When you’ve only got a tiny garden, a courtyard or a small space to plant up, choosing plants can be a frustrating business. Unless you specialise in bonsai or alpine plants, your space can be quickly filled with just a few specimens, and there’s no room for trees, climbers, fruit or vegetables. Or is there?
A friend and I were looking for small climbers last week; she wants to plant one in a pot, to climb up a small obelisk, which will add much needed height to the paved area outside the front door of her house. We were about to despair of finding a perennial climber, and plump for sweet peas, when we came across Raymond Evison’s dwarf clematis hybrids. Recently introduced from his nursery on Guernsey, these clematis grow to between four and eight feet tall and are perfect for the smaller garden. My friend chose Clematis ‘Rebecca’ which produces deep red flowers from spring to late summer, and which will have a height and spread of just 6 feet by 2 feet. There are other tempting varieties, including ‘Fleuri’ which is deep purple (4ft tall), Cezanne (4-5ft) which is violet, and ‘Parisienne’ (3-4ft) which has violet flowers with a dark red centre.