Tag Archive | gardens

Gardens I’ve made: Berkshire

Jun20

The second in a very occasional series about gardens I’ve designed. This one is a front garden of a thatched cottage in Berkshire.

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Part of a cottage front garden that I designed in Berkshire.

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Part of a cottage front garden that I designed in Berkshire.

Before I started work the front garden had two areas of lawn with a few old and sprawling hebes flanking a central old brick path. Behind these were some areas of flint cobbling. The main part of the thatched cottage is very old, and it was important that the path and cobbled areas be retained as they are part of the history of the house. As the central path is straight I decided to make small symmetrical parterre beds on either side.

Hard landscaping completed, before the planting.

Hard landscaping completed, before the planting.

The garden is north facing, and the area is on clay so can have quite a cold feel. As the old bricks of the house are lovely red and orange colours, I thought a fiery front garden might warm things up a bit, and so chose a colour palette to match. The fact that zingy oranges and reds are my favourite colours of all might have had something to do with the choice ….

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It was fun watching the evolution of the garden:

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A view from upstairs in the cottage:

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The beds were edged with Ilex crenata, a species of holly that looks a little like box. We chose not to use box because of the problems of box blight.

Sunny days in Devon

Jan8

When the weather is gloomy and wet and miserable, I like to look through my photos to be reminded of sunnier days. Here are some I took of a garden in Salcombe in Devon, designed by fab garden and landscape designer Jo Stopher:

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My poor photography skills don’t do justice to this fab rooftop garden. Yes! Really! The garden is planted on the flat roof of a modern house: the last photo shows a hint of the garden ‘up top’, seen from below. It’s so clever in the way the garden borrows the landscape beyond, seemlessly merging the rooftop planting with the surrounding trees and plants and scenery.

Jo is a stunning designer, with a particular expertise in seaside planting. I met Jo when I was writing a feature for The English Garden on a garden she had designed; I was very lucky to be shown round a few of her creations in the gorgeous South Hams of Devon, including the one in the photos here, and will post some more photos of her creations soon.

In the garden

Jul8

Yesterday I spotted this wee beastie lurking in one of our flower beds, our biological snail control:

Mr Frog eyeing up his lunch.

Mr Frog eyeing up his lunch.

We garden organically, and so the hedgehogs and frogs and toads are such welcome guests, not only because they are beautiful creatures, but also because they munch the slugs and snails. We’re trying to become more environmentally-minded in our garden, encouraging our native wild flowers from which the bees like to feed, and giving up trying to grow plants that the slugs find tasty and strip back to stems. So no more hostas for us.

The scarlet tiger moths (Callimorpha dominula) have been about for about the last fortnight. Chap found this newly-emerged specimen on our path.

Newly-emerged tiger moth.

Newly-emerged scarlet tiger moth.

We put him up out of the way on the honeysuckle, which is in full glorious bloom right now. The scent is intoxicating.

The roses are also looking and smelling fabulous right now. This one is a David Austen rose, Rosa ‘Heritage’.

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Rosa ‘Heritage’.

The heavy blooms droop slightly. Pick them up to smell the flower and in our garden you are greeted with these little fellows, flea beetles:

Flea beetle central.

Flea beetle central on Rosa ‘Heritage’.

Molly the Witch

May23

We had a very long-awaited arrival in our garden at the beginning of May, and she caused great excitement (well, for me! I’m easily pleased).

About eight years ago I came home from my favourite local plant nursery with a small plant of a species paeony, Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii. You won’t be surprised that its name is such a mouthful that it has a nickname: Molly the Witch. Much easier to say (unless you speak Polish – its discoverer was the Polish botanist, Ludwik Mlokosiewicz). I’d seen photos of this paeony in gardening magazines and slavered and added it to my wish list. It has the most beautiful pale lemon yellow blossoms, and is among the earliest of all the paeonies to come into flower.

So I waited for the flowers. And waited. And waited. It probably didn’t help that I had the plant in a smallish pot, so after a few years I potted her up. And waited. And waited. And then, this spring, in amongst the beautiful deep red leaf spikes, I saw a small bud. Just the one, but that was more than enough! I watched it like a hawk as the bud fattened and grew.

On May Day (1 May) she looked like this, full of promise:

Molly the Witch in bud (Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii).

Molly the Witch in bud (Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii).

and she stayed tantalisingly closed like that for a couple of days. On 3 May she finally opened:

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I am so happy! She has finished flowering now, but I am hopeful that if I feed her and cosset her, next year I might get more. Fingers crossed.

As The Mead Nursery says about her: definitely worth the wait!