Creating a gravel garden – list stage

Lists. Lists. I have made the transition to lists.

I have emailed the plant nursery with the final draft –

And now it’s on with the panic and the coloured pens. And coming up with a proper design.

I added one plant to the list (on page 2) which I adore: It’s called Vitex agnus-castus ‘Latifolia’.

I chickened out of ordering it back in 2010 when I made a last great leap into mass planting with this plant nursery.

But you know the feeling; by the time you get to the Vs in the list you are so appalled by the final tally, you start to trim.

And this is an indulgence. (As are the phlomis which I really don’t need. I crossed them off the final tally.  Nor the perovskias. I have a few dotted about and they just need reviving. I can even transplant some hyssop from the herb garden rather than start afresh…. but the lure of properly grown and seriously well-rooted plants…..)

The monk’s pepper plant can grow to 4m in height and has bright blue flowers in summer.

What’s not to love? They would scare deer. Hell, it even scares me.

And the 310am swirling thoughts this morning went something like this.

Where on earth are you going to find space to plant this beast?

It is deciduous. It will look hideous from October to May.

Don’t put it down the end of the gravel garden! The wild boar will have it rooted up in no time.

It’s too big for the barn garden.

It’s going to grow taller than your potting shed.

On and on. Just when I was desperate to get some sleep. And I still don’t have an answer. It was just a mad yearning for something so zinging and new.

After a week of just note taking and mild panicking (the names and growth habits and flowering times of these new plants! how will I lay them out?)  it is great to be back at the design stage with real plants at last.

Some of the groundcover plants were already out of stock at the nursery. (Should have done my order months ago.) So I won’t make a final drawing until I hear what is in stock.

Now all I need to do is keep at my crash course in new plants and start to nail down the curves for the central path.

How do you go from this

To something aesthetically pleasing and fun, like this?

ARGGHHHH. Again.