The Great British Garden Revival

The second series of 'The Great British Garden Revival' begins on BBC Two - Tuesday, 6th January, 2015.  We hope to see the garden in Episode 5 (scheduled for Monday, 12th January) which specifically features Lavender and is presented by Diarmuid Gavin.  It will take me away from these dark and gloomy Winter days to another much sunnier, warmer and pleasant place!

See Episode 5 (Lavender and Knot Gardens):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-2z42Krp0k

In quiet repose

There is a quiet solemnity about the garden at this time of year which I like greatly.  None of the frenetic rush and bustle of late Spring and Summer.  The garden is in quiet repose.  Mornings often see mist hang in the air drifting up to our hedge line from across the fields that surround us.  We are like a ship on a ghostly white sea.

Apart from the lengthening hours of darkness, the hours that are spent in the garden are even more treasured.  Now that all the hundreds of bulbs have been planted, the borders cut back, shrubs and bushes shaped and made tidy, there is a restful almost monastic peace about the place.  This serenity is far removed from the growing mayhem that is the build up to Christmas and the neon lights of the towns and cities.  But I like the garden all the more for being a refuge away from the crowds of shoppers.  The greatest gift for me at Christmas is one of time and a luxury present it is too when the majority of my time each week is at work.

I am particularly looking forward to the time I will have this Christmas to begin work on creating a floor for the Orchard Room.  I will replace the grass, much dried out and worn, with a more solid base which will look so much better.  The hard labour will do me no harm while keeping me active and away from the sofa and television for a while which seems to be the habitat of most at this time of year.  I just hope that the weather will be kind.

But that is for a month or so away.  In between times I can now just potter around the garden attending to the odd task or chore and letting myself drift along just like the garden seems to be doing.  Quietly, peacefully, serenely.

The check list

It may feel like the end of the gardening year but in so many respects it is the beginning of the next one.  This is a time of year for a check list and we have been slowing working our way through ours each weekend.

Hedges all around the garden trimmed - check.  Shrubs including all roses cut and shaped - check.  Garden furniture cleaned and stored - check.  Cuttings taken (the Penstemons are doing great) - check.  Central round bed cut back and many more Alliums added to enhance the display - check.  Tender plants in pots placed undercover - check.  Last month all box balls and lavender trimmed and shaped - check.  Compost bins turned and processed compost laid - check.  All lawns edged - check.

The main herbaceous bed is next on the check list for many plants need cutting back and dividing.  Plants will be moved or potted on to sell at garden openings next year.  Then comes the planting of hundreds of bulbs which sit awaiting planting at present in their netted sacks.

The clocks go backwards next weekend making our time in the garden all too short now each weekend.  Less time means fewer items can be ticked on the check list.  But at least the hard work done now will mean that we will reap the rewards next Spring and that in itself will get me through Winter.

Time flies

This garden is young.  It has matured suprisingly quickly and it does look much older than it is.  I know that this rate of growth has also suprised many people who have visited the garden during both last year and this. We are just 3 years in and are where we were in our old garden at Linden Barn after 5 or 6. This accelerated evolution has meant that the garden became photogenic much sooner too. We have already had some professional garden
photographers visit and take some beautiful pictures which have appeared in the gardening press both in the UK and abroad.

But I confess that once a series of pictures are taken it is all too easy to lose track. In most cases we know roughly when and where a series of pictures might appear and it is always a joy to see them on the printed page. But sometimes an article appears which we knew nothing about and that is the case with the German title 'Garden Style' this Summer. We had no idea that we had been featured in the magazine let alone on the cover and this came as a suprise, be it a nice one of course.

Looking back through the pages of a magazine at your own garden on sun filled days of stunning colour and contrast is surreal. For one thing I find it hard to rationalise that the garden laid out on the pages is our own. Such is the skills of garden photographers for they capture a vista and view that seems strangely unfamilier.

At this time of year, with the ballance of day and night time hours juddering on a pivot, these snapshots of a sunnier time have a particular allure. I suspect that as this pivot tilts now toward the dark of Winter I may find myself delving into gardening magazines even more than usual. I expect that I shall paw through the pages of many beautiful gardens, taking thoughts and ideas which I can use and incorporate within our own space. That is the beauty of a magazine.

Short back and sides

It's time to give the Lavender a short back and sides!  We grow both angustifolia and x intermedia varieties here in the garden at Ordnance House and I have been gradually cutting back the angustifolias these past couple of weeks.  Mid August is when I start this process and then, around this time, I move on to the x intermedias.  I cut back hard and effectively treat the plants as topiary creating small globes that dot themselves all around the beds and borders.

