Painting with Perennials

Recreate the soft, romantic ‘chocolate box’ styles of the Victorian era by planting your perennials in a more ‘painterly way’ as suggested by Anne Swithinbank

- Anne Swithinbank

LONG stems of campanula strung with shimmering pastel bells, the towering secondary flower stems of mauve delphiniums and hovering primrose plates of Achillea are the painterly flowers of dreamy herbaceous borders. Pretty cottages surrounded by billowing beds are often referred to as ‘chocolate box’, perhaps because from the 1860’s, watercolours by artists such as Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899) were used by Cadburys to decorate their chocolate box covers.

Looking back to a sentimental, rural idyll of the countryside was a backlash against a high Victorian fashion for formality. Gardens dominated by terraces of gaudy bedding plants were criticised by the likes of William Robinson whose book The English Flower Garden, published in 1883, encouraged covering the soil with a matrix of longer-lasting plants with a relaxed, natural habit. Many were herbaceous perennials; nonwoody plants that die back in winter but grow again in spring.

This nostalgic style remains popular and many a gardener has stood back in awe at the softness and texture their planting has produced, almost by accident. Robinson worked with the artist Alfred Parsons (1847-1920) who influenced some of the planting at Robinson’s home, Gravetye Manor in Sussex and believed artists were well placed to design gardens. Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) was a painter and watercolourist before turning her talents to gardens and planting plans.

Creating useful corner beds