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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> English Gardener
 Glorious
Disarray: An
English Gardener Is Transplanted In Colorado
By Niki Hayden
Sheila Chaney lowers a rose bush into a hole newly dug. Although English
in origin, this hardy ‘Othello’ rose, flanked by lady’s mantle and
lavender, will endure cold Colorado winters and blistery summers. It’s one of
a series of roses that Sheila likes to include in Western gardens. Hardy
stalwarts, durable standbys—each is carefully chosen to flourish in a new
home.
Like the magenta rose she is transplanting, Sheila is a transplant to the
United States from the town of Ipswich, England. Just as a rose settles into new soil, but carries the genes of an English gardening sensibility, Sheila
brought her ideas about English gardening to Colorado and incorporated the look
to include trees, shrubs and perennials that adapt to the soil beneath her feet.
"I call it a glorious disarray," she says when asked to define an
English garden. With a backbone of roses, spirea, viburnum and lilacs,
delphiniums reach to the sky studded with blooms, lavenders dot the foreground
and lady’s mantle lines the sidewalk like a flexible ribbon. Roses in
bloom waft their signature scent.
 Slightly built and dusted in dirt, Sheila looks like a tender branch bent low
to the ground and rooted around the tendrils of an ‘Iceberg’ floribunda
rose. "My gardens are filled with yarrow, Russian sage, penstemons,
scabiosa, delphiniums, lavenders, roses," she says, "I’ve planted
gardens as high in altitude as 8,000 feet. My style has a certain simplicity, so
that it doesn’t look hodge-podgy. I repeat colors in flowers so that they have
wonderful blends. I also like to plant in odd numbers, like three in a triangle,
so that you have a swath of color. I would never plant a straight row, always an
undulating curve. And I want texture, like placing a Siberian iris near a
rose."
 French gardens are formal, orderly, and rational. American gardens savor the
native, with oceans of black-eyed Susans and prairie grasses. English gardens
may appear stuffed and billowing, but look more closely. What appears to be
disorder cunningly hides the careful deliberation that allows them to bloom from
season to season, to incorporate dainty annuals and stiff, prickly evergreens.
English gardens celebrate roses and delphiniums, shrubs with striking foliage
and delicate blooms like a miniature columbine.
Plants are companioned with seasonal favorites that will enhance their
beauty--white geraniums under a pale pink rose, a deep blue spiky Veronica next
to a soft mound of white peonies. Color is not the hot reds or yellows of a
Spanish garden, but muted in creams and pale pinks, lavenders and true blues. It’s
understated and subdued, a murmur rather than a shout.
 "I love purple, blues, silvers, white, pink, magenta and a spot of
yellow. I don’t use much yellow. I do like some, but too much will detract.
Yellow could be yarrow, or even a yellow rose. One of my favorites would be ‘Graham
Thomas’ (a David Austin rose). Or sometimes yellow verbascum," she says.
Roses are as essential as trees and often tie a garden together: "I like
the ‘Iceberg’ floribunda rose particularly because it is white and anything
will blend with it. It’s a nice beautiful white with a tinge of pink. It also
has a medium height of three or four feet. Glossy leaves and not prone to
disease. It’s one of the longest blooming roses in Colorado," she says,
"I’ve seen it bloom into October."
 England differs drastically from Colorado. We live in a semi-arid climate.
England is famous for rainy days. Our temperatures can drop 50 degrees in a
single day. England’s clime is far less extreme. The task to design an English
garden within our weather constraints might appear to be impossible. But Sheila
is less interested in borrowing the same plants from England than she is the
character of the gardens. She seeks out drought-tolerant plants like Russian
sage, catmint, Jupiter’s beard, yarrow, lamb’s ear, lavender, salvia and
bearded (German) iris to fit the Rocky Mountain weather and also add hints of
soft blues, pinks, silvers and one soft yellow to her palette. Roses,
delphinium, lupine, peonies and hollyhocks will demand more water, but they are
watered judiciously—only when needed and often by hand.
 When Sheila is called to renew a garden, it’s usually a Colorado yard
cluttered with large rocks and thin soil. Her first thought isn’t the lush
flowerbeds that may eventually alter the site forever. She looks for the
possibility of a winding path, chooses trees in scale with the height of the
house and begins to count her steps to measure "feet" in exactly the
same way ancient gardeners must have measured their potential gardens. "It’s
just innate. I don’t do sketches, nothing to scale, anyway. I’ve been doing
it for so long now by pacing with my feet. It’s very unconventional. Most of
the gardens I design are not formal, but have an undulating curve. I drape a
hose to shape the garden. With a hose you can step back at different angles and
see if it needs to be reshaped," she says. "I would start with my main
structure, which might be a small tree. I look at the height of the house and
that will determine the height of the garden. I also like weeping trees, like a
weeping crabapple and then shrubs and roses. And also any structural things,
like an arbor, ponds, paths. And I’m an organic gardener."
