inspiration at beth chatto's garden

A good drive down to Essex to make a long-awaited visit to Beth Chatto's garden near Colchester. And what inspiration we found..

The garden lies in the driest corner of our country and so we were especially interested in the way that Beth Chatto had resolved the problem of gardening in drought. This is especially relevant for us, since our garden will need to cope with the sandy Nottinghamshire soils in the dry east of England.

Her gravelled garden was superb: quite flat, she used structural plants to give height showing how gorgeous Stipa gigantea, Althea cannabina and Shumach tree can be used effectively.

I hadn't seen Alium sphaerocephalon used before and wished I'd bought one at the excellent nursery attached to the garden. Linda did and I'll try and pinch it from her when she's dealing with her next bee swarm.

Bergenias and different marjoram cultivars edged beds while groups of agapanthus 'Midnight Star' and  Anthemis 'EC Buxton' provided bursts of colour.

Superb - but reassuringly 'do-able'.

The gardens include beautiful woodland settings. Always looking to pinch the ideas of brilliant gardeners, Jill is now committed to planting a Hydrangea petiolaris up a huge sycamore that faces north at Cordwood. There were a number of striking persicaria varieties to for us and bees to admire. I bought a 'Red Dragon' cultivar home with me - burgundy foliage with contrasting white flowers.

We have struggled to keep on top of the insurgent weeds this year. In the mature Beth Chatto garden, effective use was made of ground cover plants, smothering weeds and giving so much interest in the garden, from the tops of the trees to the ground.  Hosta 'Halcyon', Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy' and tiny Gunnera prorepens pushed their names forward on the never-ending list of plants we hope to grow.

It was great to find such a well-stocked nursery selling good plants at reasonable prices. We indulged = successful visit!

cambridge botanic gardens

Our last visit to Cambridge Botanic Gardens was in chilly February when the East of England had experienced temperatures of  -15C.

How ironic then, that our next visit would see temperatures reach the upper twenties and cloudless blue skies for the first time in 2012.

A favourite garden, this time we had the pleasure of a guided walk all day from Pam.

Among the many highlights were the dry garden, demonstrating how attractive a garden can be when drought tolerant plants are used.

Erect Veronicastrum virginicum was in splendid flower, attracting many bees and several large flowered stonecrops were a shifting, wriggling mass of honeybees.

Also in full flower was the beautiful scented garden, giving us many ideas of how we can frame our new garden. None of the plants was rare or in any way unusual. But the effect was very pleasing.

 Why the garden doesn't have the kind of seed scheme for members that our RHS has is a surprise.

Recommend a visit.

symphytum officinale rhs wisley

Ah ..... two days of complete self-indulgence at the nations' mecca of gardening at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens in Wisley, Surrey.

Wet and cold was the weather but our spirits were warmed by all we saw.

Our last visit to Wisley saw us spending an inordinate amount of time poking around the prairie gardens and learning about the plants they used there. And inspired we were.

This time, it was the woodland areas that were at their brilliant, fresh, dripping best.

And perhaps surprisingly there was a consensus amongst us (Trev and Linda joined us) that the star plant of the two days was humble old symphytum officianale.

The symphytums share a clever trick with the pulmonarias of being full of flower but having flowers of a range of colours on each stem. This gives a greater depth and interest, especially when they are planted 'en masse'. Wildife gardeners welcome symphytums especially as bees go boogalloo for them!

There was a lovely, low-growing lemon form and then what I'm guessing was 'Hidcote Blue'. We bought ourselves a pot of 'Hidcote Blue' at the National Trust gardens at Hidcote on the way home and the poor thing was chopped into three pieces and planted in our Cedar walk garden as soon as we got it back to Cordwood.

Symphytums are also called comfrey and for organic gardeners comfrey is an almost talismanic plant. Lawrence Hills, the founder of the British organic gardening movement waxed lyrical about the health-giving properties of Russian Comfrey and the benefits its sterile hybrid 'Bocking 14' brings to the organic garden. 'Bocking 14' is really useful as its leaves contain high proportions of potassium. It is, however a garden bully and grows long roots that are almost impossible to eradicate if you change your mind about its location!

