but most petunias, all nicotianas (tobacco plants), and the tribe known as `everlastings' are not shock- ing in colour. It is also to the credit of many half-hardy annuals that they are drought- resistant, flower continuously and cannot seed everywhere for they are cut down at the first frost. In these years of late springs and warm autumns, even here in east Northamptonshire, we are reasonably safe from freezing temperatures until late October.
Life is not made too easy for the would-be grower of bedding plants, it must be said. It is difficult to avoid mixtures which, either through iniquity or idleness, the seedsmen yearly make more of a scandal. One of the better recent develop- ments in plant breeding is pelargonium seed which may be sown and will flower in the course of a spring and summer; yet in the catalogue of one noted seed firm I find Pelargonium 'Cascade Mixed Fl Hybrids' which are defiantly proclaimed as 'an invaluable mixture with red, salmon, coral, pink, white, orange-scarlet and red and white bicolours'. Help! How do you know from the leaves in the seed tray which colour to put where? It is possible to find the seed of some half-hardy annuals sold in separate colours, but it needs seeking out and the choice is often limited. Colour- scheming, however short-lived the design, is as important in bedding as with more permanent planting but a great deal more difficult when one is at the mercy of seedsmen's mixtures and their flattering descriptions. I do satisfy my periodic and guilty desire for startling colour, as for my occasional need of extremely loud rock music, by planting some really bright pelar- goniums in urns.
Bedding need not only be planted at the front of borders, in straight lines, or in ribbons and twirls but can also be placed In generous drifts which tend towards the back of the border. Above all, it must be thickly planted for bedding cannot possibly work successfully with a few puny lobelia and stick-like starved French marigolds.
A sense of superiority is one of those truly delicious luxuries of life which gives point to conversation and cheers one uP when one is sad. Gardening would not be nearly so much fun without a little snob' bery, but one must guard against discount• ing whole classes of plants because they are unfashionable; it is their use and not their
essential nature which may be at fault. Those who insist on horticultural purity may safeguard their impeccable credentials for good taste but their gardens will be the poorer and emptier for it.
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