Monthly Archives: April 2011

Priory Beauties

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Over in the meadow, the first Camassia quamash has flowered.  I planted 200 of these small bulbs last autumn so this better not be the only one.  (Or else there’ll be trouble).  Very pretty, I think and a little startling when I first saw it.

I really like Aquilegia.  Does anyone not?  A few years ago I nabbed some seed from a friend’s garden.  I now have several of this blue form and encourage it to self seed where it will:

I also grew a dozen or more Aquilegia william guiness from purchased seed and released it into the Priory garden to run amok:

But my all time favourite is this little alpine species, Aquiliegia canadensis.  What a gem.  (It’s only four or five inches tall.  Bless).

The very last of the Priory daffodils are now flowering.  Daffodil actaea is delicate and fragrant and extends the daffodil season well into May.  At least normally it does but everything is a couple of weeks early this year.

One of the few plants to survive the-years-of-neglect is a clump of Solomon’s seal.  I dug it up last year in order to increase my stock.  I’m not sure any visitor to the garden would even notice it.  But I do.
On the walls of the house are two honeysuckles.  One of them, of huge size and presence, grows in a courtyard-like space and so the scent, in such a semi-confined area, is even stronger than normal.   Knocks you flat.

Talking of a good scent, the first rose has bloomed.  In April!!  I don’t know the variety I’m afraid but this smells good and repeats.  Being against a south-facing wall has helped bring it on so early.

And the iris bed is doing what is demanded of it.  Again this is a survivor from the-years-of-neglect so variety unknown:

I couldn’t be without Allium christophii and have planted a hundred or so at the Priory.  That infinitely-slow-motion-explosion as it unfurls over several days.  Mesmerising.

I was up in Margaret’s wood a couple of days ago, enjoying the light (but working very, very hard obviously).

I was cutting bean poles from some old coppiced hazel.  And whilst blundering around with my big fat feet and humming loudly, I almost trod on and squished this elegant little beauty.

I’ve had to scratch my head somewhat, think long and hard and attempt an identification.  It’s not an orchid I’ve come across before.  I’m going to be very brave (what with all you plant fiends out there) and say categorically and without fear of contradiction (fingers crossed) that it’s an Early Purple Orchid.  And what a little corker she is.  I like the fact that no-one else on the planet has seen this particular plant.  That it has been growing unobserved and unappreciated in this unvisited, private wood; just quietly getting on with what it has evolved to do.
Glad I didn’t squish it.

Tomatoes and Tree Peonies

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I’ve been spending so much time mowing, edging and weeding that it was satisfying to do some planting the other day and tick off a job on my ever-growing To-Do-List.  It’s been unseasonably hot and after mid-morning it’s been difficult to work in the greenhouse without melting into a little puddle.  However, having put up netting on the south-facing glass to cut out the worst of the direct sun, I was able to spend a little time working in there.
I planted twelve tomato plants.  Four each of Amish Gold, Moneymaker and Brandywine Red.  In addition I planted up five pots of Tumbling Red.  I grew all of these varieties, from seed,  last year with the exception of Moneymaker and they were a great success.  I particularly recommend Amish Gold – big yellow, very tasty fruits and Tumbling Red – a seemingly never-ending supply of sweet cherry tomatoes.  I’m a  little anxious, as I’ve had an aphid attack on the young plants which has resulted in some leaf curl and stem deformity.  I’ve been checking regularly and picking off the culprits (and spraying with a weak soap solution).  Hopefully, they’ll pull through and we’ll be in for a tomato glut.  What can be nicer in high summer than a tomato glut?  Roast them in the oven and whizz into a fantastic pasata!
I’ve got space for four cucumber plants at the far end (where the cannas and dahlia are above) and hopefully will be able to plant those out in a week or so.  In addition, I’ll grow sweet and chilli peppers and aubergines in pots.

Outside the greenhouse, the asparagus are doing well.  This is the first year I’ve been able to harvest any.

For the size of house, I don’t grow a lot of vegetables at the Priory.  There are six raised beds (badly positioned behind the long borders.  One day I should like to move them).  At the moment two are full of potatoes and one with onions and garlic.  The latter were planted out as sets last autumn and despite my worst fears, have sailed though all that snow, ice and winter wet.

Another half bed has been sown with radishes and salad leaves and the rest  will be planted with courgettes, sweet corn, leeks and beans.

Meanwhile, the tree peonies are in full flower.  They have a criminally short season with the flowers lasting just a few days; lovely cut leaves though.  I’m afraid I don’t know variety names – though one day I will try to id them.  If anyone knows I would be very grateful.

This is one is coy, rich and sensuous.

This one isn’t really my thing but is just so flamboyant and so over-the-top I can’t help but like it.

Blog Logo

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I’ve been playing around trying to design a logo for the blog.  Not sure why but it keeps me off the streets.
Do you own a billhook?  If your garden comprises mostly soft herbaceous plants and planted up pots then you probably don’t need one.  But down at the Priory I use one quite often.  It’s a great, if slightly alarming, tool for cutting beanpoles and the like, removing the side branches off  larger branches and, of course, hedge laying.  Not that I’ve laid a hedge in my life.
Anyway, thought I’d try to incorporate one into the logo.
I was quite pleased with the effect but then realised that  actually it is  far too apocalyptic.  The billhook looks  like a weapon that a Viking warrior has just whacked into a wooden  post whilst he takes a breather from all that rape, pillage and slaughter.
Perhaps not quite the message I was trying to convey.

