Some plants are movers and shakers; they just can't stay still, writes Jane Powers
COMPACT VARIETIES of perennials and annuals often produce more flowers per square metre, and don't need staking. This is an advantage - I suppose - but, so often, the plant in question is an overweight and static thing, sitting there stolidly, as if it had a poker up its proverbial.
To my mind, plants should move with the breeze - unless they are naturally dwarf or rock-steady specimens, such as alpines, succulents or clipped Italianate shrubs and hedging. Think of this: when you look out the window at your garden, isn't it more stimulating and pleasing to see some motion, rather than a tableau of immobile vegetation?
Some plants are more animated than others: they just can't stay still, and jiggle or rock in the slightest breath of wind. The busiest jiggler is probably the South African Dierama, whose common names, angel's fishing rod and wand flower, perfectly describe its antics. The fishing-pole flowering stems carry numerous bells that dangle on long, springy filaments, so that the tiniest whisper of air causes them to jingle and jounce. There are dozens of dieramas, of varying heights, and with flowers that may be white, pink, mauve or purple. All are beautiful plants, and are easy to grow, as long as the soil is not too damp in winter. However, like many South African species, they appreciate some moisture in summer (plentifully supplied so far this year), and they don't like being crowded. Plant them so that they can sling their rods over a pond, or over an expanse of gravel or paving.
Another dangler, in flower now, is the weeping sedge ( Carex pendula), which hangs its long catkins on the end of stiff stems, like miniature green whips. And earlier in the year we had the pretty woodlanders, Dicentra(also known as bleeding heart because of the shape of its flowers) and the pearly Polygonatumor Solomon's seal - both of which also have mobile, pendent blooms.
Some flowers have bobbles on wiry stems that bounce with the wind. One of the most energetic is the Macedonian scabious ( Knautia macedonica): the species has button-sized ruby-coloured pincushions, while those in the Melton pastels group may be of pink, rose, mauve or salmon. The true scabious genus ( Scabiosa) is full of other prancing pincushions, among them the inky S. atropurpurea'Chile Black' and the creamy S. ochroleuca.
Other bouncers include the bistorts ( Persicaria) with their pink and red bottlebrush heads, and the burnets ( Sanguisorba), which have elongated, tasselled bobbles of white, pink or red.
Then we have the swayers: lavender, for instance, especially the taller cultivars. A massed planting of lavender swinging from side to side is like a rippling, purple prairie. Partner it with some blocky, monumental, clipped yew or box, and you have a wonderfully dynamic contrast. (I saw this in a garden in France some years ago, and have not forgotten it.)
Another appealing, oscillating plant is the opium poppy. After its petals sail off into the breeze, its rotund capsules gradually turn from pale blue-green balloons to ornate brown salt-shakers. As its plant tissue dries, it open its portholes and rattles its seed to the ground, a sprinkling with every metronomic swing.
But, of course, by far the most lively and graceful movers in the garden are the grasses. Different varieties have vastly differing modes of locomotion, depending on the shape, weight and denseness of the flowerhead, and the length and flexibility of the stem. The tall and upright ones, such as Calamagrostis'Karl Foerster' and C.'Strictus' are wavers and swayers, while others that are shorter - the annual rabbit-tail grass ( Lagurus ovatus) and the aptly named quaking grasses ( Briza), also annual - are tremblers. A multitasking swayer and trembler is the giant oats ( Stipa gigantea): it shoots out two-metre-long stems in early summer which yaw crane-like from side to side, while the droplets of green flower (and later, golden seed) shimmy radiantly. The seedheads last for months: this is a grass that looks good for over half the year (and it's not fussy about soil).
The giant oats will double your money (so to speak) if you plant it so that it is backlit by the evening sun. The seeds and their awns (not a word I often get to use, so I'm happy to wheel it out here: it means the bristly bit of the grain) turn to molten gold when touched by slanting light at the end of the day. In fact, most ornamental grasses come alive when they are placed thus, so it is worthwhile spending a little time considering their position in the garden.
The Miscanthusclan are the ballerinas of the grass family. Their silky inflorescences of cream, pink, buff, silver or brown are pure poetry in motion when undulating languorously above their strappy leaves. There is a troupe of Miscanthus'Malepartus' on a bank at June Blake's garden and nursery in Blessington, Co Wicklow, and they make a rousing sight in autumn when their pink plumes are dancing at their best.
A group of plants that are commonly lumped in with grasses because of their hard, grasslike foliage, but which are a different family, are the South Africa restios, or Cape reeds. The larger varieties rise to two or more metres, and perform mighty swishings in the wind. They are excellent coastal plants and are impervious to the worst insults that the sea can hurl at them. A couple of fine, healthy specimens near the water's edge at Mary and Bob Walsh's garden, Cois Cuain (at Kilcrohane, in west Cork), are testament to this.
Finally, a plant that actually is a grass, but doesn't look it: the bamboo. In fact, all bamboos are members of Poaceae, the grass family. Their activity - whispering, swaying or thrashing, depending on the wind speed - is valuable in a small, urban garden where liveliness is needed, and where every plant must pay its way. Of the bamboos that are readily available, members of the Phyllostachysgenus are among the more stately. If you keep their lower stems free from growth, you'll increase the pendulum effect, and be better able to admire their slender legs. Bamboos also bring sound to a garden, with their whirring and shushing leaves: they exhilarate the sense of hearing, as well as that of sight. What a pity they don't smell.