Ever since I have seen the first photos of the White Garden at Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West's and Harold Nicolson's famous garden in England, I have dreamed of having a White Garden myself. Because our property is small I can't have different garden rooms devoted to specific colors and schemes. However, I did not want to have a garden completely planted with white flowering plants so I had to restrict myself to a White Garden Bed only. On the photo below you see my first attempt to create this bed. I tried to introduce white color to it not just by planting white flowering plants but also by the use of plants with silvery or gray foliage. This is how it looked in May 2011 when the roses were in full spring flush.
On the first glance the bed appears fine (at least to me), but there are some drawbacks. The three roses to the right are 'Iceberg' roses and even though I love them dearly and they are my most prolific bloomers out of all the roses that I am having they simply have gotten too big for this bed. It is not very well to see on this photo but especially the middle one constantly pokes me everywhere when it is time to be deadheaded. It is planted too close to the rim of the pool and the two cycads which flank it on both sides. I also don't like that it is growing quite a bit into the cycads when left to its own devices and needs to be constantly controlled for size for that reason. Besides after looking at three 'Iceberg' roses for three years I have to admit that I started to find this view a little bit boring even though the roses themselves are quite beautiful. Last but not least because these roses bloom so vigorously they need to be constantly deadheaded. The petals are not supposed to fall into the pool, because they change the chemicals in the water as they decompose. So this bed requires deadheading at least every second day (no, I am not exaggerating!) from spring to autumn when the roses are having their flushes. I am simply not able to do that anymore. So for these reasons alone I was longing for a change.
But there was more I was not satisfied with. In the photo above you can see the same bed in September 2011. The lamb's ears planted in front of the white column look pretty bad. Their leaves have taken on a yellow/brown color instead of the lovely green/gray that they are supposed to be. Behind the white column I had planted a half circle of white flowering irises to mirror the half circle of the lamb's ears in the front. Unfortunately these irises were a complete failure. I think the whole time they have been there I got one or two blooms out of them.
Here you can see the irises a little bit better. They are almost diminished. I don't know why, but irises don't want to grow in my garden no matter what I try to do to help them along.
The photo above shows the same bed from the other side. Underneath the cycad on the left I had planted dusty millers in a circle around the trunk of the cycad, for their beautiful silvery/whitish foliage which did pretty well, but grew a little bit too large for the portions of the bed in my opinion. Underneath the smaller cycad to the right I placed five plants of artemisia 'Silvermound' in a circle to repeat a similar look like the one I was after with the cycad to the left. Unfortunately, three of the plants died and the two surviving ones were never happy and refused to reach a size that had any decent visual impact on the bed.
So by the end of last year I decided it was time for a make-over of the White Garden Bed. After having a critical look at photos of this part of the garden and analyzing what worked and what didn't I wanted to change the following things.
1. Take out the white 'Iceberg' rose in the middle of the bed and plant another white or nearly white rose instead of it, that is getting less wide than the 'Iceberg' rose and also position it further backwards in the direction of the fence, so that I don't get poked when I walk along the rim of the pool to deadhead and can also reach it better from the sides. Believe it or not, I want a rose that is less floriferous or clings better to its blooms than the 'Iceberg' so that I don't have to deadhead every other day in the high season. I also desire a rose, whose flower shape contrasts a little bit with the flower form of the 'Iceberg' roses. My hope is that a rose with a a different tone of white or that is not completely white and has a different flower shape than the 'Iceberg' roses will give some more interest to this bed.
2. Remove the irises and replace them with a white flowering plant that is actually flowering at least once in a year so that the area around the column looks more full, lush, and complete.
3. Try to either revive the lamb's ears or take them out and replace them with something else to make the front area of the column look better.
4. Take out the dusty miller and the remaining two artemisias 'Silvermound' and replace them with either new dusty millers or other plants that catch my fancy.
5. Find the silver gazing ball in the garage that was intended to go on top of the column.
6. Use more white flowering plants and not mainly rely on the roses and on grayish foliage plants to provide the white color to that bed, also with the intention to give it more interest.
