The power of flowers

GARDENS: Knowing what to plant where is part of the learning process for gardeners. Here are two books to help you swot up

A LOT OF FLOWER gardening, especially when you are starting off, is based on fantasy. The mind’s eye sees billows of frothy things punctuated by spires of tall other things, with a few flying-saucer-type blooms hovering in the spaces between them. The colour scheme is harmonious, the plants are in the pink of health, and everything gets along famously with everything else.

If only reality were quite as obliging. But, often it’s not. I am still seeking this kind of cottage garden accord in my own plot, and that’s after a couple of decades of serious gardening. Plants are living things, with definite likes and dislikes. If you are lucky enough to get the picture right on a particular day, chances are that a week later its coherence will have crumbled, when the lupins finish blooming, or the poppies open the wrong shade of red. Flowery border plants are never static. Nothing stays the same for long.

This independent floral behaviour can be troubling, especially for those of us with control-freak tendencies. Inveterate micro-manager types often avoid flowers, and stick to Italianate topiary and other governable planting styles. But they miss some of the most sublime moments in a garden’s cycle – when the flowers are singing in tune, and the bees and butterflies are weaving their nectar dances between them. These splendid interludes sometimes happen by mistake, but they are more likely to occur when the gardener has an idea of what he or she is doing.

My most useful learning has been from experience: if I get something wrong one year, I’m unlikely to repeat the same mistake in the next. I also learn from other gardeners, by visiting their patches, observing what works there, and by asking countless questions.

I use the internet a lot too (although much of the information is hit-and-miss and should be approached with caution). My most helpful tools, however, in the quest for flower wisdom, are books.

And there are two that I would like to commend to you. For absolute beginners, the new RHS Grow Your Own Flowersby Helen Yemm (Mitchell Beazley, £16.99) starts with the basics: various styles of planting, the all-important differences between annuals, perennials and biennials (terms which can be confusing to new gardeners), and how to make the most of your plot's soil and conditions.

There are descriptions and growing instructions for more than 90 different flowering plants. Here are all the most serviceable (and good-looking) blooms for your borders. With a book such as this, gardeners tending their first piece of ground can start to put a name to all those billows and spires, and work out which ones will suit their plots. Common errors such as buying sun-loving plants for shady places can be avoided (you’ll know to look for foxgloves, instead of delphiniums, for such a position).

The second book I recommend – and this is for slightly more experienced gardeners – is The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Perennials,edited by Graham Rice (Dorling Kindersley, £25). It was first published in 2006, and has been re-issued this year: it has a new cover, but the contents are the same as the earlier edition.

It is the book I pull off the shelf first when I’m trying to sort out my own garden, or when I see a plant in someone else’s and want to know a bit more about it.

Thousands of plants are included, with all the requisite growing facts. But there is much other information as well, the kind that plant anoraks seek out, such as notes on breeders, snippets of plant history, tables of classification, and the answers to convoluted taxonomic problems. If you want to hold your own at a plantsperson’s picnic table, this book will offer you a complete education on perennials.

Want to learn to garden?

Saturday morning classes at the Bay Garden in Co Wexford start April 9th. Subjects include growing your own food, designing your garden, climbers and roses. thebaygarden.com; 053-9383349

Spring horticultural society shows (with plant stalls)

Today: Delgany and District Horticultural Society Daffodil Show at the Old Schoolhouse, Delgany, Co Wicklow, 3-5pm

Saturday, April 9th: The annual Alpine Garden Society show in Cabinteely Community School, Johnstown Road, Cabinteely, Co Dublin, 1.30-4pm, alpinegardensociety.ie

South County Dublin Horticultural Society annual spring show at Kill-o’-the-Grange Primary School hall, Deansgrange, Co Dublin, 2-5pm

Saturday and Sunday, April 9-10th:Irish Orchid Society's annual orchid fair at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, irishorchidsociety.org, 10am-5pm