The English Garden Magazine - Garden Tour

The garden here at Ordnance House has been included on a prestigious garden tour offered by The English Garden magazine titled - 'Hampshire's Hidden Gems'.

Details of the tour can be found on page 27 of the March issue and online at:
 http://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/home/exclusive_garden_holiday_offer_1_3256664


The tour dates are 2 to 5 June and eight gardens will be featured within the Test and Itchen Valleys.  The trip looks terrific, but I confess that it is rather daunting to be included amongst an array of such fascinating, beautiful and incredibly interesting gardens.  I only hope we come up to scratch! This is, after all, still a very new garden.  But it has a tale to tell.  Of our hard labours, our success and our failures.  At least we can provide a narrative of its conception and creation.

All gardens have a story to tell of course and I am sure that each of the lovely gardens included as part of the tour will have their own intriguing tale.

Back to the garden!

I really do think it is time to get back out into the garden.  High winds, driving rain, flooding and all the usual Yuletide mayhem have deprived me of the time I really wanted to spend in the garden.  But I did manage to get out and divide and move some plants. I have taken out all the Nepeta 'Six Hill's Giant' from the main avenue in the back garden and replanted them up our steep bank at the front.  I replaced these with more Nepeta - 'Walkers' Low' which although similar is less sprawling. No money needed to change hands as I had enough 'Walker's Low' elsewhere in the garden to divide up and move.  I even managed some mowing as the grass has continued to grow due to the mild temperatures.  Of course having such very sharp drainage also helps and means I can actually cut the grass at this time of year, something that would have been impossible in our old garden.

This weekend was all about adding some colour which I yearn for at this time of year.  I had decided that we needed a couple of tall planters next to the front door and so purchased some inexpensive galvanised florists pots.  They were rather bright and shiny when they arrived but I managed to sand them down and coat them with toilet bowl cleaner which I left overnight and this had the effect of aging them.  Drill some drainage holes, place some crocks in the bottom, fill with potting compost and plant some cream Primroses and delicious Hellebores ('Snow Dance') - and job done! I expect we will have more bad weather this Winter but at least we are now on the way to Spring.  Days will get longer, the weather slowly milder while I will be able to spend more time in the garden.

The garden laid bare

It is November and time for the big cut back of the herbaceous borders.  They have completed their performance and now are over.  Time to cut back, allow light in and the cold of winter to scour the ground. 

Already I can see the promise of next Spring and Summer.  Small though it may be, next year's growth is there when you look closely and that is heartening. 

The nights now are longer, the daylight hours shorter.  But the garden feels at peace and at the beginning of a slumber.  It has looked quite wonderful for so long it deserves its repose.

But what is amazing is that the beech leaves have hardly fallen at all.  Our huge trees are still clad in Autumn gold.  I contrast this is my childhood years when trees would have been naked and bare at this time of year.  Climate change?  Well it would seem the seasons have shifted for sure and what should be an early winter landscape is little more than Autumn in its gold and bronze hues.

We will cut back more borders next week and then the garden will be back to its bare bones.  Nice to see especially when frost touches the garden and nice to be outside still enjoying it.

Autumn shades

Autumn is here.  The shades of russet and yellow, orange and brown colour the garden by numbers.  The nights are lengthening and we have cooler, showery days now.  We are gradually putting the garden to rest for Winter.  It's time to cut the long grass in the orchard, clear borders and cut back herbaceous perennials.  Slowly the outlines of the garden, its plan and underlying bone structure can begin to be seen again after months of foaming frothiness.

We still have the intense purple of Verbena Bonariensis hovering over the beds while Tithonia rotundiflora 'Torch', the Mexican Sunflower, illuminates the borders with its brilliant orange flowers.  Cosmos too shines out of the gloomy dull light with its deep reds, pale pinks and luminescent whites.

I confess I am comfortable with the change enjoying the mood swing from a Summer of intense activity to a steadier pace.  The garden feels still and intimate.  It feels restful.  But I dread the onset of Winter and all that goes with it.  I can grudgingly endure it until the first weeks of New Year, then the burden weighs heavy upon me during the long uphill trudge to Spring.

No matter, life goes on, the garden continues to develop and mature and soon fulsome fat buds will appear on stems and branches with all the promise they bring of a new Spring over the distant horizon.

Light of the Cosmos

As Summer draws nearer to its close we are blessed with colour.  It illuminates the garden and the lower level of the sun accentuates every shade.

The stars of the show now are Cosmos.  We purchased many varieties from Sarah Raven and have grown them on all Summer.  Now their flower heads shine above their froth of green foliage.

I am pleased with our choices to.  They include a collection of different varieties from white, through pink to dark plum as well as Cosmos bipinnatus 'Dazzler' and the white 'Purity'.  I also love Cosmos sonata 'White' and Cosmos 'Antiquity' but most of all I like the way they have interspersed with Verbena Bonariensis with the colour shades working well together.

And they provide height too giving every border where they are planted a fullness and voluptuousness.

So we are in a good place for the time of year with the garden looking as beautiful as it can.  We also have a few much needed rain showers helping to freshen everything up a little after a prolonged hot and dry spell.

But next year we will certainly add Cosmos to our shopping list - lovely, quite lovely.

Making the cut

It's a time for taking cuttings, collecting seed and enjoying the vibrant late Summer colour of the garden.  Pots line the nursery area full of cuttings. I have also started the process of cutting back the Angustifolia varieties in the Lavender bed as their flowering is now spent. But for the intermedia varieties of Lavender, their season is later and the display still vivid.

We have also collected and sown seeds from Foxgloves which we will grow on for next year.  It's a busy time as many plants are over and need cutting back with the beds clearing.

But what gives me real pleasure are the displays of Echinaceas and in particular purpurea 'magnus'.  This was the grand plan at the beginning of the year, to add more cone flowers to the garden and 'magnus' was key to the plan.  The insects love them and the garden is a hum of bees and a flutter of butterflies.

I also love the softer glow of the light at this time of year.  It illuminates the late Summer planting quite beautifully and brings out the purples and oranges like no other time of the year.  It is immensely forgiving with none of the harshness of the light of early Spring.

But the year rolls on and Autumn approaches.  So, best to make the most of things and enjoy them while we can.

Small friends in sweet smelling places

The garden has a constant hum of bees of all kinds.

The flitting flight of butterflies too can be seen as they waft above the beds and borders.  The Lavender bed is host to so many bees and butterflies that I have lost count of them all.  There must be hundreds feasting on the nectar.

I take this as a sign of a healthy garden and overall the garden is thriving.  The heat of the past 3 weeks is easing and we have had some welcome rain which has added a freshness.

I still maintain that we are, in two years, where we were in five in our old garden.  The plants have thrived and grown at an astonishingly fast rate due to the massive amounts of light we get here along with a good air circulation and sharp draining soil.  Planting so close together has kept in the moisture at the base of the plants and the roots are kept cool too.  The Lavender, planted in the poor soil we inherited and have not improved in any way, loves it and clearly the bees and butterflies love the Lavender.

23 months on from when the planting began here, the garden now looks healthy, happy and pretty much mature bar the hedges which still have some maturing to do.  After so much hard work, hope and dreams, we now have a garden that feels like an established, proper, grown up garden and not one in the making.

Time, I think, to sit back with a cool drink and enjoy it along with our welcome guests of bees and butterflies.