In Sheila’s garden, paths are set with flagstones in the lawn. Roses line up
with lavender at their feet. In her own garden, Sheila will break the rules—planting
smaller plants behind taller ones so that the passerby must look into the garden
to catch the full array. She includes a vegetable garden in raised beds with
traditional English cuisine: peas and lettuce. A small herb garden contains
parsley, thyme and mints. Elsewhere various thymes creep beneath scattered
trees, flowering in mauve, white and pink.
 Although Sheila enrolled in a master gardener class in Berkeley, California,
her gardening roots extend to childhood. "My father loved to garden and I
gardened with him. He died when I was nine. Since my mother didn’t garden at
all, I often went out to tend his garden." But horticulture was to be a
hobby and not a vocation.
Garden design emerged through serendipity after Sheila left a miserable job.
"My good friend started a business called Classic Garden Design and asked
me to help her. I’m very much self- taught and practical. We purchased plants at Smith
& Hawken in Mill Valley and they used to refer lady gardeners. I was
fortunate to be referred by them," she says.
When Sheila moved to Colorado, she won an award for her garden from Channel 4—proving
that an English garden could thrive under Colorado conditions. "That told
me that you could do an English style garden in Colorado. I mixed perennials,
annuals and herbs," she remembers.
These days, Sheila designs gardens, manages and purchases plants for a garden center
and leads garden
tours to England. She adores the English gardens of Rosemary Verey’s
ornamental vegetables in Cotswold and Christopher Lloyd’s cottage garden in
East Sussex. Vita Sackville West’s striking gardens of whites and silvers,
purples and blues, are a divine influence in all her  work and she admires
Gertrude Jekyll’s early 20th century influence. But recently a trip
to France to see Claude Monet’s impressionist garden changed her ideas of
color, altering forever her soft English pastels.
"Monet’s garden was so important for me. It changed my idea about
orange—all those sharp colors. Now I’m more open minded," she says.
"I consider gardening to be like an artist: it’s like painting, blending
the colors. You start with a blank canvas." Gardening now is about style
and careful choices when it comes to plants. "I had a fellow master
gardener in Colorado who said there is absolutely no way to have an English
garden in Colorado. But I did two English gardens by the front door. I dug up a
cow pasture, an 85-foot driveway. I brought in tons of dirt and horse manure
and had it rototilled. You never want to get rid of your original soil. In four
months I had an English garden. But if you have terrible soil, just consider
raised beds about 15 to 18 inches high. That way you can have an instant garden
with fabulous soil. I am a determined person," she says,
"But these gardens," she adds, "I call Colorado English
gardens."
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Sheila says that purchasing plants for a garden center has honed her
skills in choosing long bloomers in Colorado. These are some of her beloved plants for a Colorado English garden
Roses:
- 'Iceberg', a floribunda German white rose
- 'Rose de Rescht,' Damask, for magenta
- David Austin’s roses: 'English Garden' (pale peach), 'Abraham Darby' (orange
pink), 'Mary Rose' (medium pink), 'Othello' (medium red, almost magenta), 'Heritage'
(blush pink), 'Falstaff' (magenta with mauve cast), 'Gertrude Jekyll' (deep
pink)
- 'Therese Bugnet,' hybrid rugosa, (medium pink)
- Rosa glauca
: A species rose that blooms only once with pink flowers but
offers winter interest with beautiful rose hips
- 'Simplicity' (Floribunda hedge rose from Jackson & Perkins, see below)
- 'Carefree Wonder', a pink shrub rose
- 'The Fairy', prolific bloomer, a polyantha miniature in light pink
- Climbing roses: 'New Dawn' (light pink), 'Iceberg' climber (white), 'Victorian
