I’m not guilty of planning it this way, but ghastly good taste has broken out again in our borders this summer. Could I really have chosen such Mabel Lucy Atwell colours? It must be my inner little girl outing herself: there is nothing to disturb a dormouse in their almost inaudible harmonies. Goodness, I like it, though.
It is all pink, white and blue. The pinks are pale phlox, Japanese anemones, roses ‘Felicia’ and ‘Comte de Chambord’. Only slightly more assertive are Penstemon ‘Garnet’ and Salvia involucrata ‘Bethellii’. The blues run from Agapanthus and Salvia patens (its sapphire almost the only sharp note in the border) to somnolent blue rue, the azure
pinpricks of Salvia uliginosa and the purple exclamation marks of
Thalictrum dipterocarpum and Verbena bonariensis.
As for the whites, Phlox paniculata ‘White Admiral’ is in stratocumulus
mode after all the rain,‘Iceberg’ roses are glacial, cleomes are threatening arachnids and cosmos becoming shrubs. There is
shape and variety: tall spires of cool Veronicastrum and plump creamy ones of Kniphofia ‘Little Maid’, a low tangle of Aster divaricatus – white daisies on black stems. Later, fire will break out with sedums and crocosmias, chrysanthemums and turning leaves. Just now it reminds me of Katherine Hepburn’s acting, which
scanned, they said, the whole gamut of emotions from A to B. For the moment I’m extremely happy with A.
