Year-Round Planting Schemes for West Sussex Gardens

The test of a planting scheme is not July. It is the second week of February, seen from the kitchen window, in the rain. Gardens that pass that test are built on structure first and flowers second.

Structure carries winter

Evergreen mass - clipped yew, box alternatives such as Ilex crenata, pittosporum, osmanthus - holds the shape of a garden when everything else has gone. Aim for roughly a third of the planting to be evergreen, arranged as repeated forms rather than scattered specimens. Multi-stem trees such as amelanchier or birch add height and winter silhouette without shading the whole plot.

Succession through the year

• Late winter: hellebores, snowdrops, cornus stems, sarcococca for scent by the door.
• Spring: narcissi, tulips through emerging perennials, epimedium, geum.
• Early summer: salvia, nepeta, geranium, roses, alliums going over gracefully.
• High summer: achillea, echinacea, verbena bonariensis, phlox.
• Autumn: grasses at their best - miscanthus, molinia, calamagrostis - plus asters and sedum.
• Winter: seedheads left standing until February, not cut back in October.

Match the soil, do not fight it

West Sussex gives you two very different conditions, sometimes within a few miles. Chalk downland is free-draining and alkaline - perfect for salvias, achillea, verbascum, lavender and grasses. Wealden clay is heavy and wet in winter but fertile - suiting hydrangea, persicaria, geranium, rodgersia and roses. Choosing plants that want your soil removes most of the maintenance before it starts.

Repetition is what makes it look designed

One of everything reads as a collection. Three, five or seven of the same plant, repeated at intervals down a border, reads as a scheme. Restrict the palette to twelve to fifteen species for a domestic garden and plant more of each.

Maintenance that fits your life

A perennial-led border needs one hard cut in late February, a mulch, and an hour every few weeks in summer. A high-maintenance scheme is not a better scheme - it is a scheme that will be abandoned in year three.