The out­side of many boun­dary walls is noth­ing more than a to­tal­ly ne­glec­ted, dus­ty area in which rub­bish col­lects and lit­tle, if any­thing, grows. Sadly, this is of­ten the case even when there is a gor­geous gar­den hid­den be­hind the very same walls.

Some peo­ple lay the blame for this un­sight­li­ness on a short­age of wa­ter, oth­ers claim that pass­ers-by will up­root or oth­er­wise dam­age any­thing plan­ted out­side their boun­dary wall. Whilst there may be a small de­gree of theft/dam­age, beau­ti­fy­ing ur­ban sur­round­ings should be giv­en the time and re­spect it de­serves as, to be frank, few peo­ple see ‘in­side’ gar­dens and nev­er have a hope of cre­at­ing a gar­den of their own. Walking down streets lined with green­ery and flow­ers pro­vide so much pleas­ure that the vis­u­al, some­times al­so ar­o­mat­ic, treat bright­ens up their lives con­sid­er­a­bly.

Drought tolerant aloes and Juniper

Creating gar­dens out­side boun­dary walls is ‘so­cial work’ in ac­tion, as cheer­ing up, even brief­ly, the lives of oth­ers as they go about their own per­son­al dai­ly grind, is a won­der­ful con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety and to the en­vi­ron­ment as a whole. Making such a gar­den need not be an ex­pen­sive af­fair, es­pe­cial­ly if you are ei­ther liv­ing on a limi­ted budg­et, as so many are these days, or if you fear that any­thing you plant out­side your boun­dary walls may sim­ply dis­ap­pear. You can prob­a­bly cre­ate quite a ‘show’ by us­ing self-see­ded plants from in­side your gar­den prop­er, by root di­vi­sion of ex­ist­ing per­en­ni­als or by prop­a­gat­ing cut­tings un­til they are of a size to sur­vive any trans­plan­ta­tion shock and, de­pend­ing on the spe­cies of course, are able to sur­vive with the min­i­mum of fuss and on very lit­tle, if any, pre­cious wa­ter.

Using in­dig­e­nous spe­cies — these are nat­u­ral­ly adap­ted to soil and lo­cal­ised cli­mat­ic con­di­tions — is a far bet­ter bet than plant­ing im­por­ted ‘exot­ics’ which may, or may not, sur­vive what can be harsh grow­ing con­di­tions, es­pe­cial­ly if plan­ted ad­ja­cent to a busy road where traf­fic pol­lu­tion adds to oth­er pos­si­ble men­aces.

Some ‘in­side’ plants, creep­ers and climb­ers such as the ev­er pop­u­lar Bougainvillea for ex­am­ple, of­ten make a break for free­dom and clam­ber over walls in search of the ‘great out­doors’ on­ly to be ruth­less­ly pruned back and re­strain­ed. If left to their own de­vi­ces, they erupt in­to an ab­so­lute ri­ot of col­our, thus bright­en­ing up even the bleak­est of streets and, thor­ny cus­tom­ers that they are, no one is go­ing to both­er them oth­er than the oc­ca­sion­al, wind­-blown, plas­tic bag which, along with oth­er gar­bage, should be cleaned up and sen­si­bly dis­posed of.

Other plants that are suit­a­ble for over the wall plant­ing in­clude those tough Canna lil­ies which are tre­men­dous­ly drought tol­er­ant, mul­ti­ply rap­id­ly and put on a col­our­ful show dur­ing the hot­test months of the year; cac­ti are an­oth­er idea and — the larg­er the prick­les the less like­ly that any­one is go­ing to in­ter­fere with them. Bamboo can be used to good ef­fect as can all kinds of aloes, ‘lan­ta­na’ and a wide as­sort­ment of har­dy shrubs and lo­cal trees such as Kuchnar, Bottle Brush, Flame of the Forest, Rain trees with their won­der­ful, pow­der-puff, pink flow­ers and Persian li­lacs. If plant­ing trees re­mem­ber to plant them at least six feet away from the base of the boun­dary wall so that their roots will not — at least not for many years — ad­verse­ly af­fect the walls foun­da­tions. Also, please se­lect spe­cies suit­a­ble for your lo­cal­ised grow­ing con­di­tions.

Bougainvillea — making a break for freedom

Perennial plants which, de­pend­ing on the suit­a­bil­i­ty of your lo­ca­tion, thrive out­side boun­dary walls are, real­ly, any­thing you might like to cul­ti­vate in­side your gar­den too. Roses, gera­ni­ums, gail­lar­dia, spi­der lil­ies, amar­yl­lis, day lil­ies are all a vis­u­al de­light and quite sim­ple to care for.

On the sea­son­al flow­er front: A huge spread of sun­flow­ers is a cheap and cheer­ful way to go and their smil­ing faces will give much de­light to all who see them. Home har­ves­ted seeds of corn­flow­ers, phlox, cos­mos, ager­a­tum, zin­nias, dah­lias, pan­sies and pe­tu­nias (non-hy­brid) are al­so a use­ful idea, al­though some of you may pre­fer to splash out on nurs­ery grown seed­lings to put on an im­pres­sive dis­play.

Last, but by no means the least, you may even like to try your hand at cul­ti­vat­ing some veg­e­ta­bles ‘out there’ and, if some­one helps them­selves, at least you can be sat­is­fied with the knowl­edge that some­one, prob­a­bly a poor per­son, en­joyed a de­cent meal for a change!

Please con­tin­ue send­ing your gar­den­ing quer­ies to zah­rah­na­sir@hot­mail.com. Remember to in­clude your lo­ca­tion. The writ­er will not re­spond di­rect­ly by e-mail. E-mails with at­tach­ments will not be opened.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 18th, 2014