Sympytums are tolerant of drier conditions and will love the shade of our wooded setting. Expect them to become a signature plant of the Cordwood spring in the coming years!

rhs harlow carr

The Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Harlow Carr, Harrogate are as close to a place of worship for gardeners that the north of England has.

This was our third haj. And every pilgrimage brings forward different highlights - this time those of the spring.

Massed plantings of scented narcissus set within lawns..... as large a group of pretty erythroniums as I've seen.... glorious snakeshead fritillaries hidden away in the woods ...imaginative weavings of cornus and willow.....

But, for me, the star of the show was nothing quite as pretty or eye-catching.

As an organic gardener, I know that the God of good gardening is the soil from which all blessings flow and the years of composting and mulching were in evidence in every corner. Gorgeous, friable, improved soil!!

Soil improvement is essential if we are to produce vigorous, healthy communities of plants. The impact of the work of generations of gardeners at Harlow Carr was evident around our feet.

As soon as those pesky Robins have fledged their young I can get at my composting altar!!!

biddulph grange, stoke-on-trent

To Biddulph Grange, Stoke for a family day out.

And, as always, looking for interesting ideas.

This is a garden executed in grand Victorian style by the National Trust ... and beautifully and skillfully too.

These gardens are really worth a visit.

Pale yellow Corylopsis pauciflora was in full and early flower. Without a scent, it still attracted so many honey bees that the air around the shrubs buzzed with their arrival and departure. A must for the shopping list!!


As we edge towards beginning ground clearance work and the removal of tree stumps, I was fascinated to see what a 140 year old stumpery would look like. The answer is, it looked amazing and engendered a unique atmosphere in this part of the garden. The tree roots were twisted and worn by weather and the seasons and were covered in mosses with ferns nestling in the cracks. The stumpery we hope to create will not be on this scale!!! But you get an idea....

In the tree nursery that I now think of as 'The Cedar Garden' due to the dominating Atlas Blue Cedars, the ground around the cedars is covered by ivy.
This photograph, as with everything else connected with Biddulph Grange, is grand. But ivy covers the ground beneath these impressive Lime trees.

Also of interest to us were diminutive white muscari that looked less invasive than their blue cousins ...... and impressive topiary.

ryton gardens, coventry

I have said before that Lawrence Hills was the writer and thinker about gardening who shaped my own gardening philosophy. I remember so clearly the excitement I felt on reading his 'Organic Gardening' back in 1978.

It was Hills who founded the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) that is now 'Garden Organic'. And Hills too who led the HDRA to its national centre at Ryton.

We visited Ryton Gardens at the weekend.

A garden largely devoted to vegetable growing is an odd choice to visit in early March- but I am delighted to say how impressed I was.

The centre is excellent, offering a wide range of gardening and 'eco-friendly' products. The cafe offered an intriguing broccoli and almond soup with excellent bread for lunch.

But it was in the landscaping ideas, that I was most taken.

The first thing that greeted us was a mystery lonicera, sweetly fragrant and buzzing with honey bees. Its habit was non-clinging. And I want one!!!

The gardens themselves were tidy and dormant, but the orchard saw trees underplanted with daffodils, iris reticulata and winter aconites. What worked well here was that the ground beneath the trees was grass free and could receive a load of manure in the winter with the bulbs also being nourished by this feed and giving spring time interest. I can use that idea!!

Our plans for the development of our vegetable garden moved ahead with their 'allotment garden'. The paths were crushed limestone and wide to accommodate visitors. Our paths could be narrower, could use crushed brick but I can see this kind of layout working for us. Manageable but attractive.

Beyond the orchards we found a couple of old-fashioned bee hives. We had already planned to have one of these standing proudly in our orchard one day.

And what about these marvellous tusks? Wouldn't they be a dramatic entrance to a different section of the garden?

Great gardens offer interest throughout the year. We'll be back to Ryton before too long.

rhs tatton park

An almost final, overwhelming week in teaching came to an end and thankfully, the Royal Horticultural Society flower show at Tatton Park in Cheshire proved an excellent antidote to the powerful emotions I had been feeling.

