Best Way to Liven Up Your Garden

If you are short of time and do not want to spend a fortune on completely re-modelling your garden, you must seek ways to enrich and enliven what you already have. By growing a few extra plants in pots, hanging-baskets and tubs on a patio, or by covering a previously bland wall in a climber that produces beautiful summer flowers or autumn-tinted leaves, you will soon transform your garden out of the ordinary and into a place that will put a smile on your face every time you look at it. Choose plants with rich and unusual fragrances – from vanilla to orange, curry to turpentine -or decorative natural features that create soothing sounds, and you will improve your garden’s satisfaction rating still further.

Enriching gardens with memories

One way to liven up patios and gardens is to use plants that evoke memories of important events from earlier years, such as weddings, honeymoons, birthdays and special holidays. Many plants – such as Californian poppies native to the warm west coast of North America or fields of sunflowers seen in France – are able to evoke memories through their flowers or leaves. Lilac blossom, with its distinctive fragrance, strong color and form, has traditionally been used in wedding bouquets, so planting a lilac tree in your garden might both enliven it and stir rich memories of a happy wedding day. For recollections of a holiday in India (or maybe just the Tandoori restaurant down the road!), try the curry plant, Helichrysum italicum (but still better known as H. angustifolium). Although it is not actually an Asian plant, it has a curry-like bouquet.

Touching times

We expect color, sound and scent to enrich gardens, but the sensation of touch is also important in the garden. Getting to know soft-textured plants through touch is a form of solace and comfort, in much the same way as stroking a dog or cat can reduce tension and lower blood pressure. The range of plants that are pleasant to the touch is wide and includes:

• Stachys: The lamb’s tongue (Stachys byzantium, but still known as S. lanata or S. olympica) has soft, woolly and hairy leaves.

• Phlomis: The Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruiticosa) has wedge-shaped, woolly and grey-green leaves, with whorls of yellow flowers during early and mid-summer.
• Clematis: The soft, umbrella-like, silvery heads of Clematis vitalba (old man’s beard) appear in autumn and remain through much of winter.
• Cortaderia: The large, plume-like flower heads of Cortaderia selloana (pampas grass) are dramatic both to the hand and the eye.