Monthly Archives: July 2012

Charleston Manor

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In a quiet crease of the South Downs lies Charleston Manor.  It is somewhere I have long wanted to visit and so, when I heard that the gardens were open, I almost fell over with excitement.

After a pub lunch in nearby Litlington, we trundled up the yew-lined drive, to the house.

Charleston Manor

The house itself wasn’t open but I pressed my face up against the gates anyhow and peered in longingly (rather like I used to stare at the Priory – before I worked there).  Then I nipped around the corner …

… stood on tip toe and got an altogether better view.  Parts of the house date from 1170-80, should you wonder.

On the lawn, alongside the Great Barn, we sat down for tea and cake.  First things first.  I have photos of friends and I feeding – but I shan’t post them; no one deserves that.

Against the south wall of the barn is a simple but effective planting of agapanthus and white valerian.  A nice idea to nick.

The Great Barn is big.  Well,  enormous actually.  And easily accommodated several stalls, including …

… second-hand books.  Result!

Wondering about the grounds, I was thwarted by another iron gate.  Don’t you just hate that?  But again …

… a quick charge around to one side, gave me a view into a pretty, private garden.

I was whimpering to get in there and have a good root about.

At the western end of the grounds is a large lake, graced with water lilies.

And I did try to be happy for the owners as (unlike at the Priory) they have no duckweed.  I did try.  But I failed.  Jealously is a strict master.

Part of Charleston Manor is covered with winter jasmine.  We have a great deal more of it at the Priory and I can’t decide whether it works.  It looks better here and I’m not sure why.  Growing against flint rather than brick, perhaps?

Nearby, the Clock House has climbing roses with …

… cosmos out front; a reminder for me to grow the latter again next year.  I didn’t this year and I miss it.

Jealously again took a hold of me when I saw this laburnum tunnel.

I carefully made a note of how it was laid out - just in case I ever get the chance to plant one.  I should love to see it in flower.

From the slope above the laburnum tunnel and a wildflower meadow, I was able to gaze down into the Manor gardens …

… while off to my left, I had a view out across the Cuckmere valley to the Litlington White Horse.  This isn’t an ancient chalk figure – obviously; it dates either from the 1830′s or the 1920′s.  (More information here).

As if the afternoon wasn’t quintessentially English enough, they had laid on a brass band.  Would it be churlish to note that a few notes were off-key?  Probably but I don’t think anyone cared.  I certainly didn’t.  It all added to the charm, as the music tootled out over the sunlit valley.

I tell you what.  I should like to work at Charleston Manor.  The gardens are not pristine nor are they exquisitely manicured; that would need a very large gardening team indeed.  No, instead there is a gentle rough and tumble-ness to Charleston.  Large areas certainly do need attention, including a huge walled kitchen garden (not open to the public but I managed a sneaky look).  The potential is huge and it would be fine to have it looking again as it must have done in its prime.

I wonder whether they have any vacancies?

Strangers On My Knapweed

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Common knapweed (Centaurea nigra) grows widely in the meadow.

It flowers from June till September,

is very popular with a wide range of insects and is usually abuzz with visitors.

There are, of course, the usual bees and flies that feed on its nectar.  But the other day there were three visitors that I didn’t know.  So, on getting home, I dug out my ‘Boys Big Bumper Book of Bugs.’   Turns out that they were all fairly common and widespread – at least in southern England.  Doesn’t make them any less beautiful though.  Or welcome.

First up was a large skipper butterfly.  There certainly aren’t as many butterflies at the Priory this year – at least not yet.  But there are some meadow browns and skippers.   So that’s good, isn’t it?

I was very taken with my second unknown;  the thick-legged flower beetle.  Not the most gracious of names but a rather handsome chap.  And it is a chap – females don’t have the fat legs.  Thin-legged flower beetles?

And then I spotted a spotty moth.

