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.