Adding value

I always tend to be drawn to plants, shrubs and trees that add value. Plants that flower longer, have extended seasonal interest and which come and come again.  At this dreary, dull, dank and gloomy time of year there is no better example of adding value than a Viburnum.  We grow Viburnum Tinus around the garden as a backdrop to beds and borders, but we also grow it as standards.  These lolly pops, dotted around the garden, are now bedecked with abundant clusters of deep pink buds opening to small starry white flowers.  They are lovely and penetrate the dark days of winter.

My favourite is 'Eve Price' whose flowers are followed by perfectly formed small dark blue berries.  But the great value is that Viburnum Tinus looks good all year round as the leathery dark green leaves create a perfect hedge or standard which in turn provide punctuation marks and eye catchers around the garden throughout the year. 

We have grown them in our old garden on heavy clay and north facing and now here at Ordnance House, chalky and sharp draining with a south facing aspect.  They are terrific value and completely adaptable. 

I have also been using the flowers to add interest to our Christmas wreaths as their delicacy sparkles alongside the berries of holly and other evergreens.  There you go, the perfect gift for Christmas.  A plant that is long lived, does well on all soils and all conditions.  That's what I call adding value.  Go buy one as a gift for someone this Christmas or why not treat yourself?
  

Every cloud

They say that every cloud has a silver lining.  Well, it is hard to imagine that the leaden grey skies and sullen clouds of the past weeks have any kind of silver lining.  It has been dank, dark, wet and windy and getting out into the garden of late has been difficult.  But if there is a bright side then our sharp draining soil has helped provide small windows of opportunity to be able to enjoy the garden and work in it.  When these windows open, we are able to cut back and clear the beds and borders allowing in light and air flow which provides good ventilation.

All the hedges have now been cut and shaped and look sharp and neat.  There is a feeling of order and good housekeeping.  All the bulbs are in the ground or potted up.  Everything is put to bed to sleep ready to awake again in Spring. But even with such slumber I can see the buds appearing and the shoots showing.  Sure signs of a new year with the promise that brings. 

Amazingly out Nepeta (Walker's Low) still looks lovely, forming the edge of our central path that disects the garden.  The ornamental pears (Chanticleer) still look great with their green leaves clinging on and extending the season.  They seem almost evergreen and are amongst my favourite trees.

But my tonic for these dark short days are gerdening magazines and books supplemented by the moving feast of colour from gardening programmes on television.  These vibrant jewels on dark Winter evenings are a real treasue for me.  They are the injection of horticulture that helps me survive the long Winter.

Time travel

The clocks have fallen back, the leaves are beginning to fall.  The nights are longer and the time we have to work in the garden has become short. 

We are busy planting bulbs - Tulip, Narcissus, Crocus, Anemone.  But at this time of year you really do have to visualise what these small bulbs will look like when in flower next spring.  We plant them in drifts weaving their way through beds, borders and established plants.  Not everything has died back or been cut to the ground so a picture is possible to develop in your mind.  But there is a feeling of transportation from now into next Spring when planting bulbs.

But the garden has certainly shifted.  The rain blasts the leaves, the wind strips them away.  Such is the change of seasons.  However, the garden still has colour and on a sunny day a most pleasant place to potter and enjoy.  That is the great thing about gardening.  It takes you outside when instincts seem to want you to stay indoors.

Weather patterns

The seasons are shifting and the autumnal weather patterns are setting in.  The nights are extending, the days shortening.  The garden moves with the seasonal change like a vessel upon a sea.

We are cutting back the last of the Lavender, the x intermedia varieties such as Grosso, Sussex and Edelweiss.  The Lavender angustifolias in beds and pots are done and form nice crisp balls now reacting to the clipping by a flush of small new grey leaves.

The next big job is the cut back and shaping of the hedges and shrubs making them clean and crisp for Winter.

But the abundant crop of fruit is a real bonus.  It is the best crop of fruit we have had here by far and a feast of apples, pears and plums.  We have gorged ourselves!

Living in the moment

The Lavender still looks lovely, the colour palette of later Summer mixes the vibrant and the subtle.  But times are chaning again in the garden and the days imperceptibly shortening.  It is time to live in the moment.  No planning for next year, no point looking back at earlier times.  It is a time to simply sit and watch, stroll and gaze at the garden.  Everything is as it is and should be accepted as such.  This is a time to sit back and relax.

Soon enough we will be cutting and shaping, pruning and clearing.  But I rather like the relaxed feel of the garden at this time of year and its sheer abundance of produce.  We have so many apples this year and for the first time pears too.  I am surprised by the amount of fruit we are now producing.

But we must do something about the soft fruit and create a proper fruit cage that is easy to get into and out of.  Our rather feeble frames and netting is ineffective and unattractive.  A job for the future I think.  But for now we will enjoy out long labours as Summer greacefully fades away.

Afloat on a sea of Lavender

We look out over a sea of Lavender.  Above it flutter moving clouds of butterflies while in and about it, busying themselves, is a humming, hurried workforce of bees of all sorts and kinds.  Our main Lavender bed washes right up against the house like a sea against a coastline.  This was entirely deliberate for we wanted to look out over a Lavender field from the very heart of the home and enjoy the vivid feast of colour and delicious scent.

