I like that book Busy lizzie. Good books to read in winter when no gardening to do. In this way I have acquired more gardening books than the local library, and the front bedroom looks like a library with a bed in it.
Hi B-L. Super garden you have there and what scope you have, space,shade,sun, varying soils and you will certainly make the most of it going by what we are seeing here. I love the idea of cutting beds diagonally into grass (have done it myself though on a smaller scale) to provide extra planting but also ( if required) to create "barriers" round which you have to walk and thus finding pleasant surprises round the corner. Really very nice. Ref Christop[her Lloyd and Mrs, Chatto - she was celebrating her 90th b/day last week and also last year I think was the anniversary of her garden - 50 yrs.. She actually did have a booklet printed giving details etc of the its history/creation of which I received a copy with the delivery of some plants from her nursery earlier this year - in it she also talks of her great friendship with him. I did have a couple of he's books - The Well Tempered garden and Foliage Plants. Never been to Gt. Dixter but did in fact live quite close to Mrs. Chattos for 28 yrs and thus visited her beautiful garden on several occasions. Best wishes.
WW, the tree is a robinia, it's been snowing white petals on the lawn in the photo. It's an old French farmhouse and part of the garden used to be the farmyard. I've been told the bit where the sundial is used to have a barn on it. It slopes so it's on different levels with walls in between. When we bought it in 1990 there wasn't a garden, just brambles, nettles, bindweed (the bane of my life!) and grass. We had some earth delivered and the lawns flattened and sown, we were busy with 4 children and decoating the house as it hadn't been lived in for 6 years. Then I made the garden.
When we lived in Kent I used to buy a lot of plants from Beth Chatto and I've chatted with her on the phone years ago. I opened that garden to the public for leukaemia research.
Am at a bit of a loose end today as I overdid the weeding when we got back from England and I've pulled a muscle in my back.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Hi B-L. Ref the Robinia - have some nice specians 50ft in the woods immediately next door to us - ours are also in flower at the moment bu tonly patchily, do they flowerf less as they get to a good size?.
Hi bluejan Salino - all. Ref the Hosta pics. In a bit of a mix here because I don't feel I can send 8-10 pics one behind the other and block the topic. Will send a couple of groups and look up on site if it is possible to start ones own gallery.
Beth Chatto and Christo Lloyd corresponded and their letters were published in a book... a great read. I remember she once wrote she was praying for rain. His response was that he didn't see much point in praying as someone else was almost certainly praying for the opposite.
Hi. Ref my comment on plants lost, those that although striving to give them the conditions they need just walk out on us. Heres a few of mine - the small Gunnera magellanica. Variegated Brunnera, Monarda ( love this plant and regret it does not seem to like me). Trycurtis. I was very lucky to be able to buy just one off each of the old white double and lilac double Primroses which stayed a while and then left me in spite of all efforts. The old Madonna Lilies - these were given to me in a bucket mid summer when in flower, pals dad was moving home and had a row of them totally neglected but thriving - in spite of all my care they slowly left over several years ( no doubt aided by that wretched beetle) as did Lilium pyrenaicum and the red Martagons. I read many gardening books learning ( hopefully) all the time. Read of the Ostrowskias - described as almost impossible to grow but they looked so interesting I had to give it a go. Racking my brain here, this was 30-40 yrs ago - bulbous and of the Campanula family, needed fierce draining in full sun, a whiff too much and they wilted, flowers could be 6 in across. Planted mine in a raised bed at foot of a south facing wall in a mix of sand and grave - grew OK and at 2 feet thought I was going to get away with it - it wilted - nothing ventured....!. One thing I count as a marvel was when after ages managing to get hold of some Hacquetia I lovingly planted it in exactly the conditions stated as needed, just a small clump. After their foliage died away Autumn that was all to see until the small yellow flowers should have appeared on the surface in Spring - they did not so I gave up on that resolving to try again if poss. Anyway walking on a path edged with loose stonework one Spring morning there at the bottom of this wall, 12 feet away from where I had planted in Autumn was a tiny yellow flower - Hacquetia for sure. Watched it grow and when it had got bigger carefully removed it from that wall bottom and replanted near to where I had first planted the original. Happy to say have had them ever since and have three nice groups. Worth reading about if you do not know them, how the flowers gradually turn green into summer etc, look a little like Jack in the Green Primroses.
Posts
I like that book Busy lizzie. Good books to read in winter when no gardening to do. In this way I have acquired more gardening books than the local library, and the front bedroom looks like a library with a bed in it.
