We’ve taken you to the White Garden a couple of times already this year. We thought it deserved another visit however, not least because the rambling rose ‘Rambling Rector’ is looking really stunning growing through our old cherry tree. The roses are also looking really good at the moment and with sweet peas, phlox, lilies and penstemon yet really to get coming, there’s still a lot more pleasure to be had from it.
We dug our vegetable patch in the old orchard, next to the garden. We naively dug it by hand. Not an easy job! We now have raised beds and have improved the heavy clay soil. Here’s a short video explaining what we’re growing at the moment.
Achieving successful plant combinations is the nirvana many gardeners strive for. The idea of course, is to achieve the same harmony of colour and form that a plant arranger can achieve with cut blooms but in the border.
We are very much enthusiastic amateurs at this. To some extent, we cheat in our garden by having areas themed entirely around a single colour. We have the White Garden and a large bed devoted entirely to yellow bloomed plants, for example. Even here though, one needs to think about planting. As Vita Sackville West famously observed, the dominant colour in a ‘white’ garden is green and we try to lift the green using plants with grey or glaucous foliage.
Occasionally, we do achieve little glimpses of successful planting combinations. Here are two. Leptospermum ‘Electric Red’ and Rosa ‘Scarlet Red’ in the Bright Garden and Nigella, Campanula and a little Geranium in the long borders.
There’s an old canal that runs alongside our house. It is long since defunct and was drained in the 19th Century. The old canal now has lots of quite mature trees growing in it and alongside it.
About a month ago, we started to hear loud, unusual bird calls, from as early as 5pm and continuing all night. We recorded them and friends identified the calls as those of tawny owl chicks.
A week or so ago, the chicks’ calls started to move about a bit. Then we had our first sighting. It has been very difficult to get any decent footage of them but finally we got this. The chick looks directly at the camera before flying away. Our first close encounter with a tawny owl chick.
The long-borders are really starting to perform now. Geraniums have supplemented lupins and polemonium. Delphiniums are just starting and some of the roses are absolutely smothered with buds. See what you think!
Over the winter, we completely overhauled the bed in front of our seating area. It was infested with wild garlic and wild strawberries and the planting was chaotic. So, we had a completely blank canvas for a new border.
We decided to plant up the bed with plants known for their scent. A bit of reaseach and having chosen a colour theme, we made our plant choices.
We have 3 x Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’; 15 x Geranium ‘Wargrave Pink’; 12 x Aster Sedifolius Nanus; 9 X Suponaria ‘Alba Plena’; 3 obelisks of Sweet Pea ‘Matucana’; 1 x Cistus ‘Brushing Peggy’; 9 x Phlox Maculata Alpha; 22 x Lavender ‘Hidcote’ and lots of Night Scented Stocks as a filler.
It’s early days but the sweet pea scent in the evenings is amazing and Gertrude Jekyll is a stunner!
We’ve been enjoying lovely walks in the garden on these warm evenings. We’ve been particularly struck by how lovely the White Garden is in the gloaming. See what you think.
Wharf House Gardener 