This dramatically changes the dynamic of the garden especially in the main Lavender bed close to the house.  For months, the Lavender has created drifts of differing colours and hues.  Once cut back the garden shifts to a more architectural feel and the underlying structure and framework of the planting is laid bare.  I quite like this change but then again I do fall on the side of order and symmetry.

But I confess that the one question I am asked more than any other about the Lavender we grow is how to prune it. There appears to be a real fear associated with pruning Lavender but once understood, it is a simple process.  Like most plants, Lavender responds well to hard pruning.  Cut them now and they have time to put on new growth (around 3cm or so) which will quickly appear and help them through the coming Winter.  I cut right back the new growth but not into the old wood.  I try to create a ball or globe shape and it has to be said that some Lavender forms this shape quite naturally especially the x intermedia varieties.  Others seem to want to grow quite leggy but the same pruning principle applies.  Get a globe shape in your mind's eye and prune back to it keeping some new growth from which the plant will regenerate.

I suspect that there are two fundamental reasons why people struggle to grow Lavender.  The first is that they do not keep on top of the pruning and the plant gets woody. It is essential that you keep on top of this pruning regime each and every year.  The second reason is slightly more fundamental and that is the soil type and conditions of your garden.  Lavender loves really sharp draining, poor soil conditions with full sun and an open aspect.  They hate being shaded out and do not do well in a conventional herbaceous border.

At Ordnance House we are on a hill with a poor chalky soil and are entirely open to the sun all day. Lavender just loves it here. It you have a north facing site on clay and have a soggy soil that gets cold in Winter, do not plant out Lavender. That is not to say you cannot have Lavender for if you have an area which does get some sun, then why not try planting up some pots. I have planted many pots with all sorts of Lavender, some quite rare which I treat as specimens. Call it a collection if you will. But Lavender does well in pots. It does need watering so do not think you can just plant it in a pot and leave it, it will need a water around once a week but will do well and thrive in the sharp draining conditions. Just make sure you use lots of grit.

So there is always a place for a Lavender plant in every garden. Enjoy the colour, enjoy the scent and enjoy the bees and butterflies that are attracted to it.

An apple a day

The apple trees in the orchard are groaning under the weight of their fruits.  I have never known such a good crop in the time we have been here.  The branches bow under the weight of apples on the trees and the double-U cordons which divide the garden from the orchard.  The orchard is now established and thriving.  The bountiful crop may be due to this being such a hot Summer. 


Certainly the herbaceous planting seems to have gone to seed much earlier this year.  With the nights beginning to draw in and cooling temperatures, it does feel more like a typical September here. But I have my Lavender to extend my Summer and I have begun pruning back into neat, round balls my angustifolia varieties.  These are now faded, their flowers a pale grey reflection of the intense blues of high season.


But now is also a time to plan for next year.  We will be busy moving and dividing plants this Autumn and Winter.  Changing areas, fine tuning others.  But for now we still have time to enjoy the fading joys of what has been a long, hot Summer.

A moment in time

One year ago on a clear sunny morning Abigail Rex, a professional garden photographer based in Brighton, drove the long journey along the South Coast to the Hampshire/Wiltshire border to take a selection of pictures of our garden here at Ordnance House.   


She arrived very early at the dawn of a new day with the mist still hanging over the fields and the garden awakening from its slumber. The selection of pictures she took that morning captured a moment in time.  I suspect that is the case with all gardens; that they are merely a moment in time destined to move on, to change and to never to remain the same.


The pictures Abby took  that morning appear in The English Garden magazine (August issue) which has just been published.  They are lovely but then again I am biased of course.  They are a pictorial memory which I will keep with me for a long time and on future dark Winter nights will help provide me with some much needed cheer.

Thank you Abby.

Bunches of scent

In late 2011 when I decided upon planting Lavender here at Ordnance House I confess that there were two key reasons.  One was the very sunny and sharp draining site that the house and garden occupy.  The other was purely aesthetic.  Lavender, in all its many shades, just looks lovely against the backdrop of the house with its chalky white walls and blue grey roof of slates.

Now, almost three years on, the Lavender has thrived in its harshly dry conditions and does look as pretty as a picture against the house.  But I also wanted to plant interesting and unusual varieties of Lavender.  Unable to grow the plant at our former home and garden with its north facing aspect and heavy clay, I confess that I took on the role of a student of Lavender with great enthusiasm. 

The garden centres are, of course, full of Hidcote and Munstead - not surprising for both are marvellous Lavenders.  But I became increasingly interested in x intermedia (Lavandin).  These have longer flowering stems and a more pointed, conical flower head.  They also have, in my view, the very best scent and colour evoking a feeling of Provence here in this English garden.
  

