The word 'architectural' keeps cropping up nowadays in many gardening circles. What exactly does this term mean? For me it means strong bold lines, a firm framework that is always there to build on in the future. The spiky leaves of yucca, the outline of a willow or the queen of all waterside plants, Gunnera manicata, are all architectural plants that provide anchor points within the garden. Many are evergreen and can be enjoyed the year round.
These anchor points give your garden the necessary bones, the stage if you like, against which more colourful characters play. Without this scaffolding, so much of the garden would be summer hay, mown down with the first frost. During these dark sombre days of late winter, this backdrop gives the garden structure, shape and in many cases, colour and scent too.
Your skeleton can take the form of a hedge with a never-ending kaleidoscope of wild flowers at its base, a large evergreen shrub over which is grown a clematis or two, a small tree bearing flowers in spring and fruits in winter. More obviously, it can be a brick or stone wall; lucky is the gardener who has either. These more permanent features give the garden its personality, its distinctive feel that makes it your garden.
Some of these permanent features are, of course, often chosen for us. Small city gardens can be shady or overlooked by others. Luckier gardeners may have a view to capitalise on or a vista worth incorporating. Whatever garden you inherit, it can be transformed into your version of paradise. My garden, for example, is a city garden, overlooked on the western side by very high blocks of flats. Not the ideal situation certainly, but one which can - and has been - turned into a cottage garden in the city, most of which is discreetly screened from view by large evergreen escallonias.
At the front of the garden is a mixed hedge of hawthorn, berberis and holly, providing privacy and shelter from the cold north-easterly winds that can blast this part of the garden in winter.
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