Act now and be rewarded with a neater shape and more purple blooms
U
ntil relatively recently the only shrub in my new garden was a buddleja the size of a van. We’ve not done much out there since we moved last August; the house has been a near-permanent building site and, frankly, I was overwhelmed by it all. So I’ve been grateful to local gardener and designer Charlie Chase for helping me forge the beginnings of a garden from a wilderness.
The things he’s lovingly unearthed from a sea of green alkanet are now beginning to show themselves. Just this morning, as I pegged out the washing, I noticed a Clematis armandi had started flowering. The bulbs I lifted from the old garden last spring are settling into their new homes too, along with dozens of supermarket daffs, which I correctly assumed would cheer us all up.
The buddleja, however, continues to be mildly threatening. I actually have a great fondness for these sprawling purple plants; they were one of the first shrubs I learned to recognise as a child (“the butterfly bush”) and I admire their tenacity. Our railway lines, urban stations, rooftops and cracks in the pavement would be far less colourful without them. And they can be very beautiful, erupting, firework-like, at the back of a mixed border in late summer. Container-friendly varieties, such as Buddleja x pikei “Uniqued” have a pleasing Oscar the Grouch-like quality, offering a burst of romantic unruliness.
