The Learning. Curve

e n r u o B l a V The learning . © curve Val Bourne finds that many of the best ‘white’ flowers in summer light are not pure white but have subtle hints or patterns of colour. colour, especially when the days are at their longest. Thankfully our island country enjoys seasons and, although the weather patterns have changed since I was a Fig. 1 Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’. child, our position in the eople imagine that garden Spring Cottage, high in the Northern hemisphere doesn’t Pwriting is a sociable, Cotswolds, actually does have alter, so day length and pleasant affair. In fact it’s sheep safely grazing in the seasonal light persist. The rather solitary and a little like fields beyond. In fact I just angle of the sun shifts from being a chameleon, changing caught one standing on an high to low as effectively as a from day to day to another ancient anthill and pruning my kaleidoscope being slowly shade of opinion. Sometimes it ‘Goldfinch’ rambling rose over turned. We notice the light feels rather like shedding your the low stone wall. You may every day here, and we do well skin and exposing another imagine rolling hills and valleys with South African plants such layer, and on some days the like those around Stroud, but I as crocosmias and agapanthus, process is tougher than most. am on a plateau and can see plants used to exposure. New The other day I had wrestled level ground for miles in an Zealanders such as corokias more than usual and fell into area colloquially known as the will flower in such conditions, the garden, at five in the empty quarter because it’s growing to produce angular evening, to a magically soft mostly large estates. The bushes. These twists and turns light. Instead of having a quiet modest garden faces south, are designed to defy grazers. cup of tea as I’d planned, I and the one thing we’re not Perhaps the roses along the grabbed the camera and took short of is light from every stone wall should be replaced some pictures until the light angle. It’s not a soft valley light by a few wiry corokias that changed again, back to its either: it’s an unforgiving glare might be less tempting to normal harsh glare. most of the time. It washes out sheep. 77 e n r hedges to provide a rich nectar still to spare. Or u o B background, as at Sissinghurst. perhaps they only switch it on l a V It’s not just me either. The one in the evenings? © rose that the late Peter Beales White petals present and I had real reservations another problem to the about (and found hard to gardener. They have less place) was ‘Madame Hardy’. pigment and more air in their We often discussed roses in petals, so all-white flowers quieter lulls on trips to Japan, tend to brown badly as they and I miss him greatly. fade. Hot sun crisps them up ‘Madame Hardy’, a damask, too; they need careful placing, has a green button eye and a away from full sun. Even pure-white dress-shirt look then they are difficult to that on languid summer days photograph and nearly always jars in every respect. The great come out over-exposed. So on rosarian Dean Hole liked this the day I went out with my Fig. 2 Malva moschata f. alba . rose but opined that it’s camera, on that soft-lit late Light affects colour, which “green-eyed like jealousy”. afternoon, I captured some of is why so many artists head for Graham Stuart Thomas the whites I grow. Looking at the sea, where the light thought it “an additional the pictures a few hours later I reflected off the watery charm”, proving how different discovered that my ‘whites’ expanse delivers a soft, almost we gardeners are. weren’t all white at all: they milky haze that’s fairly It’s far better to go for a had pink tones, or veins, or constant in tone. Here in the soft, clotted-cream alternative some distinguishing marks. heart of England, light is much like the hybrid musk rose So they avoided glacial more volatile: it can change ‘Penelope’, or one with a overkill, and captured extra from leaden to bright in touch of pink in the bud and heat to attract the pollinators. moments. Summer light here rhubarb stems, which is why Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ is like a naked 100 watt bulb, ‘Iceberg’ has remained popular (fig. 1), a truly perennial for those of you who can – although it’s never grown verbascum, has proved long remember the era before low- well for me! The flowers are lived and hardy for me, unlike energy light bulbs dimmed our pale and very ‘English rose’ e n r world. and look white without being u o B l icy. Admittedly, white comes a V into its own at night when © In stark summer light, light levels fall. Many white white flowers can look icy. blooms attract moths rather than bees, and a white flower on a cool day stays cool, The best ‘whites’ in my because the colour white garden aren’t really white at absorbs little heat. Given that all, their colour tempered by bees like to fly to warm tints or markings. flowers where nectar flows In my experience, white is freely, the very act of being the trickiest colour in summer pure white and as cool as a light, often taking on a glacial cucumber must mean that by effect. I haven’t got yew the end of the day there’s Fig. 3 Gaura lindheimeri. 78 many of the verbascums I have prefers a bit of shade. lime cordial and whiten up, bought, planted and lost. The bees were all over my with golden middles that are Known as the Nettle-leaved Malva moschata f. alba (fig. 2), alive with bees and butterflies Mullein, it has a huge natural the white musk mallow. This in August and age to tan- range stretching from has a pale-pink middle and brown. However I find I need Southern Central Europe into pink veins and all my garden to raise my echinaceas from Russia – so hardiness is never a visitors love it and collect seed using strains such as problem. It comes after the seeds, despite my telling them ‘Magnus’,‘White Swan’ or first flush of verbascums, it’s a thug in feminine guise. In ‘Pink Parasol’. I can’t keep the overlapping with roses, 1999 Cambridge Botanic named ones I buy and plant in producing lots of narrow Garden studied bees and has late July, and I’ve lost some tapers at knee height or less; since published a paper pricey offerings including the the grey-green foliage seems entitled Flowers, Nectar and double ‘Southern Belle’. less loved by the mullein moth Insect Visits: Evaluating British More a Chinese aster than too. The small, white, five- Plant Species for Pollinator- Echinacea , it’s micro- petalled flowers, supported on friendly Gardens , by Livio propagated and has followed grass-green sturdy stems, open Comba, Sarah A. Corbett ‘Vintage Wine’ and ‘Fatal spasmodically so there are Lynn Hunt and Ben Warren. Attraction’ to the compost always buds to follow. Each They found the musk mallow heap in the sky. Raising them flower has furry violet to be the top bee flower of the from seed provides variability filaments. The botanist in the ten they studied, and of height and flower size, family tells me hairy filaments discovered that the nectar rush making them look more are a verbascum trait. These came at lunchtime and was natural. The whites mingle filaments, like the antennae of particularly attractive to honey amongst Sedum ‘Purple some exotic moth, give the bees. Those pale veins, seen in Emperor’, one of the flower a darker centre, infra-red by bees, lead to the contenders for my desert capturing heat and pink middle which is so useful island list of five. Just like the encouraging nectar flow. to gardeners for marrying up bees, I like some colour with They’re topped by orange- with pinks but also providing my whites. yellow stamens, so it has two that warmer centre. Gaura e n r lindheimeri u colours you can tap into. You (fig. 3) has the o B l could use this with the sedate- same hint of pink in bud, sepal a V orange Geum ‘Totally and pedicel, so it avoids being © Tangerine’, or mix it with glacial. It’s easily raised from purple-toned penstemons, or seed and will flower until grow it with dark roses. It’s a November. great plant, often used by I also grow white garden designer Arne Maynard echinaceas (fig. 4), which like in his designs. I’m equally fond my cold garden and can be of the May-flowering self- placed easily. The flowers seeder Verbascum phoeniceum emerge from coronet-shaped ‘Violetta’, although this buds, so much so that I almost produces only one willowy want the buds to last forever. Fig. 4 Like sparkling lemonade – purple wand per rosette, and They emerge the colour of a white echinacea. Val Bourne is an award-winning writer, author and lecturer. www.valbourne.co.uk 79.

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