It Blooms and It Blooms

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Years ago, my partner Jim (his real name) and I went to Northumberland and stayed in a very, very remote cottage for a week.  We took with us our young weimaraner, Hobbes.  She was in doggy heaven; tremendously long walks over the hills,  snoozes by the aga and  haring around the large garden flushing out pheasant and rabbits.  Such fun.  Jim and I joked about her brain arcing with the excitement of it all.  Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz.
I was reminded of our week’s holiday in Northumberland this week by my brain bzzzing.  It’s the light, I tell you.  The light.  There is simply too much input, too much stimulus.  Too much damn beauty.  Bzzzz.  Bzzzz.  Bzzzz.
Over in the meadow, the grasses are beginning to do what grasses do when you stop mowing them.  Er, grow.
 
And even the weeds take on an ephemeral charm, a beauty that all too often goes unappreciated; at least by me.  How often have you been irritated by a dandelion seed head growing in a crack of paving or in a border?  But here in the meadow, they just look lovely.
Last year, out on the island in the west pond, I planted four Japanese maples.  Three are looking great and  coming into leaf but one is looking a little sorry for itself.  I shall need to haul on my waders and go and investigate.  I like my waders.  They’re just like an enormous romper suit.  And make me laugh.

On the east lawn the big oak is coming into leaf

and flower.

I introduced some kingcups into the garden the year before last.  They are now getting established around the east pond.

Tried to get a close up shot but it was ruined by this pesky damselfly.

Tried to get a nice little shot of a lady’s smock but this bee fly got in the way.

Tried to get a nice little shot of a celandine but ………. good grief.

The light makes it all so photogenic.  (Even if there are no plants involved).

But I was soon drawn back to some pretty flowers.  This is Phlox kimono.  A terrific little plant that flowers its heart out for weeks on end and is just so relentlessly cheery.  But not in an irritating way.

Clematis koreana blue eclipse
Clematis.  Wouldn’t you just die without clematis?  Probably not but I do adore them and have planted over a dozen at the Priory.  This is the first to flower this year.
Still lots of hot tulip action going on.  Here’s tulip spring green.  I’ve made a mistake here;  its subtle colouring is a bit lost against the wall.  They’d be better against a dark background.  But in the mornings, before they’re leached out by the sun, they look better.  Honest.  You must believe me.  You simply must.  And year by year, they increase in number so they’re obviously happy; which makes me loath to move them.
Here it is being a little coquettish behind the leaves of a peony -  non-leached.
There are three tree peonies in this bed.  I call it the tree peony bed.  (I’ve always been very good at naming things).  All were strimmed (wince) during the-years-of-neglect.  They’re terribly slow growers but they are recovering though terribly, terribly slowly.

And here, the smallest is about to flower for the first time (since I’ve been here). Ever so exciting though I wish she’d get on with it.  Talk about keeping me on tenterhooks.  Saucy minx.  Looks a bit like Audrey II actually.  Perhaps she is a he.

Yet another shot of the long borders with the red gash of Apeldoorn.  They’ll soon be over for another year so we might as well make the most of them.

Same argument for Queen of Night.  Say good night now, Queenie.  Good night.  (That one’s for you, Shirl).

And Hobbes?  Well, she’s an elderly, sedate but rather lovely old dog now.  Not capable of long ranging walks anymore, she spends her days lying in the sun and then looking at chickens.  She can spend quite a lot of time looking at chickens.  And sniffing them.  She doesn’t really understand why she mustn’t bite them but she tries very, very hard indeed not to.

Blooming Priory 2

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At this time of year the light is a hindrance.  Whilst trying to work, I’m constantly having to stop and admire a particular plant,
Osmanthus x burkwoodii.  Fantastic shrub, tough as old boots and superb strong scent

combination of plants,

Queen of Night tulips with cherry and pear blossom

or a certain scene. How can I be expected to get any work done?

One of two Amelanchier in the garden.  This, the larger, is up against a corner of the house.

This is just a quick post to show off some of the colour and light at this superb time of the Sussex year.

Primula denticulata – a hangover from my time working in an Alpine nursery.  I’ve got loads of them.  Easy to propagate (split ‘em) and in a range of colours.  What’s not to like?

As I’m working, I have to make a mental note of what to come back to and take a picture of during my breaks.

Bluebells, primula and violets cluster around the base of the oak stump, east lawn.

Over in the flower meadow daffodils are still blooming.

I would post more photo’s (taken today) but very annoyingly have left my camera-to-PC-cable at the Priory.
I spent quite a lot of time in late winter digging up and transplanting forget-me-nots (of which I didn’t think there was enough of at the Priory).
Forget-me-nots with tulip bakeri

 

At last, the big beech hedge that runs along most of the western  and southern boundaries of the garden is turning to leaf.  Strange how just a small bit at a time finds the courage to go for it, whilst the rest holds back.
Peep over the garden boundary and you can admire Margaret’s hedge boundaries.  The blackthorn here is still in flower, though as the hedges are cut annually the blossom isn’t as exuberant as the blackthorn show going on in the garden.
And finally, no flowers but the green in this shot just makes me want to rub my face in it.  Ill advised as that would be – in the foreground is stinging nettle and goosegrass.  Margaret’s new lambs and mothers are feeding in the far field.