Favourite Foliage: Leafy Interest in the Garden and Vase

What makes someone a ‘proper’ gardener? Someone who plans their growing season meticulously? Someone who’s out every day, tending to and tidying their space? Or someone who grows everything from seed, never ‘cheating’ with shop-bought plugs or ready-sprouted bulbs and tubers?

Maybe… but for me - with my messy and often neglected garden, and my aversion to the cold and wet, and my copious last-minute impulse and cheat buys - I really felt I’d progressed from weekend potterer to fully fledged gardener when I started being interested in plants for their foliage.

Granted, it was mainly out of necessity rather than some higher sense of refinement: I grow flowers for the wine bar I co-own, and I’ve found the leafy backbone of arrangements is often the most important element (particularly at the shoulders of the year when actual blooms are in short supply).

I don’t have any illusions that I know all there is to know about growing flowers, but the main offerings are broadly unchanged from year to year. It’s *very* exciting when Sarah Raven or Farmer Gracy or Hayloft (the likes of which supply a lot of my plants and inspiration) offer some new cultivar of tulip or dahlia, but by and large, my cutting garden of annuals and bulbs changes only incrementally each year.

In terms of variety and production, perennials give more bang per buck, and it’s these I look to for structure and filler in the vase. And I’ve begun to appreciate that boughs and branches that look somewhat insignificant in a landscape of green can have rather more impact on the kitchen table. For example:

1. I have several pillowy mounds of Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Golf Ball’ in my borders which beat the box balls hands down – no issues with caterpillars for a start, and they provide a much more relaxed form of structure in winter and blend with the perennials better in summer. The leaves are a glossy mid-green all year round, and the stems are already two-thirds bare which saves the job of stripping them.

2. As well as offering the bonus of scent, mint leaves have several things going for them as a cut foliage: they’re fast-growing and abundant, the stems are long and robust, and the green of the leaves is really fresh and bright – it actually almost glows when backlit. They lift dark arrangements in autumn and look very fresh and cool and, well, minty with white flowers like Astrantia major and Ammi majus in summer.

3. I made the mistake of planting a giant bronze fennel in one of my raised beds and it has dominated it this year and will have to be moved. On the plus side, it produces clouds of fine and feathery leaves which are not only edible but also brilliant for adding contrasting froth to arrangements of ‘solid’ flowers like this Pheasant’s Eye narcissus, and for cascading over the neck of a vase to make a display less top-heavy.

4. Peony flower season is short and sweet but the leaves last much longer and are brilliant for filling out a large vase. Their deeply lobed leaflets are arranged in alternating tiers up the stem and look quite architectural and exotic, plus their generous size stands up to larger flowers like the dinnerplate dahlias. By the time the peony flowers have dropped the foliage is nice and sturdy so it lasts well in water – even in the heat of summer.

5. I like a bit of wildness so I often include something long and vine-y; something that will shoot out from or dance above the main body of an arrangement. There are a few things that fit the bill: clematis or sweet pea vines for smallish bouquets, or Muehlenbeckia complexa for even smaller bud vases. On a larger scale, Jasminoides trachelospermum does the same job. I have it growing up the front of my house and in summer errant tendrils are in plentiful supply – the twistier the better.

6. I have a special fondness for blue-green leaves and I especially love them with blue flowers – like the combination of eucalyptus and Lathyrus odoratus ‘Cupani’ pictured. I’ve just planted Rosa glauca and it’s not big enough to harvest yet, but the leaves are beautiful: soft and delicate and the most romantic shade of damson-tinged green. I’m looking forward to paring them with long stems of Chinese forget-me-not.

7. Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diablo’ (Ninebark) is a new shrub I bought after reading about its value as a foliage plant in the brilliant ‘Cut Flower Sourcebook’ by Rachel Siegfried. It’s one of those plants that (so far) looks pretty unassuming in the garden, but knock-out in a vase. I especially love it with dark-toned dahlias like ‘Night Silence’ – the effect is very painterly and dramatic.

In fact, plants with interestingly coloured foliage are becoming a bit of an obsession, and I’ve just added a few more. I’ve now got a dark-leaved Alstroemeria, whose leaves I think I like more than the flowers, and Camellia ‘Femme Fatale’ which has unbelievably glossy foliage of deep burgundy splashed with lime green. Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ has dark emerald strap-like leaves tinged with crimson, and a variegated Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Bannow Bay’ looked brilliant in winter when its leaves were a deep mottled maroon. Already these are looking striking in the garden; I can’t wait to experiment with them when they’re big enough to cut. And of course I’m always on the lookout for new ideas. Which foliage plants would you not be without?