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.
The spring borders, taken over by Geranium phaeum Samobor
Geranium Mary MottramA barrel full of hostas – mainly miniatures
Rosa Gertrude JekyllJust some of the plants that would have been for sale
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
Funny how it’s already mid-December. In my mind we are still in late summer/early autumn with jobs undone that should have been completed months ago. Clue to the onset of winter being the recent frosts! In reality I am probably still rooted in Spring, with too many packets of seeds remaining unsown. Some of course are the very welcome free packets on the front of gardening magazines, but I know if I look properly I will find some seeds from gardening society seed exchanges that have never made it into a seed tray. Maybe this winter instead of avidly scanning the seed exchange lists I should ignore them and instead find out the unopened packets from last year, at the same time making an early New Year’s Resolution to sow them. They may grow or they may not, they’ll have a better chance of germination in a tray of seed compost than in their packets!
Regardless of wet and windy weather with a few frosts thrown in for good measure, gardening continues. Three silver birch trees have been planted in the orchard, the variety “Snow Queen” which is renowned for its bright white bark. We bought one year old bare root trees so at the moment they are only around three feet high and very spindly. The rabbit guards around the trunks are more obvious than the trees themselves!
Betula Snow Queen – 11 year old trees, hope the new ones grow as well!
We already have two of these in one corner of the orchard and after 11 years they are splendid trees and their bark is wonderful. Let’s hope the new ones grow equally as well. A fourth tree to be planted is an apple, Laxton’s Fortune, to replace an Egremont Russet that died this year having been ring barked by rabbits.
I took advantage of a recent frosty morning to take photographs of some of the dead stems in the garden. For a change there were quite a few that looked good with a dusting of frost. Next job though is to cut everything back and mulch the flower beds with as deep a layer of compost as I can manage.
Helianthus Lemon Queen
Bronze Fennel Rudbeckia herbstonne
Acanthus
Plenty of Hazel catkinsLook carefully – Three squirrels
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.
Rose Charles de Mills
Papaver somniferumPapaver rhoeas Mother of Pearl
Erigeron karvinskianus (and a rogue dandelion)One of the plant sale tables nearly readyA last check round by one of our canine helpersAnd a final check for moles before the gates open!
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.
..but how I long for a green garden! After weeks of blisteringly hot, dry weather I can’t be the only gardener who anxiously watches the weather forecast for even a hint of rain. In fact to be fair it did rain last Friday afternoon for a couple of hours but it didn’t make any difference at all. Two waterbuts (out of six) are empty and the others are running very low, but the rain made absolutely no difference to their levels. At first it was a novelty using a hose and waterbut pump to empty bathwater onto the flowerbeds but I’m now getting tired of dragging the hose and pump upstairs. In fact I’m not even sure that it makes that much difference to the plants but as I leave the hose on the earth rather than spraying the water around I hope that the water is sinking in.
Of course it’s not all bad, how could it be, what a treat to be able to sit out in the garden late into the evening watching the bats flying round and not to need a jumper. Another bonus has been the sheer number of butterflies in the garden – there are just clouds of them. We are currently seeing many Cabbage Whites, Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers, along with Common Blue, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and the odd Brimstone.
There are plants that are valiantly flowering including a very persistent perennial Helianthus. The flowers are lovely but what a thuggish plant! It has taken over a large flower bed even though I have spent the last two winters digging and pulling out every bit of root that I can find and burning it. There it is though in all its glory just as vigorous as ever and funnily enough it seems to relish the heat, lack of rain and rock hard soil. Maybe I should just let it take over the whole garden! Phlox also seem to be coping in the conditions. Phlox White Admiral is just coming into flower and around the garden various other varieties in shades of pink and purple are also doing well. Bronze fennel loves the heat, a self sown plant at the corner of one of the outbuildings is doing really well and attracting plenty of bees and hoverflies. Eryngium “Miss Wilmott’s Ghost” is a plant I have long coveted. I can’t count the number of times I have sown seed and nurtured the seedlings only for them to disappear without trace. Two years ago I had what I decided was a final try. Seed was sown and left in a tray outside on a potting bench and ignored. After a year I saw seedlings but thought they would probably turn out to be weeds of some sort, however I persevered, pricked them out and potted them on. They didn’t grow that well in the pots but I decided to stick them in the ground and let them take care of themselves – well they did and this year they look splendid. Not huge but good enough and hopefully they will start to seed around and luckily I planted them in the bed that has grasses so they look just right!
