Wild thing: Growing flowers in long grass

If I had known that I would have been grasped so relentlessly by the flower growing addiction when I first put spade in the soil, I would simply never have considered an orchard.

When we laid it out, ten years ago, on a piece of A3 paper, full half of my field was devoted to stone fruit trees and long, luscious grass. There are good things about it obviously. The plums for one. It was the space where we put the marquee when we got married. Later, the wood oven was added, and then a long oak table and benches for parties. When the quince and a cherry got big enough, a hammock was strung up. As a psychotherapeutic intervention, I cannot recommend a hammock enough.

It was wonderful for our social life but, barring a few narcissi under the trees, very much a blank space in floral terms. I had such dreams of long, swaying grass. Blankets for picnics in June. Paths of demand picked out between the gates. A mown path through a flower filled meadow. I cut out and kept photographs of Le Jardin Plume,

Just a sample from my Pinterest board…

However, Nature gives and it taketh away. The rich, fertile clay soil that grows me such incredible roses, such long stemmed tulips, such abundant dahlias, also loves growing grass. Not wafty, flower-studded romantic grasses, no. There is a reason that the West Country is famed for its milk; I could easily feed a house cow or two on the grass that my tenth of an acre can produce.

Even ten years of mowing and removing the clippings has done anything at all to dent its fecundity. If I leave it too long between clips, it throws up nettles and docks and creeping buttercups and ever bigger clumps of rye grass. Now that most of my growing beds have been turned over to perennial planting and as I chafe at the limitations of space, is the time to take it in hand.

I have two options for planting under the fruit trees. One is the naturalistic sort of sowing and growing, mimicking the woodland edges. This is the lowest maintenance, scratching a patch of bare earth and sowing seeds or bulbs that are selected for their vigour and their ability to outgrow the grass.

1/ Planting straight into grass

Going for the wild look

If you have ever holidayed in Cornwall, or wandered on a late spring day down a country lane, you will notice the abundance and diversity of hedgerows and lane edges. Grasses might form the backdrop or the canvas upon which other plants grow, but they do not dominate. Gaze along any verge and you are likely to see swathes of cow parsley. Later in the season, Daucus carota, the wild scabious varieties, honey suckle and campions. At home, it is possible to take inspiration and adjust; the ‘Ravenswing’ version of cow parsley which combines the shape of the wild with the colour of an excellent merlot is known to be a great favourite of mine. To create a tall and airy punctuation with a nod to the native pincushion, Cephalaria gigantea comes highly recommended. Truly tough as boots, cuts brilliantly and looks great as both flower buds and seed heads.

Cow parsley by Alice Tatham, The Wild Wood Moth

bulbs, both autumn & spring

In terms of bulbs, now is the moment for planting snowdrops (the end of winter) because they rather bizarrely, like being planted when in flower. I cannot think of any other plant you do this with and the general policy is to wait until a plant is dormant before you start digging it up and moving it. (Answers on a postcard if you can think of another one.) However, it is worth keeping any eye out for bulbs coming up and make a note of which you like because come September, you’ll want to know what to order.

A note on spring bulbs, if you are going to plant crocuses or other very short flowers, you will need to time your autumn mow perfectly so that the grass isn’t so long it hides them in the spring. If you don’t have the confidence to get this right, and it is tricky with juggling the rains and the impending frost, Camassia are your friend. I saw a whole field of them at the Yeo Valley Garden last April and they were just incredible. Plant in as vast quantities as you can manage and they will revolutionise your spring. I have it on great authority that they are used alongside the drive at Highgrove to give the expanses of grass a meadowy look. King Charles suffers with similarly fertile soil in Gloucestershire as I do here in Somerset. Sadly, I think that is where the similarities end.

No, I am not sure about the alliums either.

*Highgrove - sadly not my photo, although I have been…*

trees

Talking of Holt Farm, I saw the magnolia of my dreams just outside the house there. I am afraid I still don’t know what variety is despite extensive research and asking everyone I can think of. It was cream but clear in its colour, with just a hint of muddiness at the base of the petals. But I do think that if you aren’t going for the orchard look, a magnolia is a perfect tree to plant into long grass. My next door neighbour has one and I adore admiring the furry buds and the lovely habit. And then it bursts into flower and I remember it is a M. stellata and I am disappointed. This is not a proper magnolia in my book. One day I will replace it with an extra-special one from Burncoose Nurseries. In the meantime, I have to be content with the long term investment of a very small M. ‘Yellow Lantern’ that I added to a big plant wholesale order last summer.

