Terracotta and Stone

The first of those typically French iris comes into flower

At the end of winter most of us have a number of empty pots to play with, and many of those lovely terracotta ones will have been damaged by frost.  It's worth remembering that flower pots don't necessarily have to be planted-up in order to look attractive.  The above scene shows how a casual arrangement of unused - or even broken - pots can add to the 'Greek island' atmosphere on a small terrace. 

Don't despair if your favourite piece of terracotta develops a life-threatening crack after getting wet and then frozen in winter.  We've restored several of ours with Araldite glue, carefully holding the pieces together with a wire noose - which you can just about make out on the rim of this old pot below.  

And planters don't necessarily have to be filled with annuals, which can demand a lot of watering and dead-heading. 



Pots soften hard edges of terraces

Experiment with perennials from your garden, using violas instead of pansies, nemesia instead of lobelia, mixing them with various herbs and bulbs, which won't demand too much water.  In this way plants and containers will look more natural and in keeping with the general landscape. 

Edging plants like nemesia (here on the right) can be considered perennials in our climate.  This pale pink one was bought in England years ago and has a strong vanilla aroma which really comes out on a hot terrace.   I've divided it many times and used it in different areas of the garden as it flowers from April and continues through the summer, withstanding a fair bit of drought like so many plants which originally came from South Africa.

Useful ground-cover in a hot climate

Dark tulips make a dramatic contrast against the pastel flowers of nemesia or, as shown here, amongst a bed of creeping thyme.

Rooted pieces of thyme were given to us by a gardening friend and its leaves can be used with feta cheese to make an authentic-tasting Greek salad.  Here, it has provided a growing carpet of neat green foliage and lilac blooms under a mulberry tree where the soil is particularly dry.

Coronilla valentina glauca with Lamium maculata

Another useful ground-cover for shady areas is the spotted deadnettle, with those attractive silvered leaves, used here as underplanting for a coronilla bush.  They tend to flower at the same time and complement one another perfectly.  Some people find the strong honeyed scent of coronilla makes them sneeze... in smell and colour the flowers are similar to those of rapeseed. 

Although it can be short-lived and rather straggly in habit, coronilla is easy to grow in those shady, dryish areas under trees which are otherwise difficult to fill.  You can cut it back quite hard after flowering, and don't worry about killing the plant because it will have generously left a few seedlings nearby!

On warm days, our meadows throb with the sound of crickets and marshland echoes with the calls of amorous frogs.  Insects abound and with them come the predators.

The exotic hoopoe

We spotted a hoopoe high up in our ash tree, closely followed by a wryneck which almost drives you mad with its loud, repetitive call.  Behind the shutters on our cottage is a small colony of bats - probably pipistrelle - which we try not to disturb.  Apart from the fact that they're protected, I'm sure they're useful mosquito-eaters!

Lastly, on the subject of terracotta, we came across an irresistable 'job lot' of small pots at a brocante, in the days before we realised how impractical they would be in summer. 

Primula auricula Mixed Hybrids

I grew some auriculas from a mixed packet of seeds and we planted them up in some of the pots, top-dressing them with grit to conserve as much moisture as possible. 

They're kept on the shady side of the garden, aranged on an étagère (another brocante purchase) and look pretty at this time of year when the afternoon sun hits them.  They cope well with hot and cold weather, as long as they're potted in a free-draining compost, and don't seem to attract snails or other pests.


Other plants which could be used in this way would be succulents such as sedum or sempervivum.