The garden laid bare

It is November and time for the big cut back of the herbaceous borders.  They have completed their performance and now are over.  Time to cut back, allow light in and the cold of winter to scour the ground. 

Already I can see the promise of next Spring and Summer.  Small though it may be, next year's growth is there when you look closely and that is heartening. 

The nights now are longer, the daylight hours shorter.  But the garden feels at peace and at the beginning of a slumber.  It has looked quite wonderful for so long it deserves its repose.

But what is amazing is that the beech leaves have hardly fallen at all.  Our huge trees are still clad in Autumn gold.  I contrast this is my childhood years when trees would have been naked and bare at this time of year.  Climate change?  Well it would seem the seasons have shifted for sure and what should be an early winter landscape is little more than Autumn in its gold and bronze hues.

We will cut back more borders next week and then the garden will be back to its bare bones.  Nice to see especially when frost touches the garden and nice to be outside still enjoying it.

Autumn shades

Autumn is here.  The shades of russet and yellow, orange and brown colour the garden by numbers.  The nights are lengthening and we have cooler, showery days now.  We are gradually putting the garden to rest for Winter.  It's time to cut the long grass in the orchard, clear borders and cut back herbaceous perennials.  Slowly the outlines of the garden, its plan and underlying bone structure can begin to be seen again after months of foaming frothiness.

We still have the intense purple of Verbena Bonariensis hovering over the beds while Tithonia rotundiflora 'Torch', the Mexican Sunflower, illuminates the borders with its brilliant orange flowers.  Cosmos too shines out of the gloomy dull light with its deep reds, pale pinks and luminescent whites.

I confess I am comfortable with the change enjoying the mood swing from a Summer of intense activity to a steadier pace.  The garden feels still and intimate.  It feels restful.  But I dread the onset of Winter and all that goes with it.  I can grudgingly endure it until the first weeks of New Year, then the burden weighs heavy upon me during the long uphill trudge to Spring.

No matter, life goes on, the garden continues to develop and mature and soon fulsome fat buds will appear on stems and branches with all the promise they bring of a new Spring over the distant horizon.

Light of the Cosmos

As Summer draws nearer to its close we are blessed with colour.  It illuminates the garden and the lower level of the sun accentuates every shade.

The stars of the show now are Cosmos.  We purchased many varieties from Sarah Raven and have grown them on all Summer.  Now their flower heads shine above their froth of green foliage.

I am pleased with our choices to.  They include a collection of different varieties from white, through pink to dark plum as well as Cosmos bipinnatus 'Dazzler' and the white 'Purity'.  I also love Cosmos sonata 'White' and Cosmos 'Antiquity' but most of all I like the way they have interspersed with Verbena Bonariensis with the colour shades working well together.

And they provide height too giving every border where they are planted a fullness and voluptuousness.

So we are in a good place for the time of year with the garden looking as beautiful as it can.  We also have a few much needed rain showers helping to freshen everything up a little after a prolonged hot and dry spell.

But next year we will certainly add Cosmos to our shopping list - lovely, quite lovely.

Making the cut

It's a time for taking cuttings, collecting seed and enjoying the vibrant late Summer colour of the garden.  Pots line the nursery area full of cuttings. I have also started the process of cutting back the Angustifolia varieties in the Lavender bed as their flowering is now spent. But for the intermedia varieties of Lavender, their season is later and the display still vivid.

We have also collected and sown seeds from Foxgloves which we will grow on for next year.  It's a busy time as many plants are over and need cutting back with the beds clearing.

But what gives me real pleasure are the displays of Echinaceas and in particular purpurea 'magnus'.  This was the grand plan at the beginning of the year, to add more cone flowers to the garden and 'magnus' was key to the plan.  The insects love them and the garden is a hum of bees and a flutter of butterflies.

I also love the softer glow of the light at this time of year.  It illuminates the late Summer planting quite beautifully and brings out the purples and oranges like no other time of the year.  It is immensely forgiving with none of the harshness of the light of early Spring.

But the year rolls on and Autumn approaches.  So, best to make the most of things and enjoy them while we can.

Small friends in sweet smelling places

The garden has a constant hum of bees of all kinds.

The flitting flight of butterflies too can be seen as they waft above the beds and borders.  The Lavender bed is host to so many bees and butterflies that I have lost count of them all.  There must be hundreds feasting on the nectar.

I take this as a sign of a healthy garden and overall the garden is thriving.  The heat of the past 3 weeks is easing and we have had some welcome rain which has added a freshness.

