It’s been some time since I’ve posted on the blog so I’m going to use this entry to provide an overview of 2023. I think the main gardening highlight of last year was editing and improving what we already have. As we get to know the plants better we’ve moved some into different parts of the garden where they’ll be
Continue readingCategory: ferns
May 2021: Exploding Hostas
Here is a short recording of progress in the garden during May. I am going to make a concerted effort in future videos to not repeat certain phrases and words – apologies for the repetition!
Continue readingApril 2021: Spring blossom and half a greenhouse
As you might expect, April has seen lots of new growth in the garden and we’ve also had the landscaping team back who built us our new greenhouse base and wall. The greenhouse and coldframe is being installed towards the end of May so I’ll be sure to include it in next months video.
Continue readingMarch 2021: Three new planting beds
There’s so much to report on since the last video – hence why this is a longer video. I hope you enjoy seeing the big developments we’ve made to the garden this month.
Continue readingAugust 2020: New planting beds
As I mentioned in last months post, we now have 4 new planting beds at our disposal and this month we planted into 2 of these new spaces. For both beds we included shrubs for height and structure, as well as mid height and ground covering plants. We selected plants for their contrasting/complimentary foliage colours and textures and also thought
Continue readingMay 2020: Nesting birds and spring flowers
The bird box we erected in November 2018 was used for the first time this spring by a pair of tree sparrows; here is a clip of them in action feeding their brood: Many of the plants in the garden have stared to bloom this month including this Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingwersen’s Variety’, which is mat-forming and semi-evergreen. I think this
Continue readingMarch 2020: Spring planting
In last month’s post I talked about how we prepared a large new planting bed. In March we planted 2 trees into this space and they’ve instantly provided height and impact. Since we’ve already planted 3 multi stem silver birch in the garden (Betula utilis var. jacquemontii), we thought it would be effective to plant a single stem cultivar called
Continue readingNovember 2019: Planting bare root crab apple trees
In November our order of crab apple trees ‘Evereste‘ arrived. They came bare root via the post so we had to soak them prior to planting. We ordered 12 so we could plant 3 around each quarter of the wall – the picture below gives you an impression. We chose this variety since they are disease resistant and the blossom
Continue readingSeptember & October 2019: Late summer flowers and planting for spring 2020
In September I began studying a RHS horticultural qualification at Merrist Wood college – here’s a link to my programme. We visited Wisley and particularly enjoyed the tropical garden; I really liked the contrasting foliage textures and colour combinations. I was particularly pleased with Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen‘ which we planted into the back of the mixed border in spring- the
Continue readingMay 2019: Digging out the paths
May must be one of my favourite months in the garden. I’m sad before it’s even over knowing I have to wait another year to see the garden adopt its fresh green foliage. As I discussed in last months post, we finally finished the dry stone wall and in May we launched in to digging the paths and central
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