As the calendar flips to another year and we prepare to embrace the wonders of 2023, let me begin by wishing each one of you a sprouting, blooming, and delightful Happy New Year! May it be a year where your gardens radiate vibrancy and your love for gardening proliferates to newer dimensions. With the break of the new dawn, we feel excited to bring before you a platter of unique content, gardening tips, and the sharing of our unending love for all things green.
The secret to a healthy garden lies in its diversity – the assortment of plants which infuse colors across the spectrum, and the sweet harmony of flora that can brighten any gloomy day. In all honesty, picking a favorite plant can be as taxing as picking a favorite child, and yet, as we dive into this New Year, I have taken up the challenge to showcase one of my favorite plants for each month of 2023, hoping to inspire and impart more knowledge to the beautiful community we have built together.
January
January is dark, cold, wet, and there is usually a feeling of mild despair. The days have not lengthened enough to notice a brightening in the evening. Despite all this there are plants that will brighten our days and lighten our moods, snowdrops, witch hazel, hellebores and Daphne.
There are a number of excellent Daphne shrubs that will bloom with fragrant flowers in the depth of winter, and I love the pale pink, fading to white blooms of Daphne ‘Spring Herald’. An evergreen shrub that starts to bloom in December and continues until March, the scent on mild days is intoxicating.
February
As we notice a lengthening of the days, we are filled with positivity. Hamamelis is a genius that provides us with a great choice of flowering shrubs, many of which have sweet spicy fragrant blooms.
The variety I chose for our garden is Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Aphrodite’, I love the rich colour, the spicy scent, the plant has a more ascending habit than some others, and the foliage turns a nice golden yellow before falling in Autumn. The flowers start to open in January and last through February.
Hamamelis are lime tolerant, slow growing, and easy to look after.
March
Now the days are stretching as we hurtle towards the Spring equinox, and the garden is exploding into life, there are bulbs bursting out in bloom, shrubs starting to flower and the growth is breaking from the dark soil and reaching into the brighter days.
A plant that has flowers on it in every month of the year is always welcome, Erysimum ‘Winter Orchid’ is one such flower, it is an everlasting wallflower, that is at its best in Spring. Covered in rich red flowers and scented too.
It lives a short glorious life, ours in The Fire Pit Garden, has got woody and leggy, a pruning last summer did not do enough to revive it’s bushy habit, so I will replace it this Spring as new plants come available from the nurseries.
April
As the Spring advances, there is so much to choose from, one of my favourite plants at any time of year is Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow’.
In April the bright yellow flowers emerge hiding the colourful foliage that has been admired throughout the winter. After flowering has finished in mid-summer, I will cut away the flowered stems to the base to allow the new growth to re-emerge and give us that lovely round mounded shape of Variegated leaves for autumn and winter.
May
It is getting harder to pick just one plant from the multitude of great plants that bloom in May, but last May for me, it was the Alliums. Allium giganteum is great, as are most of the Allium varieties, but I am going to pick A. ‘Ostara’, it is not too big, but big enough, and I love the dark colour of the burgundy blooms.
Alliums are more than just their colourful clooms, it is the impact they make with their shape, I plant different varieties amongst herbaceous plants, there repetition of their string shaped makes a brilliant display I May, the flowers lasting well into June, for the rest of the summer we are graced with their seedheads.
June
Delphiniums, I never thought that I would be such a convert to these outstanding plants, I have often admired them in other gardens, but thought that they were too much trouble: needing staking, being eaten by slugs. Then I tried out D. Highlander ‘Cha-Cha’ and loved it, so I planted a few more varieties from the Highlander Series. All are well performing plants, requiring no staking, or minimal, and untroubled by slugs. D. Highlander ‘Sweet Sensation’ was a favourite of mine this summer past, when the flowers finish in July, I cut them back and fed them so that a second flush of blooms were produced in late August and September.
July
There was a time when I did not like Begonias, but this particular one started me down a path of Begonia worship. I originally planted this tuber in a pot in Spring 2021, now it is the size of a dinner plate and I can’t get it out of the pot! It is a super plant, I just love it, it grows big and flowers until first frosts. The colour is dazzling, and you can even eat the flower petals, they look nice in a summer salad. All begonia petals are edible and have a delicious sour flavour, a bit like sorrel.
August
August is brimming with favourite plants, lots of big bright colours, flowers and bold foliage abound. Then in the middle of the month The Patio Garden is graced by the lacy white blooms of understated elegance of Selinum wallichianum. this cow parsley relative has a natural understated beauty, a calming presence that is beguiling.
September
As the days shorten, and students return to school, we are often treated to some nice weather, and after this past wet summer we had our fingers crossed. We got a few days of heat but otherwise it was much of the same wet weather as the previous months. September sees a cooling off, and the garden enters an autumnal phase.
My favourite pick from this September past is Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’, the tall white stems of fuzzy white flowers are deliciously scented, they stand 1.8 tall and require no staking. This was the first year they reached their true potential having disappointed the previous couple of years. Their dark foliage is something to admire through the summer as we wait for the September show.
October
For those who have been following me.on my social channels, you know that I love the Nippon Daisy (Montauk Daisy) or Nipponanthemum nipponicum. Just when you think the garden is nodding off into a winter slumber along comes the Nippon Daisy and BOOM!!! These big dome shaped mounds of fresh green leaves burst into bloom with their great big white daisy-like blooms. They are amazing.
November
The first touch of frost and the garden is taking on autumnal tints and murky moods. The grasses come to the fore and this Miscanthus ‘Serengetti’ charmed.me with it’s red flowers and soft textural charm. This new hybrid stands apart from othe Miscanthus
in that the foliage is mostly evergreen.
December
I have a couple of species of Correa growing in the garden, all are doing well. I value them for their long flowering season, September to May, providing blooms from autumn non-stop through the winter until late spring. C. ‘Marion’s Marvel’ is my favourite, it is a shrub of goog vigour, every and quite upright in growth and graced with the bell shaped flowers of soft yellow and warm pink.
January – December
A shrub for all seasons, Anisondontea capensis is rarely without some flower. At any time during the year it has the pink cup shaped flowers. A strong grower, evergreen foliage and perfectly happy on a big pot. This plant could be a favourite any month of the year.
Ciaran The Gardener 