Virtual meetings, the Garden in July and Plant Sales.

The Covid-19 restrictions have inevitably prevented any meetings of our club, The Black Pear Gardening Club..blackpeargc.org.uk Our family has been using Skype for keeping in touch so I decided to try and hold a trial meeting for the club with the opportunity for members to say hello, I then presented pictures from our garden with the aim to include pictures from members gardens at the next meeting. While technology can be challenging we did manage to hold the meeting.

July has been a busy month here in Our Garden@19 with the open garden visits cancelled I had been left with a large stock of plants that I had hoped to sell. We decided, with the village of Pirton, (Worcestershire), where my brother Derek lives, to hold a plant sale in memory of his wife and our late sister in law, in aid of St Richards Hospice who cared for Diana. When the plants had been made presentable for sale, a large transit type van arrived to transport all the plants the day before, ready for setting up the sale the next morning.

The sale was well supported by the village, both helping and purchasing plants along with several members of the garden club.

The video below is the one I presented at the virtual meeting, ‘Our Garden@19 in July.’ Please turn your sound up, click to full-size screen, play and enjoy.

The tomatoes are a bush type? ‘Maskotka’ which crop well despite their vigorous growth.

Are you using technology to keep in touch?

April Top Ten.

A quick tour around Our Garden@19 to capture my Top Ten, joining Chloris at The Blooming Garden.

The White and Green garden, Lunaria annua ‘Alba’ and Tulip ‘Spring Green’.

Lunaria annua ‘Rosemary Verey’ and Cytisus ‘Golden Cascade’

The Lego inspired Bug Hotel with Roof Garden.

You can see more April Top Ten by visiting The Blooming Garden

Do you have a favourite or a top ten of your own?

December Rain.

In the Garden, December 2018

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!

Cornus Alba ‘Westonbirt’ syn C. alba ‘Sibirica’ Cornus sanguinea Midwinter Fire

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.

Ilex aquifolium ‘Argentea Margenata’ Standard

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

Chris, Camassia & Chaos.

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.

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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. camassia-gallery-about-gallery-07

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.

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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.