I still maintain that we are, in two years, where we were in five in our old garden.  The plants have thrived and grown at an astonishingly fast rate due to the massive amounts of light we get here along with a good air circulation and sharp draining soil.  Planting so close together has kept in the moisture at the base of the plants and the roots are kept cool too.  The Lavender, planted in the poor soil we inherited and have not improved in any way, loves it and clearly the bees and butterflies love the Lavender.

23 months on from when the planting began here, the garden now looks healthy, happy and pretty much mature bar the hedges which still have some maturing to do.  After so much hard work, hope and dreams, we now have a garden that feels like an established, proper, grown up garden and not one in the making.

Time, I think, to sit back with a cool drink and enjoy it along with our welcome guests of bees and butterflies.

Loose and lovely

The garden is unshackled, set free, gone loose and become wanton.  The relative formality of May and June is long past and the regiments and brigades of Allium heads dismissed or gone to seed.  The Foxgloves have also gone to seed which we will collect and propagate providing us with more plants for the garden.

Now the season has moved on and the stars of the show are roses.  Wedding Day crowns the arch from the vegetable garden into the orchard and looks romantically lovely.

But goodness it has been hot.  We have experienced temperatures of 30 degrees plus and the garden has basked in searing heat and light.  The Lavender has loved it of course and is now all out and providing a sea of blues and purples, whites and mauve.

Monardas abound and stand tall with their shaggy caps in reds (Gardenview Scarlet and Panorama Red Shades) and pinks (didyma Pink Supreme).  Soon will be the time for the cone flowers and I expectantly wait for the many Echincea purpurea Magnus we planted to show and display their finest.  Plate-like heads of Achilleas too are everywhere while Sedums are swelling daily.  Helenium Wyndley and Moerheim Beauty are also now appearing in clumps dotted around the beds too.

Summer is here, real heat has arrived.  Now is the time to store the moment in our memory bank or take pictures to look back on in the depths of Winter where we will warm ourselves with thoughts of long, hot Summer days.

Ebb and flow

The garden is changing, shifting shape and form.  Late Spring has ebbed away and only the bobbing heads of Alliums, all green now, reminds us of the contrasting purples and whites of a few weeks ago.

Summer is flowing through the veins of the garden and as we pass the Solstice, a new road on this garden's journey has begun.  There are hints of hotter colours to come alongside the white, pink and purple of Foxgloves which stand tall and statuesque above the beds and borders like the spires of country churches in a landscape.

Sisyrinchium striatum stabs its way out of the borders while Papaver orientale 'Patty's Plum' lays across them like scrunched up purple gift wrappings.

These are high times to be remembered and stored.  Taking pictures of the garden helps and will see us through next Winter bringing back fond memories of all too fleeting moments.

This Sunday (30 June) is our last public opening of the year in support of the National Garden Scheme.  It will be an opportunity to share the garden at a precise moment in time.  But for us and the garden, the road goes on and around the next corner is the Lavender displays.  These tall and fresh green flower shoots will soon be many shades of blue, purple, white and pink.  Many Lavenders are in pots dotted around the garden so these too will add to the theme.  But as we past this Solstice moment, I cannot help but look back with a small degree of sadness at an array of plants that we will now not see again until next year.

Layer Cake

The garden has rippling colours of raspberry, white, purple and cream running through it like a layer cake and I want to take a bite out of it as it looks so lovely!

Alliums Purple Sensation, the tall white Mount Everest and low Nigrum, Foxgloves in purple and cream, the Oriental Poppy 'Patty's Plum' interplay and mix to create a wonderful, textured painting.

This is the high point of the garden in late Spring and early Summer.  The green so fresh, the colours so soothing, the overall effect quite beautiful.

For many of the plants, this is still only their second season as most were planted in Spring of 2012.  But all have taken well, matured and flourished. 

To wander around the garden at different times of the day sees the colour palette change and shift.  In the evening in particular the colours intensify and become more vivid.  In the morning, the garden is fresh and dew laden.

But already we can feel the footsteps of high Summer approaching.  A month away from the solstice, a gradual shift will now take place and the garden will transition with the purples and white being replaced with hotter and more vivid colours such as orange, lime yellow, deep red and the blue/purple/lilac shades of Lavender.

For now at least we must enjoy the moment and eat our fill of the visual delights.

On a sunny day in May

Yesterday was our very first opening of the garden here at Ordnance House.  The weather was fine, the sun shone and the garden basked in the warmth of a lovely day.  We were lucky that the weather gods were smiling down upon us.