These considerations were the starting point for the make-over of my White Garden Bed. I will share with you on my blog the process of changing this bed hopefully to the better in the future. Stay tuned!
On the first glance the bed appears fine (at least to me), but there are some drawbacks. The three roses to the right are 'Iceberg' roses and even though I love them dearly and they are my most prolific bloomers out of all the roses that I am having they simply have gotten too big for this bed. It is not very well to see on this photo but especially the middle one constantly pokes me everywhere when it is time to be deadheaded. It is planted too close to the rim of the pool and the two cycads which flank it on both sides. I also don't like that it is growing quite a bit into the cycads when left to its own devices and needs to be constantly controlled for size for that reason. Besides after looking at three 'Iceberg' roses for three years I have to admit that I started to find this view a little bit boring even though the roses themselves are quite beautiful. Last but not least because these roses bloom so vigorously they need to be constantly deadheaded. The petals are not supposed to fall into the pool, because they change the chemicals in the water as they decompose. So this bed requires deadheading at least every second day (no, I am not exaggerating!) from spring to autumn when the roses are having their flushes. I am simply not able to do that anymore. So for these reasons alone I was longing for a change.
But there was more I was not satisfied with. In the photo above you can see the same bed in September 2011. The lamb's ears planted in front of the white column look pretty bad. Their leaves have taken on a yellow/brown color instead of the lovely green/gray that they are supposed to be. Behind the white column I had planted a half circle of white flowering irises to mirror the half circle of the lamb's ears in the front. Unfortunately these irises were a complete failure. I think the whole time they have been there I got one or two blooms out of them.
Here you can see the irises a little bit better. They are almost diminished. I don't know why, but irises don't want to grow in my garden no matter what I try to do to help them along.
The photo above shows the same bed from the other side. Underneath the cycad on the left I had planted dusty millers in a circle around the trunk of the cycad, for their beautiful silvery/whitish foliage which did pretty well, but grew a little bit too large for the portions of the bed in my opinion. Underneath the smaller cycad to the right I placed five plants of artemisia 'Silvermound' in a circle to repeat a similar look like the one I was after with the cycad to the left. Unfortunately, three of the plants died and the two surviving ones were never happy and refused to reach a size that had any decent visual impact on the bed.
So by the end of last year I decided it was time for a make-over of the White Garden Bed. After having a critical look at photos of this part of the garden and analyzing what worked and what didn't I wanted to change the following things.
1. Take out the white 'Iceberg' rose in the middle of the bed and plant another white or nearly white rose instead of it, that is getting less wide than the 'Iceberg' rose and also position it further backwards in the direction of the fence, so that I don't get poked when I walk along the rim of the pool to deadhead and can also reach it better from the sides. Believe it or not, I want a rose that is less floriferous or clings better to its blooms than the 'Iceberg' so that I don't have to deadhead every other day in the high season. I also desire a rose, whose flower shape contrasts a little bit with the flower form of the 'Iceberg' roses. My hope is that a rose with a a different tone of white or that is not completely white and has a different flower shape than the 'Iceberg' roses will give some more interest to this bed.
2. Remove the irises and replace them with a white flowering plant that is actually flowering at least once in a year so that the area around the column looks more full, lush, and complete.
3. Try to either revive the lamb's ears or take them out and replace them with something else to make the front area of the column look better.
4. Take out the dusty miller and the remaining two artemisias 'Silvermound' and replace them with either new dusty millers or other plants that catch my fancy.
5. Find the silver gazing ball in the garage that was intended to go on top of the column.
6. Use more white flowering plants and not mainly rely on the roses and on grayish foliage plants to provide the white color to that bed, also with the intention to give it more interest.
These considerations were the starting point for the make-over of my White Garden Bed. I will share with you on my blog the process of changing this bed hopefully to the better in the future. Stay tuned!
See you in the garden!
Christina