Other trees that do well in long grass:

Amelanchiers
Silver birches. Choose the size and habit to suit you, there are some smaller ones available now. After a few successful Chelsea appearances, Betula utilis jacquemontii is all the rage. Looks great as a multi-stem and doesn’t grow to a great height. Their popularity is reflected in the price although I did manage to track down a reasonable one for the corner of my mother’s walled garden.
Ornamental cherries, I have both ‘Tai Haku’ and the autumn flowering one. I think the latter should be mandatory for all gardeners; they give such a boost as all other flowers fade. Make a note of Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis' and the next time someone asks you what you would like for your birthday, say it. Extra marks if you can say it after a gin.
Crataegus prunifolia, indeed, any of the craetaguses. I am a great admirer having lost my heart to the one in the Westonbirt car park. If you go there regularly, I would be so grateful if you could try and find a label and tell me what variety it is. I have always wanted to find out.
Rowens are a little bit marmite. I can take them or leave them, I know people who go into raptures over them. Great for birds and I like them better if they are in interesting colours.
I am not a great fan of acers but there is no getting away from the fact that they can look astonishing in the right setting. Great for town gardens, but I think they just look out of place in the countryside. Ditto Liquidamber.

Remember to clear the grass away from the base of the tree for at least the first two years and water regularly. Once they are up and growing strongly you can let the grass grow back to the trunk, but definitely not for the first two growing seasons

Roses for romance

Oh, and the other thing that I am planting into long grass this year is species roses. These are the ones that come from dog roses so they have that brief but gloriously romantic single flower that shatters in days, leaving heart shaped blossom on the grass. Also great for hips and autumn structure, and absolutely tough as boots.

2/ Food forests as expressed through the medium of flowers

The second option has been decided upon by accident. The sudden abundance of straw that was thrown off the roof in bundles but the wonderful thatcher had to go somewhere and it makes the most wonderful mulch. Having delved into food forests and agroecology, and having inadvertently done the hard bit by having grown some decent sized fruit trees, I thought it was time to experiment with underplanting. As much as I would love to dress this up as a worthy, sustainable option, actually, it is pure romance. A few Mays ago, I saw an advert for Alhampton Open Gardens. No, I know, you haven’t heard of Alhampton either, but it just happens to be the home of one Charles Dowding. (His last garden was in Shepton Montague, and I couldn’t help thinking he had gone down in the world.)

We parked in the tiny village, queued with many others, paid our coins, and joined the procession around Charles’ regimented lettuces, immaculate asparagus and swoonworthy compost heaps. We silently gaped, and I took lots of photographs. It was only out of politeness that we thought we had better go around some of the other houses. The next one along was Meadowside. It could not have been more different than Charles Dowding’s, and it was like stepping into another world.

It is not often that words failed me, but they did. Since my visit, the gardener responsible for such incredible innovation, Gert Schley, has been featured on Gardeners’ World, and I strongly recommend seeing what I am going on about. [Start around 42 minutes in, although there is also a feature on Real Seeds in this episode which I loved] Like so many garden films, I don’t think this really does justice to the absolutely madness of seeing it; it is like all the rules of gardening have been turned upside down. And I want in.

Click on the image to play.

The first steps have been taken. Each of the trees now has a mulch of old thatch underneath, and I have a stock of perennial vegetables slowly growing in pots and bags. As we get closer to planting out time, I will cover the straw with a layer of compost, just deep enough to plant into, and then start. The plan is that there will be a balance of shapes and sizes (shrubs, herbaceous, vines and ground cover) but also a balance of perennial and self-seeding annuals (because who doesn’t want Nature to be doing the gardening?) and food and flowers. Oh, and comfrey obviously. I definitely need a better comfrey patch.

I loved Gert’s tip on raspberries. He uses an autumn fruiting variety but cuts back half of his canes to the ground and the other half to about a metre high, which gives an early crop in summer, and then another one in autumn. I shall definitely be doing that, although I will probably use the one recommended for cutting, ‘Tulameen’. Erin of Floret recommends something called ‘everbearing’ raspberries for growing as a foliage for cutting but I have no idea what these are, and they don’t seem to have an English equivalent, so Tulameen it is. My own recommendations for fruit for cutting is for one of the thornless blackberries, preferably ‘Merton Thornless’, but ‘Oregon Thornless’ is also lovely. I can see why you would question the wisdom of giving over space to a blackberry in the garden when they are so prolific, but there is something about both the cables and the filigree foliage that I find hard to resist. Oh, and the Newt circles them like swirls across a fence along the edge of their kitchen garden. And if it is good enough for the Newt…

If you would like some inspiration in visual form, feel free to explore the dream board here. I do find that I spend more time on Pinterest in January than at any other time.

Deepest winter is always more dreaming than doing here at Malus Farm.