Creating a White Garden (Sun Edition)

The white garden at Larkwhistle Garden on the Bruce Peninsula.

One of the most celebrated and iconic gardens in the world is one based around a single color–white. Created by Vita Sackville-West with her husband Harold Nicolson within the ruins of a Tudor manor house, the white garden at Sissinghurst was one of Vita's many experiments with color.  Vita's idea was to limit the flower colors to just one to better focus visitors attention on other design elements; texture, shape and form. Created to peak mid-summer, the garden was planted with a romantic mix of flowers like white lilies, delphiniums and roses set against a backdrop of silver and green foliage.

Limiting a whole garden to a single flower color would certainly require discipline. You'd need to have the willpower to pass on that sky-blue delphinium or the pretty pink rose you saw on your last visit to the local garden centre. Most gardeners, including Vita herself, would probably struggle with those restrictions. The white garden at Sissinghurst Castle was just one of ten "rooms", so Vita had plenty of opportunities to express her love of color elsewhere. 

A white climbing rose in a private garden in Toronto, ON. 

A white rose.

I adore color, so making a white garden hasn't appealed to me until recently. The change of heart began when we lost a large tree at the side of the house. The little courtyard with the tree at its centre was my favourite part of the garden, not because it was especially pretty, but because it always felt cool, comfortable and private the moment you opened the back gate. We've since replaced the fallen tree, but the magnolia we planted is still spindly and small. How I miss that old feeling of quiet and calm! 

While we wait for the new tree to mature, I began to think of other ways I might recreate the old feeling of a soothing green oasis. That's when it occurred to me to create a white garden.

There are so many great white options for spring: white tulips, narcissus and Spring Snowflakes, Leucojum vernum. 

Daffodils

Allium

To my mind, there are two ways to go about creating a white garden. You can start from scratch and grow only white flowers or you can work with an existing garden and slowly edit out the other colors. 

For me the working method will be the latter. There are a few hostas with lavender flowers that were shaded by the old tree. I was too busy to move them last year and the poor things got scorched, so they need to go, white garden or no.

Echinacea purpurea 'Pow Wow White'

Whether you are starting from scratch or editing an existing planting scheme, a few boundaries will need to be set. For instance, is a cream-colored flower close enough to be considered "white"? And is a white flower with a yellow centre "white" enough to be included in your white garden? I have a feeling that Vita might think that a cream flower and the Echinacea above aren't "white", but what the heck, her vote isn't the important one. It's your garden and there is no right or wrong answer. Only you can decide.

One of the things that interests me the most is the sheer challenge of working with one basic color. I think Vita felt the same way.

"It is something more than merely interesting. It is great fun and endlessly amusing as an experiment, capable of perennial improvements as you take away the things that don't fit in, or that don't satisfy you, and replace them by something you like better," she wrote in her weekly newspaper column.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Plan for flowers in each season. Bulbs and early perennials are a great way to start off in the spring. Follow with annuals and mid-season perennials. Keep the color going into late summer with flowers like Sedum, Phlox, hardy Hibiscus and Turtlehead.

• Shrubs and trees can also be a source of white flowers and add structure to the garden.

• One of the things Vita hoped to emphasize was form. You can do this as well by including a variety of flower shapes. For instance, lilies can have trumpet-shaped flowers while Delphinium has tall flower spires.

• Use white or neutral colored flower pots or lined baskets for annuals.

• Use plants that have interesting variegation and foliage that has a variety of shapes.  

White Columbine

The white garden at Larkwhistle Garden on the Bruce Peninsula.

White Lilac

There is one other advantage in creating this type of garden that I want to mention. Vita Sackville-West located her white garden in a place that she and her family liked to gather for dinner in the summertime. White flowers take on a luminous glow as twilight descends. 

If you are considering making your own white garden, locating it next to a deck or patio where you dine in the evening might be a nice idea.

White peonies at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Lavatera (annual)

Phlox paniculata 'David'

Though a single flower color was the core feature in Vita's white garden, she played it against a backdrop of mixed greens and silvery foliage.

Artemisia and Lamb's Ears

Here's a list of silver-grey plants:

Lamb's Ears, Stachys byzantina
Lavender (white flowering of course)
Artemisia (A word of caution: chose your Artemisia carefully. Some types can be aggressive.)
Sea Holly (Eryngium 'Miss Willmot's Ghost)
Snow-in-Summer (Another word of caution: this can be an aggressive groundcover. Chose your location carefully)
Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller (Annual)

Culver's Root, Veronicastrum virginicum 'Album'

A late summer white: Balloon Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus

If a white garden is of interest, here are some of the many plants you might want to consider:

White Flowers for the Spring Garden:

Bulbs: Hyacinth, Daffodils, Tulips, Scilla, Grape Hyacinths, Allium
Annuals: Alyssum
Low growing/rockgarden: Creeping or Moss Phlox, Candytuft, Arabis
Perennials: Columbine, Bearded Iris, Japanese Iris, Salvia, Campanula
Shrubs & Trees: Lilac, Crabapple, Weigela, Viburnum

White Flowers for the Summer Garden:

Annuals: Nicotiana, Cosmos, Cleome, Moonflowers, Stocks
Bulbs and Tubers: Gladiola, Agapanthus, Dahlia
Biennials: Hollyhock, Lychnis
Perennials: Yarrow (Achillea), Lupine, Shasta Daisy, Bee Balm (Monarda), Oriental Lily, Delphinium, Daylily, Butterfly Flower (Gaura), Coneflower (Echinacea)
Shrubs & Trees: Rose, Rose of Sharon, Hydrangea, Butterfly Bush (Buddleia)

White Climbers: Sweet Pea, Morning Glory, Rose, Clematis

White Flowers for the Late Summer/Fall Garden:

Perennials: Turtlehead, Coneflower (Echinacea), Yarrow (Achillea), Phlox, Hardy Hibiscus, Aster

If you have any other suggestions, please leave a comment and I'll update the list.

Sedum 'Stardust'

Peony

There is something so fresh about a white flower, don't you think? And at the same time, it feels restful. I am hoping that in creating a white garden at the side of the house I will be recreating that serene feeling that disappeared when we lost the tree.

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