Garden Heroes
the 14 (mostly evergreen) plants a non-gardener like me consistently keeps alive
I’m not a gardener, but I love to garden. I definitely don’t sow seeds, grow vegetables or harden my annuals. I mostly just plop things in the ground and hope for the best. I take my clues and ask for help from the internet and my mum.
Our little back garden has come a long way in four years:
I tend to see it as a never-ending project: I tinker, I over-prune, I buy something pretty in the garden centre, I plant it in the wrong spot, I watch, I under-prune, I start again. Though sometimes I look at something wilting or growing aggressively over the fence into my neighbour’s garden and think, I really should get a gardener up in here, I probably will continue to garden alone and inefficiently for all time.
My hoping for the best includes watching incessantly for signs of life or decay and generously watering. But that’s about it.
So if you are just starting out in the garden, need some inspiration or are after the plants that even an obsessive non-gardener gardener like me can grow, this is for you. This post will cover those perennials (i.e. the ones that come back year after year) that I DO NOT kill and have planted in the ground. I’m not talking about plants that I have kept alive, I’m talking about the ones that will outlive me. The tried and trues.
Plants for pots will be for a different post!
Star Jasmine
I’ve talked about jasmine before. Specifically, Trachelospermum jasminoides. I have this on east- and south-facing fences and walls in our front and back gardens. We have a whole bunch growing over arches and on walls and fences in our back and front gardens, as well as growing up a trellis attached to the front of our house. I love it for so many reasons, including:
it’s evergreen, so stays pretty all winter
the flowers it produces from June to July are so gorgeous and have the sweetest scent
it trails easily up trellises and wire arches, so it can form a green screen
it grows so well; after just three-ish years, I’m now pruning mine back rather than encouraging more growth
My tips for jasmine are to plant it in a spot that gets some sun, where it has something to grow up against, and, finally, baby it for the first few years. It wants plant food (I use a seaweed one like this) in the growing months (spring and summer), plus plenty of water. You’ll also want to tie it onto a trellis using twine or similar.
If you’re looking for a DIY wire trellis tutorial, I got you:
How to Make a Wire Trellis
In last week’s post, I talked about how, because our garden is so visible from our kitchen and dining room, I planted evergreen climbers to cover the new fencing around much of the garden, especially the parts most visible from inside. In a few short years, the combination of star jasmine, clematis and muehlenbeckia has completely concealed the fencing outside of our dining room and the climbing roses have reached well above the top of the fence.
If you want to form a green screen, plant one every 3 feet / 1 metre or so. Once star jasmine is properly established — which could take two to three years — it’ll do its own thing. No more fussing, just deliciously scented, glossy-leaved glory.
If it starts getting too big or growing somewhere you don’t want it, prune it anytime of year, but it’s best after flowering in late summer. You can be pretty brutal: mine has survived (nay, bounced back harder after) some extremely enthusiastic chopping.
I’ve purchased my star jasmine all over the place and would recommend splurging on a more established jasmine (something like this) if you need a privacy screen quickly, have no patience or want to really maximise its chances. Otherwise, you should be able to find this variety of jasmine at any garden centre or online, like here and here.
Clematis Winter Beauty
This is SUCH a ridiculously good plant. It refuses to succumb to my hacking away at it and my benign neglect. It’s also extremely quick to grow, so if you want a climber that will cover a fence in one season, this is the one for you. I haven’t even mentioned yet that it’s evergreen and has beautiful white, cup-shaped flowers in the middle of winter.
A true hero.
It doesn’t need regular pruning, but if it gets too big, cut it back after flowering in late winter or early spring. I have hacked mine back quite dramatically (like…QUITE dramatically, I was not expecting it to survive) and it returned with a vengeance.
Australian Ivy
Otherwise known as maidenhair vine or Muehlenbeckia complexa. This is a plant I’m ambivalent about because it’s too good at growing and has taken over swathes of my front and back gardens. It has tiny little white flowers and dances in the sun. It’s great because it’s incredibly pretty (see: sun dancing), evergreen, hardy and so quick to grow, but it also rampages through the garden and would happily suffocate anything in its way.
