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.