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)