PhloxPhlox White AdmiralPerennial Helianthus
A real surprise in this hot weather is how well hydrangeas are doing. They are a recent discovery of mine – it has taken me years to decide I like them. Now I love them and we have several, many purchased at a plant auction a couple of years ago. A specialist nursery was closing down and selling off its stock and we managed to secure a number of small named hydrangeas. I didn’t have a clue what any of them would be like and it was a bit of a gamble as we have free draining sandy soil. Some are currently being grown in containers while we decide the best place for them and others are already enjoying a spot in the garden. If they start to wilt a little a quick drench with a watering can soon perks them up.
Hydrangea aspera Peter Chappell (above and below) note the lovely large leaves which are slightly felty to the touch.
Hydrangea macrophylla Selina (above and below)
For now though a bit more watering, although the weather forecast this evening did mention rain for tomorrow, however whether we see any here remains to be seen. Fingers crossed!!
Peonies are definitely my favourite plants in the garden at the moment, closely followed by the roses. The peonies have been in flower for weeks it seems and just keep going. The scent coming through the open sitting room window from Peony Monsier Jules Elie (the huge pink one in the photos) is so strong. The double white is Duchesse de Nemours and the beautiful deep red one is possibly Karl Rosenfeld. My favourite though is the single white flowered variety – it was bought as Duchesse de Nemours which it obviously isn’t but what a find! It is such a clear white and the scent is amazing. A quick search on the internet shows that it might be called White Wings, but who knows. Sadly it only has one flower this year, I think many years of mulching the flower bed caused the plant to be too deeply planted and it didn’t flower at all last year. Last autumn I dug it up and replanted it and it has grown better, I will be careful not to mulch too deeply round it in future and hopefully with patience (mine!) it will be covered in flowers again in future years.
Then the roses. We have sandy soil which is not ideal for roses, but we have planted old fashioned shrub roses mainly and picked those which are meant to be good for poor soil. This year they are flowering so well, I am hugely impatient, not good for a gardener, but the wait for masses of flowers has been worthwhile. The photos show Rosa Louise Odier, Gertrude Jekyll and Charles de Mills. My absolute favourite though is Rosa Tuscany Superb which is only just starting to flower. There won’t be so many blooms on the plant this year as the shrub was moved last autumn, it has survived and is growing but I will have to wait patiently for it to go back to its former glory. Last year we planted two roses in huge terracotta pots – both David Austin roses recommended for growing in pots. Rosa Olivia Rose Austin was a must as we have two daughters with middle names Olivia and Rose and Rosa Desdemona which is a beautiful creamy white with an amazing scent. Both are growing really strongly and a perfect addition to the garden.
Who knows what will be my favourite plant in a week or so – I can’t wait to find out!
The garden is absolutely sparkling in the May sunshine. Everywhere you look plants are growing so well, possibly the best the garden has ever looked at this time of year. Plantings are now starting to mature and fill their spaces, meaning that from a distance weeds are barely visible. Plenty there but only to be found on close inspection! The pink Clematis Montana growing on a pergola is looking stunning, and who knew that the flowers had a perfume? It’s something I’ve only become aware of this spring. The rose in the large terracotta pot by the clematis is ‘Desdemona’, a white English Rose which is growing well and now in flower too.
In the orchard the fruit trees have been absolutely laden with beautiful blossom, and have never looked prettier. Looks like we will have a good crop of apples in the autumn.
Wildlife in the garden is important to us and having had a pair of Mandarin ducks visit on several occasions we were thrilled to discover they had a nest in a hollow tree close to the house. What a cosy spot to choose. A couple of weeks ago four Mandarin drakes visited and spent around half an hour waddling round the garden, what a lovely sight but the dogs were frustrated at having to wait a while for their walk! This week we caught sight of mother duck waddling along the hedgerow with around 6 ducklings following behind. What a treat, and we nearly missed seeing them. Let’s hope they enjoyed our hospitality and will return next year.
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.
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.
Hydrangea macrophylla Selina (above and below)
Tales from a Country Garden 