Property News · September 4, 2016

Gardens: climbers as ground cover


Up is not the only way for honeysuckles and climbing rosesI am not the kind of person who collects quotations, especially when it comes to gardening. But I shall never forget what Christopher Lloyd – an all-time horticultural hero of mine – once said about lawns in an off-the-cuff radio interview when I was a kid: “In gardens there is nothing so labour-intensive and yet so boring, and I think this is unforgiveable.” What a legend that guy was.With ever-shrinking plots and leisure time, I often feel that re-creations of pastoral landscapes are increasingly out of place in many properties, at least as a form of ground cover. Sure, if you are lucky enough to have a plot big enough for the kids to play football on or acres of rolling countryside, lawns are lovely. But in postage-stamp spaces that are shaded by buildings or trees, steeply sloped, poorly drained, and where there is barely space to store a mower (all four, as is the case in my Croydon idyll), I think there are far better options available to us plant geeks. Chief among these: plants we normally think about clothing vertical spaces with: climbers. By their very nature they are vigorous, sprawling species designed to clamber over wide expanses, so why not use them on a horizontal plane? Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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