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A Valentine Garden Design

© Barbara M. Martin

Valentine's Day is such a Victorian holiday. It demands an approach redolent of pink ribbon and lace, rosebuds and delicate floral scents.

For my Valentine I've planned a lovely garden, a brightly flowered garden full of fragrance and floral delight. It would be circular in outline. In the center of the circle, I'd build a double heart-shaped trellis clothed in vines of heirloom vintage.

Around the trellis would bloom concentric rings of antique and heirloom annual flowers, many of them fragrant and all in the traditional Valentine color palette of bright red, pinks, and white.

Best of all, this sunny garden would peak in late summer when Valentine's Day is all but forgotten!

Here's what I would do in a rather large space in full sun with good, rich, moist but well drained garden soil. First, I would mark out a circle at least twelve feet across. Then, in the middle of the circle, I would place a pair of tall heart-shaped trellises. I would fix them together to intertwine neatly at ninety-degree angles, forming a three-dimensional unit about six feet tall and perhaps four or five feet wide where the hearts bulge. The trellis might be bentwood or iron or perhaps copper or even PVC pipe, but must be sturdy enough to support flowering vines planted at the base. (Note: For a smaller space, plant just half of this garden as a semi-circle against a wall or fence and use just one flat trellis panel hung from the wall.)

Cardinal Climber (Ipomoea x multifida) or Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) would be perfect, or perhaps some of each. The Cardinal Climber produces dainty red funnel-shaped blooms which serve as hummingbird magnets while the Cypress Vine has a lovely lacy foliage texture and most often also blooms in crimson red. Both have been grown and loved in gardens since the 1800's and are just wonderful on trellis.

Immediately around the trellis I would plant a series of concentric circles, each filled with a different flower. For the inner circle closest to the trellises, I would use a thick planting of very tall cosmos (probably C. bipinnatus "Sensation") because they are tall and need no staking, they are also graceful and bloom nonstop and the mixture is a pleasing blend of deep and pale pinks and white. Tucked in with these I would add a few flowering tobaccos (Nicotiana alata "Grandiflora" or N. sylvestris) for their heavy sweet scent on warm summer evenings.

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