It is June and the crescendo of May’s flowering has passed. You have snipped off the faded peonies, chopped back the straggly hardy geraniums, removed the lingering foliage of the spring bulbs and you step back to take stock.
It’s lovely but, a bit like your favourite cashmere jumper that the moths have found, there are holes. There are gaps where a late frost scythed an emerging perennial – you can ignore those, they will soon refill. There are other gaps where an over-wet winter on heavy clay has rotted once prized plants or a shrub has just given up the ghost for no apparent reason.
CistusSarah Beattie
Some things will go on, seemingly forever, like cistus purpureus, the Rock Rose. We planted this, and C. Alan Fradd, and now they are huge and can be savagely cut back where needed. After their initial very floriferous period they settle to a more sporadic flowering throughout the summer.
Their other cistus cousins though, lower growing and daintier, are much more short lived. Beautiful ceanothus, the Californian lilac, can be a mountain of fuzzy electric blue beneath the fading mimosa one year and a pile of twigs the next.
It’s sad when much appreciated stalwarts of your border just die but don’t blame yourself. It’s time to plug the gap and move on. The trouble is June is emphatically not a good time to plant shrubs, especially in warmer regions of France.
There are a few things you can do to mitigate the loss
If it is a large bush that has died, leave it in situ and plant annual climbers to scramble over it for this season. Then, in the winter, dig it out. Add some well rotted manure and soil to replenish the bed and replant. It’s often a good idea to avoid planting the same species – it’s wiser not to put a rose where a rose was.
Supermarkets, DIY stores and markets often have Black-Eyed Susans (thunbergia), Chilean Glory Flower (eccremocarpus scaber) or climbing nasturtiums. Ipomeas can give you pretty much any colour you want – Morning Glory comes in all shades of blue, purple and pink from the palest to really deep dark shades. Spanish Flag, which used to be known as mina lobata and is now ipomea lobata, is all shades of reds and yellows.
Morning GlorySarah Beattie
The ornamental sweet potato, ipomea batatas, is grown for its heart shaped or multi-lobed leaves which are a vivid pale green, bronze, dark purple almost black or a combination. It has flowers, like a Morning Glory in shape, not as showy but still pretty in white with purple in the base of their trumpets.
If you have an empty space, add a temporary structure made from bamboo or hazel poles tied together or slot in a cheap metal obelisk frame – places like Noz, Action, Lidl or Aldi are good hunting grounds.
The screw together tubular frames will last a few seasons and you can easily move them to another spot next year. They really aren’t suitable for roses or larger clematis which quickly become too heavy and topple them.
You can get away with planting smaller perennials in June
If you buy three little pots and plant them 20-25cm apart in a triangular shape, you can give the illusion of having planted a more mature clump, quicker. As long as you water well, they should establish themselves quite quickly.
NicotianaSarah Beattie
If they grow away too enthusiastically, you can always divide them up again during the winter and spread the colour through the garden. This works well for things like salvias, asters, penstemons, campanulas etc. It means you get a good block of colour this season.
Another alternative is to plant the small perennial you want for the future but team it with some annuals. Nurseries and garden centres will be clearing any stock now so they’ll probably be half price or cheaper. They may need to soak for a few hours if they are looking dried up in trays. Give them a hair cut, cutting back any too leggy or dried growth.
Look out for tobacco plants (nicotiana especially the magnificent n. sylvestris), cosmos of all sorts, zinnias and snapdragons (antirrhinums). The latter are called gueule de loup (wolf’s mouth) in French and can offer a lot of colour over the summer. They’ve fallen out of favour and should be revived.
The benefit of buying late in the season is that you can see the colours on the mixed trays and decide what to buy and where to plant accordingly. There’s a particular acid yellow, almost the colour of the famous gilets jaunes, which I find very difficult to place in the garden.
Potted lilies, dahlias and alstroemeria (Peruvian lilies) will fill a gap quickly, just water the hole before planting and then water well afterwards. They cope better with being planted in summer than most perennials as the stores in the bulbs or tubers sustain and protect the plants. You must still water regularly, of course.
Michaelmas daisies will soon fill a void and seem to survive (sometimes too well) on very little care. Buy small pots and plant in odd numbers. The tiny flowered white ones can drift through your border, filling any gaps. Symphyotrichum ericodes Cinderella will tolerate hot dry conditions. Symphyotrichum cordifolium, the Blue Wood Aster, likes a little more moisture.
