Ideas for New "Room" #1

Nowt wrong with that - you're a true plantsman! The plants are the stars, after all.

 

I see you decided to ignore everyone's advice, Kristen. Good on you. That's what seeking advice is all about, get ideas from many sources THEN make up your own mind and go your own way.
Good luck with the next stage(s)

 

I've been trying to find some photos of the Rose Walk at Hyde Hall, Kristen, but no joy. It's made of thick wooden posts and rope swags, with climbing roses and clematis trained along the ropes. That would be easier to adapt to a curve than a traditional pergola. The viticella clematis are easy to grow and can be chopped right down when they start to look tatty. What do you think? Classic underplanting would be lavender and alliums.
(The longest racemes on a Wisteria macrobotrys that I've heard of are 30cm!)

 

Mis-remembered the length, but 2' - 4' should be achievable. The cultivar I am growing is "Tiverton"
http://www.wisteria.it/macrob-e.htm "It has even managed to get its name in the Guinness book of records, one plant is noted to have grown to180 cm in length"

I'm thinking of brick pillars, with wooden rails on top. I think easier to replace the wooden rails when they rot if I don't have to replace the pillars too. I saw a courtyard garden, with pergola on two sides, on an Australian estate agent's site (quite why I was browsing there I have completely forgotten!!). May not be easy to grap the geography from these photos, but ...


Entrance to pergola down a bank on the left side. Courtyard garden is to the right:


Perhaps interestingly it appears that the climbers (Wisteria only I think?) are planted on the outside pillars, and the inside pillars are just clad with ivy (or creeper perhaps), so the Wisteria stems are not on show.

Looking the other way back along that pergola (so courtyard now on the left):


Then a view of that pergola from across the courtyard (i.e. from the left of the photo above):


and finally a picture diagonally across the courtyard garden towards pergola:


now imagine a circular pergola all the way around?

 

I'm imagining three weeks of flowers per fifty-two W.m doesn't flower twice like sinensis does. If you just want architectural shapes, you could use ivy alone.
AND wisteria is anything but low-maintenance!

 

My thinking is consolidating ... At Last I hear you all cry!

Just to recap:

Its an almost square room, surrounded by a 3-year old Hornbeam hedge (which will probably get to 6' or more this year). Within that we have planted the "corners" with an elipse shaped hedge, and a path around the perimeter.


Nov 2013 showing some "roundness"

The last iteration of thinking was to have a Pergola around the perimeter, and then I can use all up all odds & sods climbers I have been buying because "that looks nice" even though I have no vertical growing space for them ... so over winter we excavated a bit of soil from the path (so as not to waste its goodness) and chucked it in the middle, which we dug:



and this is how it looked in the Spring:

Apr 2014

Over the winter I thought to build brick pillars, rather than wood, as I reckon "fixing" a wooden pergola in X years time would be a nightmare, whereas (I assumed) with brick pillars it would be possible to slide new roof-rails into place, alongside the old ones, and re-factor as time goes along and leave the plants in place. Bonus being that #1 daughter has done a brick laying course, and it would make sense to have an opportunity to practice that skill before it leaves her (and student Summer Holiday is almost upon us, plus I we knocked a wall down and cleaned up the bricks so I already have those.

But!

On my Internet Travels during the week I stumbled over Paleis Het Loo in Holland. Oh!My! Their "pergola" is a hedge converted into a corridor covering a timber framed building!



(Yeah, those U-shaped curvy bits in the inner corners are corridors too, and yeah there are another pair of them at the far end, out of shot!)

OK, so plant some Hornbeam on the inside of the circle and make it into a living corridor. Much easier / cheaper than pergola, and none of that messiness of "A collection of all Kristen's discarded climbers"

I like the look of the "Windows" too. Proper window ledges; you can see in the photo above the window reveal, and behind that the evidence of the frame. Here's a photo from inside looking out:



(More pictures of Paleis Het Loo on my Pinterest)

So then I went to Chelsea during the week. I had seen the Hillier White Garden on the Beeb the night before. That made it look "humped" and I thought that would be ideal for the centre of the circle, but when I got there it wasn't humped like that at all. Gave me some ideas for plants though (as would the White Garden at Sissinghurst - might buy the book with the planting plan of that).


Hillier White Garden - Chelsea 2014


They had a nice Cornus kousa chinensis "China Girl" at the back:


So I thought: Still time to grow a few white perennials from seed - Foxgloves, Hairbell Campanula perhaps, maybe some Sweet Rocket ... that would give me a flying start. So I did a google for some white Delphiniums (yeah, need some of them too!!) expecting to spend an hour trawling Nicky's Nursery site for seeds [as I have bought several Delphinium single-colour seeds from them before] but instead I set-up-stall at Chiltern Seeds. I selected far too many things that I "just had to have" (tm)! and blow-me-down in the middle of it an email turned up with a 15%-off offer (just put CHELSEA in the voucher box at checkout, valid until next Friday).

So here's what I bought:

Actaea alba
Actaea simplex, "James Compton"
Agapanthus inapertus hollandii
Agapanthus, 'Storm Cloud'
Aralia racemosa
Aralia spinosa
Astrantia major
Campanula persicifolia 'White Bell'
Clianthus puniceus var. alba
Delphinium consolida 'Exquisite' Series, 'White King'
Delphinium hybrida, Benary's Pacific Series 'Galahad'
Digitalis purpurea var. alba
Fritillaria elwesii
Geum chiloense 'Blazing Sunset'
Hermodactylus tuberosa
Hesperis matronalis White
Liatris spicata 'Floristan White'
Lysimachia atropurpurea 'Beaujolais'
Nectaroscordum 'Tripedale'
Papaver orientale 'Royal Wedding'
Platycodon grandiflorum 'Florist Snow'
Salvia pratensis, 'Ballet' Series `Swan Lake'
Scabiosa caucasica 'Fama White'
Scabiosa caucasica 'Perfecta alba'
Verbascum chaixii var. album
Verbena hastata 'White Spires'

Yeah, I know, not all of them are White ... but you know how it goes! Pleasantly surprised to see Lysimachia atropurpurea 'Beaujolais' there - that was all over Chelsea, and I liked it, and assumed it was some high-priced plant that would now be sold at a premium price - apparently not I expect my mucky-mates will buy 3, at vast expense, from their Garden Designers for next year and my garden will be full of it and they will all think I am Croesus - Yah Boo Sux!

Your thoughts and ideas welcome, as always

Bit stuck on what to do in the middle. I would like that the planting is not the same all the way round, so you have to GO all the way round to see it all. Thus something tall in the middle. Maybe 4 Obolisks with climbers up them (Brill! can get rid of some of them climbers after all!) to block the view. Also thought some Cardiocrinum in the middle so that in the year that they flower there will be a tower of flower. There is an white Echium too (Snow Tower) for the occasional Spring after a mild Winter - planting it last year would have been good!

Right, I need to get the car loaded and buzz off to @shiney, otherwise I will be late.

 

Not a white (more cream/green), but for the front of the planting I would certainly recommend Campanula thyrsoides.................


Nice and compact, it's even better in the flesh.

Hope that you're not expecting the Clianthus to be hardy?

 

Kristen, how about a domed frame for the climbers.

 

That's a much better idea than several individual obelisks, thanks

 

Kristen, you could make the area look like an eye, the dome being the iris!

 

Hmmm ... a Blue centre might be interesting, ta

 

Or a green one, a mossy mound to sit and admire your hard work. Under the domed trellis.