To extend the season as long as possible, we grow both angustifolia and x intermedia varieties.  So we have Lavender in flower from the end of June to mid September.  The angustifolias tend to flower earlier and are going over around mid August which is when I cut them back.  The x intermedias flower later and are going over by mid-September when they too are cut back hard.  This allows the plants to put on around 3cm of growth before Winter which I suspect insulates them during the colder months.  But key to the survival and wellbeing of Lavender is the conditions which must be sharp draining, sunny and very dry.

Our list of Lavender plants is now a very long one. The list includes the predictable angustifolia Hidcot but includes more unusual varieties such as Beechwood Blue which I prefer.  We also grow Folgate, Felice, Bowles Early, Imperial Gem, Elizabeth, the pink Miss Katherine, the small white Nana Alba and many, many more.  The x intermedia range includes Grosso, Sussex and the white Edelweiss.

As well as growing Lavender in beds and along pathways we have many in pots dotted around the garden.  If you have problems growing Lavender due to the wrong aspect, soil or outlook then you can always plant up a pot and place it in a sunny spot on a terrace or patio.  It should do just fine but do remember to water it.  Lavender, even in pots, does need some water to survive.

In Winter I like looking out over a Lavender bed which is dotted by the cobbled effect of the Lavender plants which look like box balls once they have been cut back.  On a frosty morning the effect is lovely.  In late Spring and before the Lavender flowers, the bed looks like an array of grasses so fresh and green are the shoots.

The fact that Lavender attracts so many insects into the garden only adds to the benefit of growing it and helping to maintain the delicate balance of a healthy garden.  Such is the beauty and benefit of Lavender.

Long days

We have reached midsummer and the days are long.  The Alliums, which produced a stunning display this year, are over but their green seed heads forming globes remain continuing to add structure and definition in beds and borders.

Now is the time of the foxglove, astrantia and dianthus.  The garden colour has changed, losing the purples and fresh green of Spring to be replaced by reds of many shades and hues. But soon the hotter colours will arrive and the Lavender will begin to dominate.  The Angustifolia's of Hidcote, Munstead, Folgate, Felice and Imperial Gem flower earlier and ahead of the x intermedia varieties which form the bulk of our Lavender stock. Their longer and more dramatic flower stems will soon unveil themselves.  

Our yew cones, all 9 of them in our front garden, have been trimmed and shaped to form teardrops.  Planted back in 2011 in a line along our northern boundary, they are maturing well and their formality works well in the more open and green sward of the front garden which contrasts with the billowing abundance of colour at the back.

But now, for the first time, the garden feels truly mature with beech hedging forming real structure, partition and division.  I think we now have what we planned on paper four years ago.

Showcase of plants

Our only National Garden Scheme public opening will be Sunday, 24th May, between noon and 5pm.  It is a lovely time of year to showcase the garden and follows a week of horticultural loveliness at the Chelsea Flower show so everyone's gardening juices should be bubbling over.

May and June are the jewels in the crown of the horticultural year as far as I am concerned.  Everything in the garden and the English countryside is so fresh, vibrant and green in its multitude of shades and hues.  I love this time of year and yearn to be at home in the garden enjoying every thrilling moment.  The garden moves so fast now and its shape and form changes from day to day.  The garden I leave on the way to work in the morning is often different to the one I return to in the evening, so fast is the growth at this time of year.  These are moments I miss with enormous regret and loss.

We have a number of private visits this Summer from gardening and horticultural groups with some coming from as far afield as Holland.  But a public opening opens the garden to those who wish to visit alone or with friends and family.  Over the years, Vanessa and I have met and shared the garden with many people and enjoyed each and every opening.

If you are free on the afternoon of Sunday, 24th May then come along.  Entry is £3.50, children free and dogs are especially welcome in the garden.

Spears of delight

I love Asparagus.  I had always wanted to grow it and so we planted it here at Ordnance House in late 2011 in a raised bed atop of our chalky, free draining soil exposed to full sun.  It has thrived.  I confess that the crowns we planted looked alien and strange.  I planted each on a ridge I prepared in rich soil spreading its tenticles very carefully before covering them up, hoping for the best.  In 2012 we let it establish, havesting none.  In 2013 a tiny crop was taken early in the season.  In 2014, we had an abundant harvest.  So much so I was giving it away in large bunches.

There is a thrill to see the first spears appear in April and we then harvest it until June.  It requires very little work.  Once we arrive at the end of June, we let it go to seed before cutting it all down once its frothy fine leaves yellow in Autumn.  Then we simply give it a really thick rich mulch and leave it to face Winter under its warm and protective duvet.

I am told it is a long lived crop and harvests can be taken over many years.  I do hope so and will look forward to enyoying it this year, next year and far beyond.  

If you have room and the conditions to grow it (free draining and sunny would be my rule of thumb) then do so.  It is a rich, abundent and rewarding harvest.  It is also, of course, delicious too!