Despite having made declarations that we would not buy anything, came back with a fully loaded car!!

This lemon leucanthemum x superbum 'Broadway Lights' was one of my 'stars of the show' and two plants came home. Our beautiful native ox-eye daisies (leucanthemum vulgarae) are free flowering meadow plants that thrive locally and I hope to be able to introduce them to the meadow area as it develops. This showier cultivated cousin should flourish in the conditions that ox-eyes like. We hope to divide them and multiply their number at the allotment before finding a place in our new garden for them. In a large group (possibly planted against a contrasting, darker foliage plant) they will have a big, late summer impact. The newly opened flowers have this lovely pale citrus colour but then fade to a yellow white giving an interesting range of flower colours in one plant.


The flowering cyclamen hederofolium looked lovely in pots and we were further inspired to create our own small containers back at home. C. hederofolium was abundant in dappled shade under the crab apple tree in our old garden and looked almost as good as these seen in their pots at the show.

 Also captivating and excellent subjects for pots were the hostas: there are now so many forms of the plantain lily and it is little surprise that they have become so fashionable. Planted together, their contrasting leaf colours, sizes, shapes and habits created a memerising effect on the dedicated stands for father and daughter and meant we spent too much of our limited time admiring these and not getting around the huge show and all its other delights! Here hosta 'Hands up' shows its erect foliage.
'Green is also a colour' Gertrude Jekyll

bluebell arboretum and nursery, smisby

Searching for inspiration and a source of more unusual plants, we visited the nursery and exceptional arboretum developed by Robert Vernon in Smisby. This is an adolescent arboretum being developed on windswept former pasture on the south Derbyshire/Leicestershire border over the past twenty years.
And what inspiration we found!
There we saw many of the stunning acers and birches we had hoped to find with lots of other exciting discoveries along the way.


There was an eyecatching elder Sambucus nigra Laciniata (green berried form),striking for its compact habit and disectum leaves. Scrubby elder grow as weeds in our new garden and so our conditions clearly suit this plant. It always makes sense to use plants that flourish naturally in your conditions. Elder also tick the 'permaculture box' providing both flowers and berries for us to use. It also is valuable for wildlife. Linda made a wonderful elderflower cordial last year.

There was a red hazel corylus 'red zelermus' whose upper leaves burned crimson in the sun and with red fringed fruits. Hazel grow in most soils and we are keen to add some as they form a natural understorey that is also very friendly to wildlife. These also fit into the 'agro-forestry' or 'permaculture' philosophy that will be integral to the spirit of the site.

Another unusual red beauty was a weeping red beech fagus sylvatica 'Rohan Weeping' with geotropic stems that grow towards the earth (see photo). How exotic! We have a couple of beautiful copper beech trees and know they like our conditions.

White barked birch betula utilis 'Doorenbos' was the kind of outstanding birch we hope will one day form a small stand of trees between the two bungalows. Birch seed freely across the site. Although Nottinghamshire is synonymous with oaks, it is the silver birch that is really our county tree in my view. It emerges everywhere and its delicate, hanging branches and pretty leaves set against that silver trunk make it easily recognisable to everyone.

By their very nature, arboretums are dedicated to the beauty of trees. In the maturing section of the arboretum too however, there was inspiration with imaginative underplanting that complemented the trees.


With luck we will be back in the autumn.

epperstone open gardens 2011

Always keen to have a look at other folks' gardens, we went over to the village of Epperstone to enjoy their open gardens on Sunday.

It was a pleasant afternoon out with our daughter Sarah, in this posh and affluent corner of our county. The issues are mine, I know, I know.

It is nevertheless, a privilege to be allowed into other peoples' gardens and we enjoyed the visits. There was a garden to admire by an RHS Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal winner. And a garden on a budget. And everything in between. We didn't find any gardens that we would describe as 'plantsmans gardens' nor any that shared my passions for wild gardens.

There was lots to enjoy and my highlight was this perennial border.
Very simply executed, repeated yellow loosestrife and blue delphiniums gave a rhythm while other perennials improvised without pattern. It was super.