GARDENING: doing battle with deep rooting weeds opened a Pandora's box of stored seed

Uprooting overgrown shrubs, digging in organic matter and doing battle with deep rooting weeds opened a Pandora's box of stored seed that had sat dormant waiting for an opportunity to grow. Some of these were welcome, the majority less so but one notable gem were the pink, ornamental opium poppies (Papaver somniferum). These fleeting annuals are an extraordinary colour when in bloom. Once pollinated the seeds form rapidly and we allow these to mature and ripen, collecting some to sow ourselves but also allowing a proportion to ‘do their own thing.’ When plants are given the space to populate an area themselves the results can often be far more pleasing, effective and convincing than if you tried to guide their positions by planting them as semi-mature plants. Hesperis matronalis (aka sweet rocket) appeared in one of the periphery borders five years ago. We don’t allow every plant to set seed as we’d be inundated with seedlings. Where they are allowed to seed freely their early flowering qualities are a welcome addition to the planting schemes. Much like the poppies their presence is rather brief but works brilliantly accompanying other later May, early June, flowering perennials and bulbs. For many of these plants to work, the best approach from experience seems to be where one plant is allowed to develop, often by being planted as a young plant and nurturing it to maturity from which point the rest is essentially left to nature. Foxgloves (Digitalis) are the masters of opportunity and will make the scantest scrap of ground their home provided they have sufficient water and resources. One of the most convincing cases for the self-seeding scenario are the stone steps at Sizergh Castle where the inimitable Erigeron karvinskianus dresses the gaps in the stones with a sea of soft, daisy fuelled glory. Self-sown, self-replicating magnificence.

Next week: in a small garden is a lawn always the right choice?