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.