Alan Titchmarsh: I'm planting a brand new garden — here's what's going in, what I'm trying out, and the plant that's sending me in search of my axe

New gardens offer new planting opportunities: a chance to try things that always struggled in a previous location, but which might enjoy the change of scene every bit as much as the gardener. They also offer a clean slate; an opportunity to leave behind plants that have always disappointed. The tricky bit is deciding into which category a plant may fall.

In our last garden on chalky earth, witch hazels, eucryphias and anything remotely intolerant of alkaline conditions either steadfastly refused to put on more than an inch or two of new growth each year or simply threw in the trowel early on in their lives. Anything as devotedly acid-loving as rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias I grew in tubs of ericaceous compost and collected rainwater to minister to their needs, but somehow they never seemed at home at the foot of the Downs.

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Now, on acidic sandy earth, I have a chance to grow such calcifuges in the garden soil. It is a welcome shot in the arm and will steer me in the direction of the gardener’s most important dictum, ‘right plant, right place’.

I consider myself lucky that in my mid seventies I can still feel a childlike thrill at the prospect of putting together an entirely different plant collection. It is refreshing. It is invigorating. It is likely to be expensive — but I shall adhere firmly to my belief that smaller plants (within reason) planted in good, organically enriched soil, establish themselves more readily and often outstrip the larger beasts that one is tempted to buy with a view to instant effect.

This holds good with trees and shrubs, but with perennials one is sometimes disappointed with the size of those little plants in 9cm (4½in) pots that seem to have withered through the winter. Two-litre pots offer larger, better-established clumps, but the costs involved in planting a border then begin to rise. It is the first of many conundrums.

I will try eucryphias here, and magnolias. There is already one large hamamelis in the one-acre wood and I shall give it company — safe in the knowledge that the leafmould-enriched acidic earth will suit the newcomers, be they yellow, orange or ruby-red flowered.

I will take chances with a few temperamental types: Embothrium, for instance — the Chilean fire bush — with its whiskery flame-red flowers. I’ll be poring over the online catalogue of Burncoose Nurseries, attached to the garden of Caerhays in Cornwall, the screen pages of which will offer me manifold temptations. (I will remember I am in Surrey and not wafted by the gulf stream, but that won’t stop me from taking a few chances.)

For 30 years, I’ve had a large half pot planted up with that choice Canadian bloodroot that we must now call Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’. How it has survived with very irregular repotting I cannot imagine, but when I ‘release it into the wild’ — actually planting it out into the earth — I will feel as if I am setting free a captive lion. Its flowers, carried on stems barely 4in high, are pure white and about 1¼in across, like tiny chrysanthemums. They don’t last long. From them I learnt the meaning of the word ‘fugacious’ — a description applied to them many years ago in a book listing the choicest of plants. The flowers are followed by large-fingered leaves, so at least I will not lose sight of its location.

Plants that I will not be introducing? Well, there’s no point in bothering with hydrangeas. The clue is in the name — they are greedy for water and the sandy soil here will result in a crisping up of leaves when this wettest of winters is but a memory.

Pampas grass — certainly not. They’ve always struck me as being a collection of feather dusters stuck into an umbrella stand. Gladioli I have never warmed to — except those more elegant magenta varieties that grow in Cornish hedgerows, the variants of Gladiolus byzantinus.

The narrow border that runs along the edge of the terrace behind the new house has already been planted up by the developer with alternate green and variegated pittosporum. Thirty-seven of them. I have given quite a few away already, but have told myself that they did at least offer winter form and structure. Perhaps a few will remain.

I’ve put in seven Thuja occidentalis ‘Smaragd’ to offer me vertical sentinels and will brood further as to what will go between them. Then there is the Photinia ‘Red Robin’ in the front garden. Where’s my axe…?

This feature originally appeared in the March 18, 2026 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.