I have found them very hardy too with no losses in the garden which is maybe not so surprising as they are hardy to around -15°C.  x intermedia are a sterile hybrid of angustifolia subspecies angustifolia and latifolia (Spike Lavender). The name intermedia simply means ‘between’ and although the common name for the hybrid is Lavandin they are usually, if somewhat confusingly, referred to as Lavender. 

The flowers appear in July and flower their socks off until August, although some continue well into autumn.  The great thing is that this is the most popular species grown for oil extraction, higher yielding than angustifolia, but producing lower quality camphoraceous oils, used in cheaper perfumes, soaps, cosmetics and detergents. It is also widely used for drying and the grains can be stripped off and used for scenting pot-pourri. 

Now that the Lavender beds are mature I have ventured into drying Lavender this year, cutting bunches, tying them with raffia and hanging them upside down in whatever cool dry place I can find out of direct sunlight.  As well as making everywhere smell terrific they also look wonderful too. 

Indian Carpets

People who visit the garden have occassionally asked me what my favourite part is and I confess that I never really give a straight answer.  The garden is a living, changing thing that moves between seasons, shifting in colour and structure.  So the parts of the garden which could be considered as my favourites also change as seasons come and go.

But right now I have a love of what is actually the newest part of the garden.  It is an area we call 'The Western Beds'.  As the name implies, this area is to the west of the main house and is effectively two large beds dissected by a curving grass path.

During the Christmas holidays of 2012 and early 2013 I spent my time creating these beds.  It was hard work for the builders had left a large area of concrete and simply turfed over it!  I could never quite understand why this grass looked so poor and shabby and so had resorted to digging small pits all over this so called lawn to investigate.  That is when I found the concrete.  So with a pickaxe and Vanessa's invaluable help with a wheel barrow, I took off the turf and set about smashing my way through the slab.  Yes, it was utterly exhausting but in the end these two beds were created and during the Spring and Summer of last year I planted out a new colour scheme.

In the rest of the garden the predominent colours of late Spring and early Summer are purple and white but the Western Beds have always intentionally been planted using red and white and all the colours and tones in between.  I had purchased trays of Dianthus barbatus 'Indian Carpet Mixed' and these looked great last year.  But they over Wintered well and have developed into what the name might suggest, a magnificent Indian Carpet that spreads across both borders.  They look lovely and for the time being are my favourite part of the garden.

May Days

It is now 31 months since the first planting phase took place in this garden.  It was hardly a garden back then in August 2011 of course, just an open space, blank and bland.  But now a real garden exists and thrives and May is the month when its maturing plants come to the fore with promise and great beauty.  It is a month that provides a unique combination of freshness and colour.  Everything is so new - the leaves so intensely green, the light so soft and forgiving, the flowers young and unfaded.  The heat of Summer and the full glare of intense sun is a way off.  May is about the here and now and the much longed for.


Wandering around the garden I can see that the herbaceous planting is now mature (note to myself that next year we will need to start dividing up the clumps), maturity is coming to shrubs, trees and hedges.  The trees are getting taller and with that will come a change to the light in the garden as their leaves create shadow and filters.  Hedges are adding division, perspective and compartmentalisation of spaces.  The Lavender are now cobbles of green that pepper the beds they are planted in.
Their time is Summer so at present their role is one of extras in the performance.


But my excitement, at this time of year, is always focused on the Alliums which flow through the garden in great drifts.  They are my personal favourite.  At the beginning of May they are merely large pointed shafts of leaf with green rods and small developing balls atop.  But by the month end these will be a bobbing array in purple shades and white washing across the garden and reaching their ultimate show in the central round border under the canopy of Hawthorn and its white May flower.  This is the very centre of the garden around which every bed and border revolves.  Within the Alliums grow Foxgloves (also white and purple) which will take on the baton and run with it well into Summer.


The temperature can still be cool at this time of year but it is generally benign.  It is the start of the season with all the promise and excitement that brings.  But this also brings with it our first opening for the National Garden Scheme (NGS) and this year we open between 1pm and 5pm on Sunday 25th May.  Tea, cakes and a garden unfolding.  What's not to love!

(Picture of main herbaceous bed taken by Nicola Stocken in early June 2013)

Pressing the pause button

In the dark of Winter I dream of this time of year.  I imagine the garden awakening and coming to life.  But these are long dull days that stretch on and time passes slowly.  Then light begins to come back and warmth with it.  Before you know it the clocks have sprung forward and Spring begins to slowly take hold.   

