KAIAPOI

- Gardening is risky business; some plants make it even more so.

Surely the joy of gardening rests on the changing seasons, and if it means bare soil in winter, well so be it. Bare ground and branches in winter builds the exciting anticipation of spring. Checking every day for that movement as shoots pop through the soil and develop into flowering drifts of colour is why we talk of the joy of spring.

The herbaceous border certainly isn’t low maintenance but isn’t as time consuming as it looks. Here are a few easy plants that will cover the ground quickly and become low maintenance for three seasons of the year. All these plants pop up in spring and flower through November and early summer. Watching their progress after a frigid winter is one of the joys of gardening.

These four perennials are great groundcovers for the herbaceous border as once planted they will spread rapidly. They all look pretty good until winter when they can be left to be clothed in frost or cut back if you prefer a tidier look.

Pale yellow-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium striatum) is a perennial that grows well in dry areas. It naturalises fairly quickly as the black seedpods scatter widely but they are easy enough to pull out. Drought tolerant once established, it looks great in a gravel garden. The creamy lemon flowers make a fine picture above the narrow sword like leaves.

I have them growing on a clay bank and the pale green leaves cover the ground well in spring before they flower, looking so pretty en masse. The leaves tend to turn black after they go to seed and cutting it back to ground level is the best way to deal with it.

Another lover of the dry is lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina). Patches of this are everywhere in my garden and it lasts all summer long if you cut it back around January or after the first flowering, or even before it flowers. Once cut, it will thicken up and look better without the flowers which are pretty dismal.

I filled some raised beds with it under laurel standards and the soft velvety leaves make an appealing groundcover. This plant copes well with the dry but I have to admit that the best I have ever seen it was after a very wet spring when the flowers grew straight and tall.

Turkish sage (Phlomis russeliana) is very uncomplicated in its choice of soil and will grow in wet or dry. The tall flowers certainly prefer some moisture though and will not only grow taller but stay flowering for longer. The whorled yellow flowers are spaced evenly on the tall unbranched stems which can reach a metre high in late spring. As well as looking good, this plant is unusual in that it does not disappear in winter here in spite of the many frosts, but clothes the ground with its downy, heart-shaped leaves. In wetter territory, it might sulk throughout the coldest months and almost disappear below ground but will be back in spring. It spreads well so give it plenty of room for the rhizomes to multiply. It can be grown from seed – Owairaka Seeds lists it in their catalogue – but like all rhizomes, propagating is easy as long as the piece of plant material has a root.

Gooseneck loosestrife is such an old-fashioned plant and many gardeners seemed to have thrown it out long ago. Probably because it spreads readily especially in the wet. It’s quite a hard name to get the tongue around and I often call it loosenecked goosestrife by mistake which always causes a chuckle from whomever I’m speaking to. The gracefully arched nodding heads of white flowers do indeed look like a goose’s head and they last all summer with appealing red stems that add colour until late autumn. Planted in a row against a taller hedge is an effective way to show off the red stems long after other plants have lost their colour. It is invasive in the wet, but easy enough to pull out.

Of the lysimachia family of plants that originated in the wetlands of eastern Europe and Asia, the name comes from King Lysimachia of Thrace who according to Greek legend tamed a bull with a piece of loosestrife. Loosestrife means to calm strife and legend has it that a sprig between two oxen yoked together to plough a field, calmed them down so they could get on with the job. The plant was also used for centuries to staunch wounds.

Like all these perennial groundcovers, they look best in drifts and their rhizomes easily multiply to cover a large area, smothering weeds as they go. They are quite good at covering up unsightly mounds, or against a shed or fence, softening hard man made edges with their flowers like bird’s heads. Leaving their dead stalks often with seedheads attractively collecting frost can look very picturesque in a border during winter, and a quick raking of the dead foliage prepares the scene for another dramatic and cyclical burst of spring.

Ask for plants that provide low maintenance groundcover, and most people think of evergreens that look pretty much the same all year round. How dull!