Brand new days

His name is Sidney and he is our new assistant head gardener.  No previous knowledge or experience of horticulture, not quite sure of the difference between a path and a border.  But he shows promise.  Keen to be outdoors, keen to learn.  Enjoys a good chew on a piece of turf and occassionally runs around uncontrolably like a mad thing.  But like Spring, he brings life, vigour and vitality to the garden and our lives.

We enjoy him enjoying and exploring the garden immensely.  Born on Boxing Day, this is Sidney's first Spring, the first time he has sniffed a tulip or encountered a watering can.  Everything is fresh and new, a thrilling experience and potential adventure. 

This will become his garden as much as ours and we treasure his first steps in taking his particular ownership of the space.  I have said before that gardens are more than plants, shrubs and trees.  They create magical memories and moments.  In years to come we will look back on these formative weeks and months and remember fondly the sparkle in Sidney's eye and the spring in his step.  The thrill that each new day in the garden brings.  What more can you ask for than a little friend enjoying being beside you in your garden and making you happy.  

Light and shade

It's here!  Spring, clocks tick forward an hour, longer days, shorter nights, more time to garden.  It is a time of light and shade.  Love it.

I have to say, the garden has weathered the Winter well.  Lost some lavender which we have replaced, lost even more Tulips which the mice have dug up and made off with to store them we know not where.  But overall, looking good.

We have hired a new assistant head gardener, our new puppy going by the name of Sidney.  He is the fifth Shar Pei to come and share our lives.  No concept as yet of what is a path and what is a border but he is just 13 weeks and has much to learn.  But this will be his space as much as ours and there is an exciting new world to explore.

Today has been productive.  Out early to jet hose the Orchard Room's cedar shingle roof.  Messy job with spray everywhere but the result is that this oak framed structure in our small orchard is looking fresh and new.  Job done.  Vanessa has been putting blood, fish and bone down in borders that are beginning to swell.  The level of growth from this point forward will be dramatic and borders will change almost by the hour.  Buds are opening, leaves appearing, be it that they are tiny.

To me, this is when the year starts its procession into a world of beauty and a landscape that stretches out into a productive Summer.

Valentines Day Massacre

The predominent Clematis we grow in this garden is a viticella 'Purpurea Pleana Elegans'.  It is an old variety going back to Tudor times but it works well climbing and entwining up and throughout our rusted arches and arbours which we have all around the garden.  The puffed out rosettes of petals have a soft rusty pink colour and are a profussion of flower in the second half of the Summer.

But today, Valentines Day, is the day I cut them all down to around 6 inches from the ground.  Over the course of the next 5 months they will regrow and create arches of form and colour.  This may look harsh but the plants thrive and look spectacular in Summer.

Otherwise the garden is beginning to awake from Winter slumber and buds and the leaves of Narcissus and Tulips are now arrowing out of the ground.  Hope, at this dull, dreary time of year, that Spring will come.

Memories

Gardens are not just about plants.  They are about memories, places to go to dream.  The creation of the garden here at Ordnance House began in late 2011 but each stage of its creation was a mile marker in my life which will remain with me forever.  A garden without the people who created it, those who come into it to visit and to relax, children at play in it, wildlife that come into it and beloved pets that roam within it, is simply not a garden.

An abiding memory of this garden is of our dog Jambo.  He sadly passed away just after Christmas.  He was a good age and we knew that at some point he would leave us.  But he suddenly became ill and we have lost him.  He was gloriously named Jambo Bwana as each of his litter were given African names.  But he has been a constant, always there at each stage of the garden's creation and as much part of it as any flower, plant or shrub.  He had little interest in gardening and mainly used the garden to stroll around and relax in.  As we gardened he snoozed.  But as well as being my assistant head gardener, he was also our head of meeting and greeting.  He loved people and found humans endlessly fascinating.  When groups visited the garden he was positively affronted if he was not allowed to mix and mingle with them.