To everyone who came to see the garden and to those that gave up their time to help, Vanessa and I are very thankful and appreciative.  The National Garden Scheme and the support they provide to so many good causes has also benefitted and this can only be for the good . 

We do hope you liked the garden which I have written so much about these past months.  It is in fact 20 months since work first began here and plants were placed in the ground with great hope and much anticipation.  I realise that this is still a young garden but I think it has good bones as they say.  I am sure it will improve with age.

Sadly, the only Allium to make an appearance was our old friend and favourite 'Purple Sensation'.  But only just.  The Allium display is probably around a week or so away which is about as late as can be and quite unheard of.

We will open again on Sunday, 30 June from 11am to 5pm when I hope we will be as lucky with the weather as we were yesterday.  Hopefully the garden will have even more flower and colour to enjoy.  But for now, we can only look back and be thankful for how lucky we were to have benefitted from such wonderful weather and lovely visitors.

Unlatching the gate

In a week's time on Sunday, 26 May between 1pm and 5pm in the afternoon we will open our garden gates for the first time in support of the National Garden Scheme.  It looks like the Alliums will be in attendance but the Foxgloves  may be a little late and miss the party altogether.

Opening the gates of your garden can be daunting and as we only moved here two years ago (almost to the day as it happens!) we are very aware of the shortcomings of the garden and indeed of ourselves as gardeners. 

But the garden does have a fine bone structure and in time will be, I am sure, quite beautiful.  It is very young but already it shows promise and on a fine day and in the right light, it does look captivating.  But I am sure most gardeners can say such things about their own gardens with equal meaning.

Gardens are a very private space.  A place to escape to, to enjoy, to relax in.  For me, well I just love being outside in the fresh air coexisting with nature and creating planting schemes using the myriad of plant forms, shapes and textures.  All of which are very private things of course.  So a National Garden Scheme opening comes with joy at being able to share the garden with people who enjoy gardens as much as you do while being balanced by a large slice of trepidation on the other. 

If you have taken the time to read this entry, please try and visit for the opening is for a very good cause.  There will be sales of wonderful plants, scrummy cakes and teas and I hope, a lovely garden to walk around.





 

Natural rhythm

Throughout March and April the garden has been some three weeks behind where it should have been due to the cold.  The race is on to catch up and the garden seems to change before our eyes from one moment to the next.  Now we have more seasonal temperatures and lengthened days, growth abounds everywhere and a more natural rhythm has started to return.

Good job too for we open the garden gate for the very first time in support of the National Garden Scheme in less than a month's time. 

We have Allium leaves everywhere, sharp blades of green sticking up in rivers of planting most noteably in the central round bed that occupies the very centre of the garden.  This has the tall white Allium Mt. Everest along with Purple Sensation and another white Allium, Nigrum.  I cannot wait for the raspberry ripple display to finally arrive. 

But for the time being, Tulips of all kinds dazzle and catch the eye.  Hummocks of green testify that many plants are twice the size they were last year and reassure that the Summer display will be better than ever.  The Lavender is turning a fresh green and preparing for its flowering season while buds on trees have burst into leaf.  The orchard is awash with blossom from Apple to Cherry and Bluebells nod their heads gently.  The frothy green serrated leaves of Papaver orientale 'Patty's Plum', dot themselves around the main herbaceous bed biding their time before they throw out their exquisit and wildly exotic flower heads   It's a time of promise and trembling expectation. 

The vagaries of a dysfunctional Spring

Weather dominates everything in the garden at present.  From the raw and bitter cold of the past few weeks to brighter and warmer conditions these past few days to today's wind and heavy rain.  Spring is late, the garden held in check.

After an encouragingly light, bright and positively hopeful morning, just when I was about to plant out our potatoes, the heavens opened and a wind careered in.  A task I had been looking forward to and had delayed until a break in the weather, turned into a sodden labour of sullen toil. 

No matter, all the first early potatoes are in and this year we are trialling a range of varieties including - Rocket (which did very well here last year), Winston, Pentland Javelin and the second early, Charlotte.  We will also try the early main crop variety Harlequin as well as Mayan Gold which comes highly recommended.

Our dog celebrates his 9th birthday today and as he sat warm and dry on his comfortable bed, he must have looked out at me through the french doors and wondered what on earth I was doing out in such awful conditions.  By the end of the process I was completely sodden and bedraggled but the mission was triumphantly accomplished.  I can now move on to the increasingly long list of tasks still undone this dysfunctional and confusing Spring.

Late Expectations

A vindictive and bitterly cold easterly wind has been an unwelcome guest in the garden for two weeks now.  The garden's procession into Spring has been stopped in its tracks and when I look back at my garden journal from a year ago we are well behind where we should be for this time of year. 

