I walk to the local shop past some hedges planted exclusively of Rosa rugosa and they are always humming with bees. From May and June these plants produce wonderful blooms in magenta or white that have delicate petals and golden stamens inside. The flowers smell lovely too but If you want to take a sniff you may find yourself in competition with the insects…they would certainly make a good addition to a wildlife garden.

They could make a good security hedge too due to their spiny stems that grow over a metre in height. The ones near me appear to be pruned using a hedge trimmer and they seem to grow back happily so I assume that they are not difficult to maintain.

Although they are deciduous and can look rather bare and spiky over winter they also have red fruits in autumn, providing one last bit of interest before they lose their leaves.

Walking around where I live today I was knocked sideways by the scent of this wonderful shrub, it has a kind of spicy orange fragrance that infuses the area all around it. It made me think that although a lot of plantings in urban areas can be a bit dull I am really lucky that the planting here seemed to have a some thought put into it. This is the first of a series of posts on this subject to give you some ideas for plants that perform well without much attention but are still rather wonderful.

I’m fairly certain that the majority of the Philadelphus planted nearby are Philadelphus coronarius with their white, 4-petalled, flowers containing a spray of yellow tipped anthers and glossy mid-green leaves. They flower from May into June and the plants grow to about two metres tall. They don’t get an awful lot of care and attention and when they are pruned it tends to be hard because the contractors make only yearly visits, yet they seem not to mind this harsh regime. The plants are deciduous and they tend to disappear in winter when they are reduced to a twiggy skeleton.

I would think the best places to grow one would be where you can appreciate the scent every day while it flowers. Next to a seat in the garden, grown by a window that is open during hot weather or by the driveway so that it can cheer you up on the way to, and home from, work.

Oh, and the local ladybird population seem to appreciate them too. Ladybird larvae don’t bear any resemblance to the final beetle stage of their lifecycle but they are good predators of greenfly.

One man’s mission to grow lovely plants where before there were only weeds and, quite often, rubbish. I have been reading this blog on and off for the last year about Richard who lives in London and has been planning and executing mostly night-time raids with his fellow guerrilla gardeners to improve the urban landscape. Their activities include planting in unattractive and unloved places, often roundabouts, old concrete street planters and little bits of waste ground to make the area just a bit nicer.

Go and visit the blog here, if you feel inspired you can join a local guerrilla gardener group to improve the area where you live!

For the last eight years I have had a rather dull front garden full of shrubs left by the developer and their landscapers who planted all the (rather small) front gardens on the street where I live. This year I decided to start fresh and even better, my neighbours decided to let me loose on the part of their front garden that adjoins mine.

The garden faces west and so it receives sunshine all afternoon and in the summer evenings, the soil is fairly heavy but has now had masses of compost added. I had been admiring the grasses planted at RHS Wisley (near the cafe) and in the end decided to grow them along with some box bushes and Epimediums for winter interest and some geraniums and Echinacea for summer flowers. I also had a lovely fragrant English rose to include in the mix.

Planting design can be difficult because there are just so many variables and I drew the garden about half a dozen times and made several plant lists in order to narrow down the plant choices and their positions. I also had a walk around everyone else’s front gardens to see what they had planted, how it was doing and if it looked nice.

I’m pleased with the result, even though it has to grow and fill out the space. I was tempted to plant everything a bit closer but in the end I don’t have the time (or space) to dig out the extra plants when it becomes established and rehome them. Perhaps I will return to this subject at the end of the summer and post some more photos to show how the garden is changing.

If you’d like some ideas for your front garden with plants or design get in contact or leave a message on this blog.

I visited Chelsea for the third time this year and I’m now starting to get the hang of the show, navigating the site and fitting in seeing all those exhibits and show gardens in the space of an afternoon ticket from 3.30pm-8.00pm when the show closes.

These are some of the hilights of the show as far as I am concerned:

I really liked the planting for this entry into the Courtyard garden section called “A journey to work” (Sponsored by Simmonds and Simmonds) with the contrasting textures of foliage and the bright orange of the fritillarias it was very energising to look at. Wonderful ferns against that black timber - an idea that could be used against deckboards on a smaller scale.

The concept of a walk through the back garden on the way to your office outbuilding seems to be more relevant as more people choose to work from home and I think that the scale of this garden makes the ideas in the design very achievable in the average suburban back garden. The design is very simple with a curved path leading the visitor through those leafy plants to the bottom of the staircase. I think the impact of the garden design come from the contrast of that simple curve with the texture and interest in the bold planted area.

Although some of the plants used are regarded as tender if the design was used somewhere like London there is a possibility the “heat island” effect in the city could mean they would survive winter.

What a lovely simple idea that has so much visual impact. The nasturtium is really easy to grow from seed and the wattle fence painted black gives it real contrast. If I was going to waffle on like a designer I might even comment on the contrast between the rounded leaves and the linear aspect of the fence construction…

There has been quite a lot in the press about vertical gardening or using plants to cover walls and this was a particularly lovely, and petite, example in the garden of The Children’s Society designed by Mark Gregory. I have read that vertical planting may help to keep buildings cool in summer and insulate them through winter and help to reduce the “heat island” effect. The effect happens when concrete and brick building absorb heat from the sun during the day and release it at night, making the cities warmer than surrounding countryside. This wasn’t the only vertical planting at the show and I think it will re-appear next year too.