I fall in love with plants all the time, but some first encounters are real coups de foudre. Diaphanous plants have an unerring allure for me, and one such is Thalictrum delavayi, whose clouds of tiny, mauve, open bell-shaped flowers I can still see in my mind’s eye, hovering high above the lovely borders of Abbey Dore Court Garden in Herefordshire a good few years ago. Floating on top of tall, branched stems, the diminutive flowers with their delicate cream stamens made a purple haze through which the rest of the garden shifted and shimmered in the late summer sun. I have loved it ever since.
Another love-at-first-sight moment was coming across Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies’ planted among a typically formal scheme of red and blue salvias, lobelia and bedding begonias in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. The thousands of white flowers with their fluttery pink-tinged petals looked like a host of butterflies dancing around the otherwise static planting, transforming it into something quite enchanting. There are few plants with an ability to engender joy, but gaura is one of them.
Transparent plants bring a delightful sense of life and movement to any planting scheme. The delicate, diaphanous floral web they weave can impart a softness and femininity to the more solid blocks and swathes one often associates with the new perennial planting style. And their ability to create a see-through screen means they can be planted relatively near the front of the border – or left to self-seed where nature dictates; often in positions one wouldn’t have had the courage or vision to place them. The flowers themselves don’t have to be small: bronze fennel, which works beautifully in this way, actually has quite large flowers, but they are filigree in nature, on top of slender stems with feathery foliage. It’s one of the many see-through plants I have been selecting over the past few weeks for a new flower bed that wraps around the wooden deck outside our seaside house. Within retaining walls built from salvaged timbers, I am planting what I hope will become a translucent screen of wispy grasses and flowering plants.
Many of my old favourites have found a place: among them thalictrums, gaura, Verbena bonariensis with its electric purple pinhead flowers on top of swaying, square-sectioned stems, and Stipa gigantea, whose firework bursts of oat-like seed heads crowning 6ft 6in stems will make great punctuation marks at the corners, with other smaller flower heads weaving in between.
But last week at Hampton Court Flower Show, I fell in love yet again. Space is having to be made for the latest objects of my affection: Eragrostis curvula, the weeping love grass, with its graceful arching fronds and haze of bleached seed heads (its red-tinged cultivar, 'Totnes Burgundy’ is even more of a heartbreaker) and Sanguisorba officinalis 'Pink Tanna’, whose fluffy pale pink and white burr-like flowers held high on wiry stems thread in and out of neighbouring plants and grasses like the slubs on chenille fabric. It’s a good job plants don’t get jealous…
GET THE LOOK
Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing’
Many transparent plants are sun lovers, but these pinky-white cow parsley flowers on dark purple stems are happy in a shadier spot.
Cephalaria gigantea
A gentle, untidy giant with pale lemon scabious-type flowers on top of swaying 8ft stems.
Crambe cordifolia
Large sprays of tiny white flowers 6ft 6in in height and spread create a foaming mass.
Dierama pulcherrimum
Elegant arching stems tipped with clusters of delicately drooping bell-shaped flowers in rosy mauve give this plant its common name of angel’s fishing rod.
Eragrostis curvula
Hardier than its African origins might suggest and happy in partial shade, though sunshine will set the seed-heads ablaze.
Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum’
Self-seeds with abandon once established, and can be moved around when the seedlings are still very small.
Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies’
The prettiest of the gauras, though G. sinuata is taller and G. 'Siskiyou pink’ slightly shorter and stronger coloured.
Knautia macedonica
A consummate weaver, its dark burgundy buttons thread their way through neighbouring plants and grasses.
Molinia caerulea subsp arundinacea 'Transparent’
Open panicles of delicate flowers tremble in the slightest breeze on this beautiful grass.
Salvia uliginosa
Sky blue flowers that dance from late summer on, atop slender 6ft 6in stems and make a stunning contrast with tawny dahlias and red-hot pokers. Not reliably hardy, so dig up a section of root and overwinter in a pot under glass.
Sanguisorba officinalis 'Pink Tanna’
One of the palest and most versatile of the newly fashionable sanguisorba family.
Stipa gigantea
A classic grass – statuesque, yet never heavy.
Thalictrum delavayi
Partial shade and plenty of moisture will ensure the best performance from this stunning plant.
Verbena bonariensis
Another classic, for cottage borders or modern plantings.
PLANTS OFFER
Woottens of Wenhaston is offering Sunday Telegraph readers 20 per cent off the recommended price of a collection of transparent plants: one Gaura lindheimeri, one Knautia macedonica, one Stipa gigantea, one Thalictrum rochebruneanum and one Verbena bonariensis for £26.30 including carriage. Ring 01502 478258 or visit www.woottensplants.co.uk and click on special link offer. Closing date August 9.
BOOK OFFER:
Natural Garden Style by Noel Kingsbury (Merrell Publishers, rrp £29.95) expertly guides you through creating a sustainable and biodiverse garden with style. It is available from Telegraph Books for £27.95 + £1.25 p&p. Call 0844 871 1516 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
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