The restrained palette

It’s always the usual suspects: santolinas, purple sage and stachys.

But they work.  This is s small steep bank on the path leading up to the potting shed.  It was previously held together with plum suckers, and grasses. You can just spot an eragrostis below which won’t be there for much longer. And a festuca grass on the far left.

I like this combination for a few reasons; the main one being that all the plants are free. I took the sage cuttings in February and they are my most reliable plant in the propagation stakes.  The santolinas are also from cuttings, but these take a year to really work.  And the stachys are my wonder weed; Leslie brought me a huge tray of them from a garden she was landscaping, and I happily reposition them all over mine.

You have to take a bit of care with the watering in the first few months, but after that they take care of themselves.  I have left some of the santolina pompom flowers on (mainly because I always forget to snip them as I go past) but I’m aiming to build up the foliage of the mounded shrub rather than admire the pale yellow flowers.