A very stylish piece of anglo/french garden, BizLiz. What is the tree? Love the walls too, what is the history?
Anyone looking at this picture should blow it up to full size for the full wow factor.
Hi B-L. Super garden you have there and what scope you have, space,shade,sun, varying soils and you will certainly make the most of it going by what we are seeing here. I love the idea of cutting beds diagonally into grass (have done it myself though on a smaller scale) to provide extra planting but also ( if required) to create "barriers" round which you have to walk and thus finding pleasant surprises round the corner. Really very nice. Ref Christop[her Lloyd and Mrs, Chatto - she was celebrating her 90th b/day last week and also last year I think was the anniversary of her garden - 50 yrs.. She actually did have a booklet printed giving details etc of the its history/creation of which I received a copy with the delivery of some plants from her nursery earlier this year - in it she also talks of her great friendship with him. I did have a couple of he's books - The Well Tempered garden and Foliage Plants. Never been to Gt. Dixter but did in fact live quite close to Mrs. Chattos for 28 yrs and thus visited her beautiful garden on several occasions. Best wishes.
WW, the tree is a robinia, it's been snowing white petals on the lawn in the photo. It's an old French farmhouse and part of the garden used to be the farmyard. I've been told the bit where the sundial is used to have a barn on it. It slopes so it's on different levels with walls in between. When we bought it in 1990 there wasn't a garden, just brambles, nettles, bindweed (the bane of my life!) and grass. We had some earth delivered and the lawns flattened and sown, we were busy with 4 children and decoating the house as it hadn't been lived in for 6 years. Then I made the garden.
When we lived in Kent I used to buy a lot of plants from Beth Chatto and I've chatted with her on the phone years ago. I opened that garden to the public for leukaemia research.
Am at a bit of a loose end today as I overdid the weeding when we got back from England and I've pulled a muscle in my back.
BL... your garden is up there in the top 10 !
Hi B-L. Ref the Robinia - have some nice specians 50ft in the woods immediately next door to us - ours are also in flower at the moment bu tonly patchily, do they flowerf less as they get to a good size?.
Hi bluejan Salino - all. Ref the Hosta pics. In a bit of a mix here because I don't feel I can send 8-10 pics one behind the other and block the topic. Will send a couple of groups and look up on site if it is possible to start ones own gallery.
Hi. Heres 3 Hosta
groups.
Beth Chatto and Christo Lloyd corresponded and their letters were published in a book... a great read. I remember she once wrote she was praying for rain. His response was that he didn't see much point in praying as someone else was almost certainly praying for the opposite.
Hi. Ref my comment on plants lost, those that although striving to give them the conditions they need just walk out on us. Heres a few of mine - the small Gunnera magellanica. Variegated Brunnera, Monarda ( love this plant and regret it does not seem to like me). Trycurtis. I was very lucky to be able to buy just one off each of the old white double and lilac double Primroses which stayed a while and then left me in spite of all efforts. The old Madonna Lilies - these were given to me in a bucket mid summer when in flower, pals dad was moving home and had a row of them totally neglected but thriving - in spite of all my care they slowly left over several years ( no doubt aided by that wretched beetle) as did Lilium pyrenaicum and the red Martagons. I read many gardening books learning ( hopefully) all the time. Read of the Ostrowskias - described as almost impossible to grow but they looked so interesting I had to give it a go. Racking my brain here, this was 30-40 yrs ago - bulbous and of the Campanula family, needed fierce draining in full sun, a whiff too much and they wilted, flowers could be 6 in across. Planted mine in a raised bed at foot of a south facing wall in a mix of sand and grave - grew OK and at 2 feet thought I was going to get away with it - it wilted - nothing ventured....!. One thing I count as a marvel was when after ages managing to get hold of some Hacquetia I lovingly planted it in exactly the conditions stated as needed, just a small clump. After their foliage died away Autumn that was all to see until the small yellow flowers should have appeared on the surface in Spring - they did not so I gave up on that resolving to try again if poss. Anyway walking on a path edged with loose stonework one Spring morning there at the bottom of this wall, 12 feet away from where I had planted in Autumn was a tiny yellow flower - Hacquetia for sure. Watched it grow and when it had got bigger carefully removed it from that wall bottom and replanted near to where I had first planted the original. Happy to say have had them ever since and have three nice groups. Worth reading about if you do not know them, how the flowers gradually turn green into summer etc, look a little like Jack in the Green Primroses.