His memory casts a shadow over the garden I look out upon now, even larger than the towering beech trees that stand like giants in the corners of our plot.  But at some point, soon I hope, a new, young, four legged friend will come into this garden.  He will explore it, be in awe of it, grow and become slowly more confident and then take his own ownership of it.  He too will create memories in that way that all our dogs before him have created, beautiful, wonderful and fulfilling memories which have enriched our lives.  For those of you who have loved and lost a pet, you will all understand.  The contract you sign when you have an animal come and live with you is to love them, care for them, look after them but ultimately to lose them. But for us these memories are entwined like ivy in and out of the times we spent creating this garden.

Goodbye my assistant head gardener.  Thanks for the wonderful, beautiful and everlasting memories.

Shift in seasons

The seasons are shifting again.  Summer is now but a fleeting memory.  This is the end of one gardening year, the beginning of another.  It is a time for clearing beds, planting bulbs and making the most of benign weather to get outdoors.  The days are shortening, leaves turning, days cooling.  It is part of shifting seasons and the cycle of the garden.

Our Summer pots are cleared and put away and new pots have been planted up with spring bulbs and Winter bedding.

But the big task is to replenish our vast stock of Alliums.  They are a signature of all our gardens and create the most astonishing late Spring displays.  Mt. Everest with its large white pom-pom head.  Purple Sensation, rich deep and as the name suggests purple.  Nigrum, smaller, later and white with flecks of purple.  All will be planted in the next couple of weeks to add to the large drifts we have running like veins through our beds and borders.  In the main central bed around which the garden rotates like a giant wheel of colour and form, these Alliums create an effect like a large raspberry ripple under the hawthorns that are formed above them into a floating cloud of foliage.  It is the garden's centrepiece and main focal point from our living room.

Vanessa and I approach the planting of the hundreds of bulbs in the garden at this time of year with great teamwork.  I lead with the bulb planter creating the holes while Vanessa follows popping the bulbs into each hole and covering them over.  It sounds like a big job but in reality there is a process, an efficiency and rhythm to it that makes the planting less of an effort than you might think.  It is the promise of what will surge out of the ground next Spring that makes it worthwhile.

Fragrant haircuts

September is the month we cut back our lavender.  We have much of it so this is not a task to complete in a day but over successive weekends.

Cut it all back now and the lavender will put on around 3cm of growth in the next few months and this helps the plant over-winter.  Here at Ordnance House, the soil is very free draining and this also helps of course.

Cutting back lavender is something I am often asked about and my advice is always the same.  Cut it back hard and shape it like a tight box ball.  This creates a cobbled effect in our lavender bed which I think looks quite lovely, especially on a frosty morning.   This method also trains the plant to remain a manageable size and prevents it becoming leggy.

But this process is also a milestone on the garden's journey into autumn.  The nights are now drawing in but the temperatures are still warm and occassionally hot while the light of autumn is golden, subtle and quite glorious.  We must make the most of these decreasing returns.  We must harvest the memory of a golden year in the garden and begin the planning for a new year to come.  This is a time to step back, take stock of the parts of the garden that work well and scheme what will be done to improve others.  It is all part of the journey and the great joy of gardening is that it is a journey that never really ends.  Enjoy the ride!

Wild imaginings

Our aim is to introduce more wild flower planting into the garden.  The two areas where we can best begin this process are the orchard and a large grassy area we call the mound. The mound is part of the original natural slope of the garden at our south west boundary.  On top of it sits two majestic Beech trees of some age. 

The area offers a view of the garden and its layout better than any other vantage point.  But it also provides views way beyond into the leafy landscape to the east.  It is a lovely spot to come, sit on the rustic bench and just take in the garden with a cup of tea or glass of wine.  The area is one of the few in the garden which we have left uncultivated.  It is just a grassy mound with a path leading up to it. 

Our hope is to introduce native wild flowers and we have been taking advice from Plantlife, a conservation charity, as to what planting will work best and what we need to do to prepare the area.  That important first step is to sow Yellow-rattle (Rhinanthus minor) which is a semi parasitic plant that will weaken the grass and allow wild flowers to establish. 

I have cut back the grass and sown the Yellow-rattle seed which should germinate over Winter and into Spring.  But as with all projects of this kind, you need time and patience.  In time we hope that this area of grass will become populated with a wide variety of beautiful wild flowers which in turn will attract many forms of insects offering them a natural habitat and haven to thrive.

But for now, all we can do is imagine.