Memory' (pink blend)
- 'Mme Issac Pereire,' Old Garden Bourbon rose, (deep rose pink with fragrance)
Shrubs:
- Blue Mist Spirea, Caryopteris
- Spirea bumalda 'Goldflame'
- Harry Lauder’s walking stick, Corylus avellana
'Contorta'
- Pink Flowering Almond, Prunus grandulosa 'Rosea plena'
- Lilacs, Syringa patula,, ‘Miss Kim’, an Asian lilac
- Mugo pines, Pinus mugo
- Daphne, Daphne x burkwoodii, ‘Carol Mackie’ (variegated leaves)
also 'Somerset'
- Compact European Cranberry Bush, Viburnum opulus,
'Compactum'
- Mock Orange, Philadephus x virginialis,
'dwarf Minnesota snowflake'
- St. Johnswort, Hypericum frondosum
Perennials
- Sea Holly, Eryngium
- Balloon flower, Platycodon grandiflorus
- Lupin, Lupinus, 'Red Flame'
- Delphinium, 'Dreaming Spires' and 'Clivdon Beauty', both from
England and possess strong stems
- Catmint, Nepeta faassenii, 'Six Hills Giant'
- Hollyhocks, single bloom, Alcea rosea
- Russian Sage, Perovskia,
'Longin'
- Yarrow, Achillea, 'Coronation Gold' and 'Anthea'
- Jupiter’s Beard, both white and pink, Centranthus ruber (red) and
alba (white)
- Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, 'Ruby Star'
- Knautia macedonica
- Sedum
, 'Autumn Joy' and 'Brilliant'
- Salvia
nemorosa, 'Blue Hill' and 'Maynight Sage'
- Penstemons, 'Mexicali,' 'Red Rocks,' 'Pikes Peak Purple,' 'Strictus,'
'Barbatus,' 'Rondo'
- Lavenders (Lavendula): French 'Grosso,' (angustifolia)
English 'Hidcote,' (smaller version with deeper color) and 'Munstead'
- Siberian Iris, Iris sibirica, 'Caesar's Brother' and 'Coronation
Anthem' (smaller of the two)
- German (Bearded) Iris, Iris Germanica, 'Babbling Brook'
- Lamb’s Ear, Stachys byzantina, 'Common'
- Coreopsis verticillata
,'Moonbeam' and 'Grandiflora Sunray'
- Pincushion flower, Scabiosa caucasica,
'Fama' and columbaria, 'Butterfly Blue'
- Sweet Williams (biennial), Dianthus barbatus,
tall variety
- Lilies, Lilium x stargazer, Stargazer Oriental, Asiatic White Lilies
- German Statice, Limonium latifolia
- Whirling Butterflies, Gaura lindheimeri,
- Artmesia, stellerana, 'Silver Brocade,' ludociana,
'Valerie Finnis,' 'Powis Castle,'
- Geranium sanguineum, 'Bloody Cranesbill' (magenta) also Geranium
sanguineum, 'Lancastriense' (pale pink)
- Speedwell, Veronica, 'Sunny Border Blue'
- Phlox paniculata, ‘David’, especially resistant to mildew
- Lady’s Mantle, Alchemilla mollis
- Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia fulgida, 'Goldstrum'
- Dianthus gratianopolitanus
, 'Bath's Pink'
- Daylily (see the Shady Garden), Hemerocallis
- Gayfeather Liatris spicata, 'Kobold'
- Aster, 'Frikartii Monch'
- Feverfew Daisy, Chyrsanthemum parthenium
- Foxglove, Digitalis (biennial), 'Excelsior' hybrids
- Prairie Mallow, Sidalcea, 'Party Girl'
- Peony, Paeonia lactiflora, 'Karl Rosenfeld' (red), 'Festiva Maxima' (white) and 'Sarah Bernhardt'
(pink)
Bulbs
- Allium aflatunense, flowering onion
- Allium Sphaerocephalon, drumstick allium
- Narcissus: 'Hawera,' "Sir Winston Churchill", poeticus
'Actaea'
- Dahlia, (only one) "Bishop of Llandass," red with
burgundy foliage
Annuals
- Sunflower, Helianthus
- Snapdragon, 'Black Prince,' a deep burgundy color
- Cosmos, 'Sensation' and 'Sonata'
- Cleome
, spider flower, 'Violet Queen'
- Verbena bonarinsis
Ground Covers
- Thyme: woolly thyme, thyme minus and
mother-of-thyme, Thymus serpyllum 'Coccineum' (fuschia red)
- Creeping Oregon Grape Holly, Mahonia repens,
'Compacta'
- Veronica allionii, 'Allioni'
For the Shady Garden:
- Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis
- Coral Bells, Heuchera sanguinea,
'Firefly'
- Monkshood, Aconitum
- Lungwort, Pulmonaria, 'Mrs. Moon'
- Heart-leafed Bergenia, Bergenia cordifolia
- Hosta, 'Golden Tiara'
- Lamium, 'Shell Pink' and 'Pink Pewter'
- Daylilies, Hemerocallis: 'Catherine Neal,' 'Ruby Throat,' 'August Orange'
- Japanese Anemone: 'Honorine Jobert'
Helpful websites and places for the English look:
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