Then, around this time of year and with the sap rising, everything in the garden begins a growth spurt.  As I return home from work each evening and tour the garden I see that it has changed.  Plants seem twice the size, full of succulent buds and unfurling leaf.  

It is at this precise moment that I want to reach out for an imaginary remote control.  To pause the moment.  To stop and enjoy it before it escapes.  I know that from here on in the garden will continue to accelerate, speed up, become a blur of growth and frenzy of foliage and colour.   And before you know it the delicious anticipation is gone all too soon.   

I promise myself each and every year that I will stop, take stock, reflect and enjoy these days.  But my curse is that each weekend when I get to really spend time in the garden doing the very things I love and live for, I am a flurry of activity and haste.   

I must stop this.  I must press that pause button.  I must go into slow motion mode and enjoy these days.  They are, after all, what I have dreamed of for months and they are here now to savour.

 

Natural resources

I confess that I like to use natural materials sourced locally wherever I can in the garden.  Hazel is one of Hampshire's great natural resources but it is such a pity that such large areas of woodland are no longer managed properly. 


The hazel I have used to make low hurdles around the garden comes from a managed woodland south of Stockbridge.  My contact, Jonathan, coppices the hazel and the woodland he manages is beautifully cultivated and he tells me alive with many varieties of rare butterflies in Summer.  An environment managed by man but in complete harmony with nature.  What's not to like about that!


Anyway, having had my delivery of hazel rods I spent a most enjoyable afternoon on Saturday weaving a low hurdle fence to divide off the original border from the Vegetable Garden.  I am a complete amateur but even I can make a decent rustic fence!

Time for a mulch

The weather is lovely.  The sun shining and what's not to like about this time of year with a Summer ahead and promise in every swelling bud and unfurling small leaf.

But it is also time for a good thick mulch of compost to lay across the beds and borders like a blanket of dark brown snowfall.  This will supress weeds and seal in moisture while also making the beds look neat and tidy for months to come.  It also improves the soil composition and long term that can only be good on our chalky fast draining soil.

The delivery of municipal garden waste arrived on Friday and Saturday was spent with me barrowing the compost back and forth to the beds while Vanessa spread it around amongst the newly emerging plants.

Allium leaves are now in abundance - Purple Sensation, Nigrum and Mount Everest leaves can now be seen in drifts amongst the beds.  There is a freshness in the air and a clear crisp light now and the days are lengthening. 

Spring is in the air!

The English Garden Magazine - Garden Tour

The garden here at Ordnance House has been included on a prestigious garden tour offered by The English Garden magazine titled - 'Hampshire's Hidden Gems'.

Details of the tour can be found on page 27 of the March issue and online at:
 http://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/home/exclusive_garden_holiday_offer_1_3256664


The tour dates are 2 to 5 June and eight gardens will be featured within the Test and Itchen Valleys.  The trip looks terrific, but I confess that it is rather daunting to be included amongst an array of such fascinating, beautiful and incredibly interesting gardens.  I only hope we come up to scratch! This is, after all, still a very new garden.  But it has a tale to tell.  Of our hard labours, our success and our failures.  At least we can provide a narrative of its conception and creation.

All gardens have a story to tell of course and I am sure that each of the lovely gardens included as part of the tour will have their own intriguing tale.

Back to the garden!

I really do think it is time to get back out into the garden.  High winds, driving rain, flooding and all the usual Yuletide mayhem have deprived me of the time I really wanted to spend in the garden.  But I did manage to get out and divide and move some plants. I have taken out all the Nepeta 'Six Hill's Giant' from the main avenue in the back garden and replanted them up our steep bank at the front.  I replaced these with more Nepeta - 'Walkers' Low' which although similar is less sprawling. No money needed to change hands as I had enough 'Walker's Low' elsewhere in the garden to divide up and move.  I even managed some mowing as the grass has continued to grow due to the mild temperatures.  Of course having such very sharp drainage also helps and means I can actually cut the grass at this time of year, something that would have been impossible in our old garden.

This weekend was all about adding some colour which I yearn for at this time of year.  I had decided that we needed a couple of tall planters next to the front door and so purchased some inexpensive galvanised florists pots.  They were rather bright and shiny when they arrived but I managed to sand them down and coat them with toilet bowl cleaner which I left overnight and this had the effect of aging them.  Drill some drainage holes, place some crocks in the bottom, fill with potting compost and plant some cream Primroses and delicious Hellebores ('Snow Dance') - and job done! I expect we will have more bad weather this Winter but at least we are now on the way to Spring.  Days will get longer, the weather slowly milder while I will be able to spend more time in the garden.