In a world where maximalism is king, restraint can feel like an old-fashioned concept. Why grow just a couple of different varieties of roses, goes the thinking, when we have space for at least a dozen? Why limit ourselves to a particular colour palette when instead we could enjoy the full kaleidoscope? Why bother restricting our choices at all, when before us lies the tantalising promise of so much beauty?
Self-restraint when you’re new to gardening is especially challenging. Faced with a universe of different possibilities, a cornucopia of choice, we can be like kids in the world’s best sweetshop, chasing the most powerful of sugar rushes.
Logical thinking often goes out the window. Beguilingly beautiful plants that are entirely unsuitable for our gardens or allotments’ growing conditions, or for which we have no available growing space, seduce us at summer shows and plant fairs. Gardeners with dry, shady plots impulse-buy inky-blue delphiniums and bearded irises. Others, with hot sunny gardens, succumb to the lofty, leafy charm of shade-loving tree ferns, or the refined elegance of Japanese acers. Dazzled by their sparkling good looks, we buy single potted alliums in bloom at crazy prices, when we could buy 20 or 30 of their fleshy bulbs for the same amount in autumn. Or yet more trays of bedding plants, just because they’re being sold at a knock-down price. It’s only later that buyer’s remorse kicks in.
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As a gardener capable only of intermittent self-restraint myself, I’m inevitably the proud owner of far too many plants. The current tally includes a bull bay magnolia plus a dozen hydrangeas begging for their own patch of ground. Also, several choice varieties of physocarpus; one gooseberry bush now starting to sulk because of the pot-bound nature of its existence; one winter jasmine (no idea why I bought this); a white-flowering variety of Clematis montana (a rampageous climber, but oh-so pretty in spring); and far too many young seedlings of annuals, biennials and perennials that I didn’t have the willpower to resist sowing earlier this spring in the first heady rush of the growing season.
These aside, a growing collection of plants, which is as much the result of my impulse buying as it is of thoughtful planning is simultaneously filling up the sprawling sunny beds around our home. It includes yet more roses, a choice variety of euphorbia that I know will get too big, a compact variety of lilac that already looks entirely out of place, and some dusty pink Californian poppies that I couldn’t resist.
Like an ex-smoker trying to stay off cigarettes, I’m confronted by the fact that self-restraint takes considerable, sustained effort, and that I’m just not always up to the task.
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Still, I’m determined to try, driven by the knowledge that it pays rich dividends, including some that only become obvious many years later. Self-restraint avoids, for example, the common dilemma of the overly stuffed, middle-aged garden, where every plant is much loved, but the problem is that there are simply too many, and they’re planted too closely together. Similarly, it often neatly sidesteps the equally common pitfall of planting trees and shrubs in unsuitable places where they then slowly get too big for their boots, obscuring light and views until they eventually force us to contemplate the gloomy necessity of cutting them down.
Self-restraint also reduces the chances of sad plants languishing in pots while they wait for a permanent home, or dying a slow death because they’ve been shoehorned into an unsuitable spot in the garden. It means no unwanted varieties of fruit and vegetables planted on a whim, before the realisation dawned that we didn’t want or need three rows of courgettes, or four kinds of beetroot. It also means fewer weary hours of hard labour spent digging up plants to move them to a more suitable spot, and less time wasted watering and mollycoddling others that had to be planted at the height of summer just because we fell instantly, madly, deeply in love with them.
Boring as it might sound, self-restraint in the garden also helps give coherence to a planting scheme, one where the plants’ individual qualities have been thoughtfully considered in terms of their combined effect. Equally, it limits the chances of clashing colour combinations, or of ending up with short-lived wonders with a limited season of interest, or plants that quickly bully their neighbours into submission. Instead, restrained gardens have a “rightness” about them akin to looking effortlessly well-dressed. Except, of course, that they’re anything but effortless.
The only danger is when that valuable self-restraint tips over into rigid self-control. I’m glad, for example, of the impulse buy of an assortment of climbing and rambling roses subsequently used to cloak an old tumbledown stone outbuilding in the garden. Nor do I regret my spur-of-the-moment decision to plant a Persian ironwood, or to sow a late, second batch of white cosmos to stretch out their flowering season. I’m even glad of the single, orange Californian poppy that recently spontaneously self-seeded itself into an otherwise very pale colour scheme. I did, I admit, briefly consider pulling it out before sternly stopping myself, proof that these two, seemingly opposite qualities – spontaneity and self-restraint – are much more comfortable bedfellows than we gardeners might initially assume.
This week in the garden
This is a great time of year to propagate a wide variety of perennials, shrubs and trees by taking softwood cuttings of young, fresh, healthy growth, a quick, easy and very affordable way to stock a new garden. See rhs.gov.uk for step-by-step instructions.
Dahlias potted up under cover earlier this spring should now be planted out into their permanent position in the garden or allotment, making sure to give them a warm, sunny, sheltered spot and a rich, moisture-retentive but free draining soil, ideally enriched with some well-rotted manure and a little slow release pelleted organic fertiliser. Soak the root-balls in a weak solution of liquid seaweed feed before planting to give them a head start.
Dates for your diary
Bord Bia Bloom at the Phoenix Park: Continuing until June 2nd, see bordbiabloom.com
Buds & Blossom Garden Show: Spink, Community Grounds, Abbeyleix, County Laois, Sunday, June 8th (12pm-6pm). With guest speakers John Jones, Colin Jones and Tom Coward, plus specialist plant sales by many of Ireland best small, independent nurseries. laoisgardenfestival.com
Rathmines Open Gardens 2025: Sunday, June 8th, (2pm-6pm). Several private gardens open their doors to the public in aid of charity, along with Trinity Botanic Garden. See therathminesinitiative.com or contact Michael Kelly on 087-6697722 for details.