No matter, Spring will come and soon the buds that abound in the beds and borders will burst forth and the garden will catch up in double quick time.

I have to say that the Hellebores are looking lovely, occupying centre stage as the stars of the show.  Meanwhile, we have been busy mulching the borders and erecting posts with tensioned wire to support the double-U apple cordons which are maturing well.  In fact all the trees in the orchard seem to be doing well and we have high hopes for a decent fruit crop later in the year.

It is also the time of year I scarify the lawns, getting as much moss out as I can so as to allow the grass to grow more freely.  This tends to be on our north facing lawns at the front of the house.

But this is the time of year that offers the most promise, which is the reason why our bitter easterly wind is so frustrating.  I want to wring every moment from this time of year, especially as the clocks have sprung forward and we get that extra hour of light in the evening.  For us to be held back by such a cold Spring this year is a real hinderence.  But I have been able to buy small plants in trays which I have potted on into bigger pots and placed in our new and rather smart cold frames.  They are doing well and this stock of plants will be planted out once the beds and borders fill out and I can see gaps and opportunities to add more colour.

But for now, all I can really do is work away in the potting shed keeping myself busy while wrapping up warm and venturing out in to the garden to carry out the most mundane of chores.  Roll on the warmer weather.

Miss Katherine

From the very outset, Lavender was always going to be one of the signature plants here at Ordnance House.  I confess that two years ago I was a novice when it came to Lavender.  Our old garden at Linden Barn was mostly north facing on cold, heavy, damp clay soil.  Not conditions condusive to growing Lavender and any efforts we did make to grow it ended miserably.

But at Ordnance House, with its light bright south facing garden and sharp draining soil, it was obvious that Lavender would have a large part to play in the new garden.  I also think it fair to say that I have become slightly obsessive about Lavender too.  I have become something of a collector and whenever I have the chance to add to our collection I do so.  The new western beds are an example.  I excavated these at the turn of the year.  The colour scheme is pinks and dark reds and I was keen to add a Lavender to line both sides of the grass pathway that splits and divides the two beds.  I hunted around and was recommended 'Miss Katherine' which has a strong pink colour and a pronounced scent.  Twelve plants have been purchased and planted this weekend and the results will be seen in Summer.

We have many Lavender plants now.  Many varieties were planted in late 2011 in our main Lavender bed.  Row upon row curve in a ripple outward from the central round bed which is at the very centre of the garden and around which the whole garden design revolves.  Before a single Lavender plant went in the ground I was determined to research how I could have the longest possible flowering season and the widest array of colours (pink to white to blue to lilac).  I also wanted to gain a genuine understanding of how to care and tend the plants and this included the right time to prune.

Another ambition was to have as many unusual Lavenders as possible, hence the use of a wide range of intermedia varieties which you seldom see in conventional garden centres.  Richard Norris at Long Barn, a Lavender specialist near Alresford, has been immensely helpful, supportive and a great source of information and knowledge.

Now we are awash with Lavender.  They intermingle with stone and box balls in our parterre.  They line pathways proving perspective and a sense of journey.  They are used in pots to punctuate certain spaces.  They work well with the colour of our house as a backdrop.  But best of all is that they are thriving and certainly love the conditions here at Ordnance House.  As they say, the right plant in the right conditions.

Green balls on a distant mound

In the south west corner of the garden sits a mound.  This overlooks the garden and upon it stands two majestic Beech trees of considerable age.

It's a lovely spot to take in the garden to the south of the house.  We had a bench made out of off-cuts of an Ash tree by Ray a neighbour and trained tree surgeon.  He did a good job too and the bench he made is one of my favourite pieces of garden furniture.

But the bench has looked rather lonely and forlorn since Ray made it last Summer.  I had planted a scattering of crocuses in front of it in the Autumn but the bench needed something to anchor it to the mound and give it a sense of place.  Last week we decided to plant six green box balls in a geometric pattern in front of the bench and these were planted on the weekend.

Over time these will get bigger and look more substantial but now the bench has company and looks all the better for it.

Powers of recovery

The garden has had to withstand almost continuous rain, heavy snowfall and high winds.  Terracotta pots have been damaged by frost or blown over and broken in gusty and destructive winds.  But the plants have come through well, are growing healthy and now showing the first signs of Spring.  Light levels are increasing as the days slowly lengthen and temperatures, recently at least, are climbing.

