With an eye to gardening in a hotter climate, Alice Vincent has decided to give over a corner of her garden to gravel planting, but how will her plants cope in their new home? Illustration Alice Pattullo <\/p>
Last week, I was taken by surprise by the blooming of not one but two \u2018Coral Reef\u2019 oriental poppies<\/a>. A resilient perennial<\/a>, they\u2019ve been blooming in the garden since I sowed the seeds<\/a> during that enthusiastic first autumn here, nearly three years ago. They took me aback this year, because I moved them \u2013 and poppies famously don\u2019t like having their roots messed about with \u2013 out of my flower beds and into several inches of gravel<\/a>. Then, they were roundly trodden on by the small fleet of carpenters, contractors and decorators who turned our shed into a garden studio<\/a>. I\u2019m amazed these poor poppies haven\u2019t been killed outright.\u00a0<\/p> More on<\/strong><\/p> Which is all to say that, yes, I am the nervous custodian of a gravel garden <\/a>now. Last summer\u2019s drought<\/a> was the breaking point: having dedicated the sunniest corner of the garden to flowers, only to watch the whole lot succumb to 40-degree heat, I decided to make a space to sit and entertain there instead, with planting that would stand up to barely any watering. I was inspired by the dry gardens <\/a>designed by Ula Maria at her father\u2019s home in Northampton<\/a> and Joanna McKerr <\/a>on her post-industrial plot in Bath, as well as Beth Chatto<\/a>\u2019s famous former car park in Essex<\/a>, well-documented in her book The Dry Garden. Could the same thing happen in Brixton?<\/p> “Adjusting how we garden to a changing climate is too important to sugar-coat.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote> At the time of writing, the dry garden is eight weeks old and has been subjected to the first of the summer\u2019s droughts. I\u2019m just about to start the second wave of planting in there, the first being a kind of kill-or-cure transplanting of drought-tolerant plants<\/a> from the pre-landscaped beds: Phlomis russeliana<\/em>, the aforementioned poppies, fennel, hollyhocks<\/a>, sedums and a couple of roses. So far, the Turkish sage is looking very sorry for itself, the fennel is attempting a feeble Lazarus effort and the hollyhocks have barely grown.\u00a0<\/p> “While more established plants freak out when plonked in gravel, seeds can form the deeper root structures”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote> That\u2019s a big admission from a perfectionist gardening writer in the pages of this magazine, but adjusting how we garden to a changing climate is too important to sugar-coat. When I bumped into Errol Reuben Fernandes<\/a>, head gardener at the Horniman Museum<\/a> (home to one nascent and one very established dry garden) he said he\u2019d been watching my efforts unfurl on Instagram, and advised scattering seed about. This is the approach taken by Joanna McKerr, too. While more established plants freak out when plonked in gravel, seeds can form the deeper root structures necessary to funnel up water from below. Thing is, “I\u2019m planting some things deep enough to hit the soil, and others not, and seeing what happens.\u00a0“<\/p>\n<\/blockquote> I\u2019m also intrigued as to how the new, smaller fennels, Calamagrostis<\/em> x acutiflora<\/em> \u2018Karl Foerster\u2019 and pinks will cope \u2013 the transplanted plants are rather suffering from the off from being dug up and partially abandoned while I was about a week post-partum. The gravel, which is in 20mm chunks to encourage seedlings to prosper, has been laid on top of hardcore, beneath which is the same old loamy clay that exists everywhere else in the garden. I\u2019m planting some things deep enough to hit the soil, and others not, and seeing what happens.\u00a0<\/p> What\u2019s ironic is that I\u2019ve been playing around with dry gardening in the front of the house for years \u2013 there\u2019s a fairly neglected patch of gravel there that I\u2019ve planted alliums<\/a> and lavender<\/a> into over time and which only gets rainwater<\/a> for sustenance. I don\u2019t even mulch out there; it\u2019s a total afterthought. This year, the lavenders are romping away, bringing colour and bees to the front door. As Beth Chatto maintained, right plant, right place.<\/p> I\u2019ve created a new little place; now I\u2019ve just got to find the plants to suit it.\u00a0 <\/p> \n
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