23 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Gardening, Our Garden@19, Plantlife, Uncategorized, Wildlife
The White and Green garden, Lunaria annua ‘Alba’ and Tulip ‘Spring Green’.
Lunaria annua ‘Rosemary Verey’ and Cytisus ‘Golden Cascade’
Cytisus praecox Albus
Clematis alp. ‘ Broughton Bride ‘
Primulas
Tulip ‘Angelique’ and violas.
You can see more April Top Ten by visiting The Blooming Garden
Do you have a favourite or a top ten of your own?
21 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Gardening, Our Garden@19, Photography, Plantlife
T’is the season to be merry, of turkey, tinsel and snow with visits to Santa’s Grotto.
I cannot promise you any of the above, we can though visit Our Garden@19 following a rain shower, looking for some winter cheer and colour. In the Oriental Garden the Witch Hazel is in flower, although it is not looking too cheerful due to its habit of retaining all the old leaves.
The golden bamboo always adds a cheerful glow in the corner.
Two of the Cornus are brightening up the back of this border, reminding me that the fence panels could do with re-staining!
In the White and Green garden the Viburnum f ‘candidissimum’ is in flower, this wonderful shrub flowers all through the winter…
…the Mohonia has grown through the trellis to add a splash of yellow to this ‘carefully’ colour co-ordinated garden…
…the standard holly is an attractive centre piece here.
In the Blue Border the ornamental grasses provide an interesting straw coloured contrast to the Thuja occ. ‘Smaragd’…
…where the Rose ‘Charlotte’ has a rain drop covered bud surviving.
The bark of the Prunus is always very attractive this time of year.
The winter jasmine and the clematis are providing a splash of yellow, with the clematis climbing through the wisteria.
The skimmia’s are also a welcome sight with ‘Rubella’ very popular with the flower arrangers at Christmas.
‘The Holly and The Ivy’, with a cloud pruned conifer by the entrance to the Oriental Garden…
… with moss appropriately growing in the crux of an acer tree.
Hydrangea flower heads, in December, make wonderful flower arrangements and photographs.
The title of December Rain is best illustrated with this picture of pine needles with jewel like rain drops, especially the close-up one below.
I hope you have good reflections of 2018. Sadly we had to say goodbye to our faithful companion Murphy.
On a happier note our youngest daughter, Mary is joining her partner James on the 22nd in their first home together. It will all seem a little quiet around here. The Hanley Swan NGS open gardens had another successful year, with totals raised since we started four years ago reaching £8,500. Looking forward to the new year, we have a new garden opening with us along with ‘plans’ for our garden.
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year from all of us at Our Garden@19: brimfields.com
28 Wednesday Feb 2018
Posted in Gardening, General Interest, Plantlife, Uncategorized
Our gardening club, The Black Pear Gardening Club, meets monthly, with speakers during the winter months and garden visits during the summer.
For the February meeting we welcomed Stella Exley from Hare Spring Cottage Plants, York.
The Title of her talk was ‘Chris, Camassia and Chaos’.
Stella regaled us with accounts of the trials and tribulations she went through to provide camassia to Chris Beardshaw for his RHS Chelsea gold medal winning garden in 2015.
It started with a chance meeting at Arley Hall show, following which Chris contacted Stella, to arrange a visit to her nursery. She holds the national collection of camassia and grows other hardy perennials.
He showed Stella his plans for the show garden and she agreed to grow 2000 camassia, individually in pots, to provide the 1000 that he needed.
In order to do this she decided to actually grow 4000, this was on top of the 10,000 that she normally grew, nearly all single handed!
All her plants are grown outside on the floor with only a small poly tunnel and greenhouse to work in. That winter they were ‘blessed’ with two periods of snow which held back the development of the camassia. With her experience of growing them she knew they could not be forced on under cover, even if she had the facilities to do so.
The decision was made to rotate them in and out of the poly tunnel, for only two hours during the day and four hours at night, which she did wearing a head torch. She then started to feed them carefully with liquid feed so as not to scorch the leaves.
Chris visited the nursery to see the camassia in flower for the first time just before the show.
Delighted with what he saw he asked Stella to choose the ones that would go on to the lorry for the garden. To make it more difficult they had to be transported trailer at a time down the narrow track to the waiting artic lorry.
Stella ended by showing us pictures of the gold medal winning garden.
Following a question and answer session, she was busy selling some of the many pots of camassia she had brought with her all the way from North Yorkshire.
There was general agreement that this was one of the most interesting talks we have had.
Stella and the pots of Camassia she brought for sale at the meeting.
I succumbed to the ‘Charms’ of Camassia leichtlinii ‘Sacajawea’ for our Green and white garden. It has ivory white flowers with variegated foliage.
You can visit Stella’s website: Hare Spring Cottage Plants.
The website for the Black Pear gardening Club: BPGC
Do you grow camassia?