The garden is showing remarkable powers of recovery after all that has been thrown at it over the past few months.  Unlike our old garden, with its heavy clay soil making it impossible to work on the garden for long periods of time during Winter months, Ordnance House is remarkably dry due to the open southerly aspect and sharp drainage.

All of which is good news as we have lots to do in the garden.  The Hellebores are nodding their elegantly beautiful heads in the sunshine and it's time to prune the Wisteria back to two buds and cut the Clematis viticella purpurea plena elegans ruthlessly to the ground at the foot of all the rusted arches up which it grows throughout the garden.  In fact, we have just erected two more of these arches on the short stretch of path which leads to our rusted frame which makes up our garden arbour near the vegetable garden.  Over these arches we have planted the same variety of Clematis as well as four Bleu Magenta climbing roses.  The combination of Clematis and climbing rose, both being so close in colour and form, should work well while providing a framework for the pathway.

I also plnated many more Foxgloves in the central round border (Giant Spotted and Foxy) as well as Camassia caerulea along the length of the long border, which is amongst the dampest parts of the garden.  In the newly extended part of the original border near our newly installed rusted arches, I planted a smattering of Poppies (Patty's Plum) and a Geum called 'rivale'.  More plants will be added to this border soon as we have plans to make this our cutting border.

I have also decided to plant up many pots with Lavender to showcase our increasing collection.  Varieties include Imperial Gem, Grosso, Blue Ice, Royal Purple and Melissa Lilac.  This should also cut down on the amount of watering for the Lavender should thrive in the dry conditions of a terracotta pot with gritty compost mix.  It should also complement the garden and the backdrop of the house. 

Meanwhile I also managed to turn all our compost bins which is a task, I confess, I have been putting off for some weeks now as it is such hard work!

We also have new cold frames which Vanessa has been staining in our preferred colour palette which I call 'Ordnance House grey'.  We will assemble them next weekend.  But to finish off this weekend I have cleared the vegetable beds ahead of the Spring planting.  Each raised bed was cleared, dug over and fed and I am now revelling in the crisp clean linear lines of the vegetable garden which, although completely empty is, for me, curiously satisfying.

So, fair weather has injected us with new vigour and stirred us from our late Winter malaise.  There is a spring again in our garden steps!

Winter's duvet

The garden slumbers under a 6 inch white duvet this morning.  Only the lumps and bumps of plants and garden structures provide reference of what lies beneath.

Heavy snow rolled in from the south west yesterday and layer upon layer covered the garden.  Dean Hill to the south looks Alpine and the fields surrounding us stretch out like crisp linen sheets into the grey haze.

The branches of the trees are scratchy dark lines against the pale subdued sky and all signs of work carried out last weekend, creating the new western beds, is hidden from view.

It's a time to rest up and take stock.  I can only hope the thaw comes soon and I can get out into the garden again and continue my checklist of tasks.  But for now the order of the day is a hot chocolate and a thick woolly sweater.

Hard labour

Like most people occasionally life's cares and woes lay heavy on me.  My remedy is long periods of repetative, systematic hard work in the garden.  In recent weeks I have focused these labours on the lawn on the western elevation of the house.  I confess that I have held off starting work on the creation of new borders for this part of the garden, along with a completely new planting plan, because I dreaded what I might find under this lawned area.

In Summer this lawn dried out quickly and never looked healthy.  We had poked and proded the lawn and in large areas the fork had hit something solid just beneth the surface.  But in recent weeks I had decided to bite the bullet and get on with what I knew would be a long and very hard task in creating and preparing new planting beds.

I excavated some test pits and straightaway hit solid concrete.  Out came the pickaxe and fortunately I was able to smash my way through to find chalk beneath.  So clearly this was not the base of an old garage or some such structure.  First task was to strip the turf.  Crazily areas of the lawn had been laid on top of an area of concrete.  My assumption is that this was some kind of temporary work surface that the builders had used or even part of an access drive to the rear of the house.  Either way, breaking up this area took some time and a great deal of effort.  Then it was onto the breaking up of the whole area of former lawn with fork and pickaxe. 

Eventually the area was cleared and large amounts of compost laid to prepare for the planting.  I have used the old trick of making the paths wider at one end and narrower at the other to create the cheat on the perspective which appears to make the paths look longer.  This new area of the garden we have called the western beds and over the next few weeks we will start the process of planting them with a variety of plants creating a different colour pallette to the rest of the garden.  It is an important area as it is the first sight you see when entering Ordnance House.  It also creates a new line of sight to the Orchard Room on the far side of the garden.  But for now it is time to recover from the massive effort put in during recent weeks.  The planting will be the easy bit!