Today we should have been flinging the garden gate wide open, boiling the kettle, slicing cake and putting plants out for sale – all to raise money for the National Garden Scheme. Sadly due to coronavirus the garden gate is firmly shut and locked and the only tea and cake served here will be for us and three of our adult ‘children’ who are in lockdown with us. There are worse places to be and the last few weeks have seen me gardening more than ever. There are still weeds that have evaded me, I see more each day waving to me from the borders but many have pretty flowers anyway, so some will be allowed to stay for a short while.
Some plants that I envisaged being at their best today have co-operated. Alliums are looking splendid and so far our two springer spaniels have managed not to destroy any of them as they charge round the garden. The spring borders are now full of Geranium phaeum Samobor, Queen Anne’s Lace (cow parsley), Comfrey and bumble bees! All looking just as I anticipated it would before it all slides into disarray next month. The first roses are just opening, Mme Alfred Carriere climbs up and through a partially hollow apple tree and the first couple of flowers are open right at the top. Rosa Gertrude Jekyll is always one of the first to flower and hasn’t disappointed this year. There are many buds on all the roses, promising a lovely display over the next few weeks.
As I won’t be able to sell tea and plants this afternoon I’ll be in the garden anyway – weeding!
For more about the National Garden Scheme open gardens visit www.ngs.org.uk
What a wonderful weekend! The sun shone and it was warm on Saturday with just a little rain late on Sunday – perfect for visiting and enjoying gardens.
We had record numbers of visitors to our garden, counting around 325 visitors. The final total for the group as a whole is not yet known but I think records will have been broken, and importantly money raised for the NGS Charities.
Just a few pictures from the weekend, as we now relax and enjoy the garden ourselves.
Not long now and our open weekend will be upon us. Saturday/Sunday 22 and 23 June 1-6pm, more details http://www.ngs.org.uk (Astley Country Gardens, Worcestershire)
We wanted rain and now we’ve had plenty of rain, what’s needed now is a little more warmth and sunshine! Plants are growing well and full of buds ready to open to greet visitors at the weekend. Here is just a taste of the garden at the moment.
Not long now and we’ll be opening the gates and welcoming visitors to our NGS Open Weekend. This will be the fifth time we have opened the garden in conjunction with others in the locality and we are hard at work. I can’t guarantee we will be weed free, in fact I can guarantee that there will be some weeds but hopefully we will have pulled out all the obvious ones and the garden plants will be looking lovely . Amazing though how you can pull out nettles and sticky weed and think you’ve cleared an area only to look out of the window and see a three foot nettle waving at you!
The other task keeping me busy at the moment is potting on plants for the Plant Stall. There should be a good selection available, the majority propagated from plants growing in the garden or from seed.
The roses are starting to flower mostly of the “old fashioned shrub” variety which are our favourites. This is a moss rose whose name is unknown to us – any ideas? Hopefully there will still be some blooms on Open Weekend!
I think so. In our garden May is a lovely month. Plants in the borders are growing well and the fresh new leaves on trees and shrubs are in all shades of green (and purple!) Early morning and dusk are my favourite times to be in the garden and over the last few days the garden has sparkled with dew on the grass and the scent of Wisteria in the air. Bearded Iris English Cottage and Sable are both flowering along with alliums, a combination which I love. Pale coloured English Cottage has a lovely scent – evocative of playing in a childhood garden, when the iris flowered at my head height. A pink Clematis Montana is covering a wooden structure, the flowers are beautiful but this is a plant I would grow for its scent alone. It’s a scent that fills the air and you have to follow your nose to find its origin.
May also means hard work, at least this year it does. We are open again for Charity under the National Garden Scheme along with others in the locality. A quick cup of tea, a sit down and now back to the gardening.
I love old gardening tools, but how do you refer to them? Are they vintage, collectors items or just plain old and worn out? A favourite occupation if passing a junk shop or reclamation yard is to go and explore and see what gardening “treasure” can be found. We are now amassing a collection of interesting old tools and it’s fun to try and work out what some of them would have been used for. We bought an old hoe last year that has got a vicious looking spike on the reverse of the head. The obvious explanation, to me anyway, is that you hoe off your weeds and then turn the tool over and use the spike as a dibber. A bit of research brought up a website selling vintage tools and a similar hoe for sale – labelled as a “Field Hoe”. I think hoeing a whole field would be a job too far, but we are thrilled with our find and will use it very carefully! Some old spades are so heavy, just lifting them up would be enough for me, but imagine double digging with them. No thanks! What I find fascinating are the different sizes and shapes of spade heads and the angle at which the handles of some are fixed. Another recent purchase is an old turf lifting spade with a long wooden handle and a curved iron bar joining the heart shaped head. It is stamped with a makers name, C T Skelton, Sheffield, and again a little research tells me that company was founded in Sheffield in 1855 and traded until the mid 1960’s before being taken over. In 1914 there were 400 employees but by 1961 there were only 250. An interesting item to own and by doing just a little research a bit of social history is unearthed too. I think this turf lifting spade will be for decoration only but it would be quite interesting to see how easy or otherwise it would make lifting turf.
Some of our old tools have been inherited from both sides of the family, it is a nice feeling to use something that was once used by a parent or grandparent. It connects those that are no longer with us to our current garden. A set of long handled edging shears is the tool that takes me back to my childhood, with memories of getting completely tangled up in them as I tried to “help” my father edge the lawn and also of his exasperation as he tried to get the job done quickly. They still work perfectly and I use them every week during Spring/Summer. We also inherited a heavy old garden roller made of concrete and cast iron. It was back breaking getting it into the car, in fact I think it broke the piece of wood we used as a ramp! Luckily the car suspension remained intact! However with just a repair to the wooden handle we can now use it. It is heavy but once it is rolling is fairly easy to manoeuvre and is ideal for flattening the bark path through our Spring Borders. Luckily we aren’t on a hill so there’s no chance of it running away out of control!
Garden shears are the bane of our life, most new ones we find are absolutely useless whether it be for clipping a hedge, topiary or grass. We have one fairly new pair that are fairly serviceable as long as you remember to tighten up the blades every few minutes. We have one pair though that are relatively small, old and are a joy to use. Trimming the box topiary around the garden has become a much more enjoyable task.
I’m not sure if they count as “tools” but collecting old metal watering cans is becoming a bit of an obsession. One very pretty small can was bought as we wandered round an antique fair prior to bringing our daughter and her mountain of belongings home from University one year. There was no room in the car for anything else, barely room for daughter to squeeze into the back, however the watering can travelledthe 140 miles or so home on my knee and is now happy in the greenhouse. The only stipulation I make with watering cans though is that they must not have rusted through, if I buy them I want to use them. So much nicer than their plastic counterparts.
Again not “tools” as such, but we seem to have accidentally acquired a collection of old tin baths! Ideal for growing different varieties of mint but one has now been pressed into service as a small containerised pond. It’s been filled with rainwater, pebbles and bricks have been put in the bottom and it currently has three plants – Iris and Marsh Marigold, courtesy of a friend. More plants will follow and hopefully wildlife too. Years ago we did the same thing in an old belfast sink on the basis that we had toddlers at the time and didn’t want the worry of a “proper pond”, that worked well so hopefully this one will too.
The garden is open for the National Garden Scheme every other year. We were open in 2017 and displayed some of our small collection in the lean-to shed, along with other gardening ephemera. We plan to do a similar thing for our NGS opening this year. Details at http://www.ngs.org.uk – Astley Country Gardens