Christmas rescheduled

In just a few short weeks time my personal Christmas Day will arrive.  Forget the dark, damp, miserable twilight half days of mid-Winter and December 25th.  My gifts arrive in the full, fresh glory of May and provide me with enormous joy and wellbeing for the weeks which run into June.  My sparkling presents are Alliums.

I have long adored Alliums and planted many thousands of bulbs over the years wherever we have lived.  I plant them in meandering, winding drifts of purple and white.  I entwine them around and around beds and borders.  I dot them here and there.  Set them aganist a background of Spring's fresh vibrant green and you have, to my mind, a truely perfect combination.

There is a feature on our garden which has just appeared in Country Homes & Interiors (May 2015) which shows the abundance of Allium planting.  These pictures, taken in late May 2013, show how quickly Alliums establish and thrive.  So, if you have never planted Alliums before, then do so.  Come this Autumn, plant as many as you possibly can and enjoy the visual feast of colour and vibrancy in your own garden next Spring and for many Springs to come.

Momentum

I have collected my supply of pea sticks from a local hazel coppice as I prepare the vegetable garden for what I hope will be a productive Summer harvest of Mangetout.

The Test Valley is blessed with woodland, properly managed in a totally sustainable way. This is becoming rare nowadays but management of woodland by skilled coppicing lets light in, allows rare floweres to thrive and is the ideal habitat for butterflies and many other forms of wildlife.

We have reached the Spring equinox, when day and night are of equal level.  From this point the growing cycle accelerates.  It's important to get ahead of the game.  I have new herbs to plant which I am bringing on.  The vegetable beds have been prepared, dug over and fed. Large numbers of Foxgloves have been planted to create drifts of towering spires.  Herbaceous beds have been cleared, weeded and plants divided and moved.  Alliums, hundreds planted since we moved here 4 years ago, are appearing with their dagger shaped leaves stabbing up through the earth - they are a signature plant in this garden and create the early injection of vivid colour in late Spring.

But this weekend has seen me up a ladder with a jet hose blasting the Orchard Room's cedar shingle roof.  The whole oak framed structure now looks fresh and almost new.  Scarifying the grass and the mowing of all the lawns which surround the house has now also begun.  Soon the grass will need feeding too.  So begins the momentum - many small tasks that each week will prepare the garden and take us into Spring and beyond.

Neat and tidy

This is a time of year to get ahead of the game. From March onwards, everything accelerates, growth spurts and the garden divests itself of is overcoat of Winter dullness for a tracksuit all bright and fresh. This is when we like to get the garden neat and tidy.  Prepare the veg beds, clear and begin to feed the borders, edge the lawns, give everything a bit of a Spring clean.  Doing even the smallest of tasks now, ticking through our checklist item by item, pays dividends when things really start to shift come the end of March. It's a process and one I enjoy greatly for I like the bare bones of the garden, the formality and pure form just as much now as I like the frothiness of high Summer.  There is also the tantalising hint of promise in the air.

Not that we have much real colour yet. The mono-chromatic months of Winter with its shades of grey and brown, may be drawing to a close but, what colour there is, is strictly rationed.  Hellebores are now entering stage left but centre stage are our Viburnum Tinus 'Eve Price' standards which perform beautifully and so delicately each and every year.

Winter pruning is done, soon we shall divide and move plants around while adding those we have grown from cuttings or seed.  Those left over can be sold at our garden openings this Summer. But for now we enjoy the simple metronomic rhythm of the process itself and the small gains which keeping ahead of things brings.

The gift of time

The seasonal present I treasure the most at Christmas is a luxury one. It comes with no wrapping paper, no bows or gift tags and costs nothing.  But it lasts from Christmas to New Year and each day it is as fresh and new as the day before. It is the gift of time.

As I work full time, time itself is a limited commodity. But the seasonal break provides me with far more time to spend in the garden working on small and large projects uninterrupted over a number of days. It offers me time to plan and assess the future of beds and borders. It gives me time to while away on nothing in particular.

This particularly enjoyable present has been put to good use this year as I have been able to work, over a number of days, planning and creating a new floor for the oak framed gazebo built in the far corner of our small orchard which we rather grandly call 'The Orchard Room.' It was constructed in the Summer of 2012 using seasoned local New Forest oak for the main frame with chestnut batons and cedar shingles for the roof, topped off with an onion shaped oak finial. It is entirely open on all sides and so sits perfectly with its rustic surroundings amongst the fruit trees and long grass.

For some time now The Orchard Room has been the subject of some debate. What do we do with the grass floor which has become dried and and worn away.  Do we pave it? Too heavy handed. Do we simply lay gravel? Not particularly creative. Do we lay cobbles or granite sets? Too formal. In the end we elected to use up an odd selection of left over sandstone slabs and granite sets, that we had laying around, in a random sort of pattern. Using up this stock of unused materials made the whole project inexpensive other than the purchase of the mortar, some small bags of Cotswold chippings plus my own time and efforts levelling and laying the materials. But the effect is pleasing and in keeping with the nature of the structure under which it now sits. We are happy with the results and the aesthetic.

At least it kept me active and away from the sofa and TV controls which at this time of year is all too easy to retreat to. Much more fun to enjoy my present and that most precious of gifts....time!