“Must be terribly rare,” I thought, as I don’t remember ever seeing one before.  But no.  The six-spot burnet moth is the commonest of Britain’s day-flying burnet moths.  Apparently.

Might have called it the twelve-spot burnet moth, myself.

Nothing wrong with being commonplace, I suppose.  We can’t all be special.  Or rare.

I’m pleased that having stopped cutting the lawn-that-is-now-the-meadow, we’re attracting all sorts of insects that otherwise would have flown on by; insects that I’m now seeing – and learning the names of.

Even if some of them are rather common.

Cutting The Mixed Hedging

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There are three ‘Priory Big Jobs’ punctuating the summer: the cutting of the mixed hedging, the cutting of the beech hedging and the cutting of the meadow.  Last week, I set aside two days to tackle the first of these.  (We’ll tackle the beech hedging in August and the meadow in early September).

The Priory drive is a third of a mile long and accompanied on either side, for most of its length, by a hedge of mixed, native species.  I don’t cut it any earlier than July because it is full of …

… wild roses.

And I can’t possibly cut off …

… roses in bloom nor …

… wild honeysuckle.

The hedge doesn’t run all the way up from the house to the road.

For about half its length, the drive runs alongside Margaret’s wood (historically this eight acre wood was part of the Priory estate).  The wood is on the left in the above photo; on the right is a length of old hedge that has, over the years, been left uncut and grown into full-sized, if spindly, trees.  Someone once suggested that we cut all these trees down and re-instate the hedge line.  But I love the green tunnel that the overarching trees create; they form a roof with the oaks and ash and hazel of Margaret’s wood.  In high, hot summer (in any year but this one) it is a cool, lime-lit oasis.

By July, the hedge is shaggy and bristly.  Ash, especially, has sprouted tall.  Brambles arch out and down and grab me when I’m mowing the verges.

When I wrote about cutting the mixed hedging last year (see ‘The Mixed Hedging‘) some readers said how they preferred the look of the untrimmed hedges.  I’m inclined to agree but, of course, if the hedges weren’t cut annually they would soon end up like the ‘hedge’ up in the wood – a line of trees.  And the hedge serves an important purpose; it keeps Margaret’s cows and sheep off the estate.

I need help with these ‘Priory Big Jobs.’  So I hauled in Nick to come and give me a hand.  We loaded up the trailer with two petrol hedge trimmers and two long reach trimmers.  I consulted long and hard before buying any power tools for the Priory (there were none when I started).  From all I was told, from what I read and from my own limited experience, I bought only Stihl.  And I haven’t been disappointed.

Having cut the sides with the ordinary trimmer, Nick sets to on the hedge top with the long reach.

These long reach trimmers give us … er, a long reach with which to cut tall hedges without the hassle of using ladders or staging.  But they are heavy and after several hours use my arms were singing with pain.

Having finished the line down by the house, we drove the quad (very, very fast) up to the top of the drive where the hedge re-emerges from the wood.

After cutting the sides, we took it in turns to perch precariously (but terrifically bravely) on the back of the quad in order to reach the hedge top, while the other intermittently drove slowly forward.  This method is not approved by the Priory Health & Safety Executive and so I am unable to show you photos.  (The PHSE have also raised serious concerns at Nick’s refusal to wear eye, head or ear protectors.  But frankly he doesn’t give a stuff).

After discussion with Nick, I am considering reducing the height of this stretch of the hedge; its height just makes it too tricky to cut.

After we’d finished cutting there was still all the clearing up to do.  I lost count (after ten) of the number of trailer-loads I ran down (very, very fast) to the bonfire site.  Once raked, the drive also needed clearing with a leaf blower.  Try as you might, you’d struggle to design anything more effective to puncture a car tyre than a little blackthorn off-cut.  I speak from experience.

And so, Big Job Number One completed.  As usual, I shall need to give it a light trim in a few weeks time; to maintain a crispness throughout the autumn and winter.

Part of the mixed hedging as seen from the greenhouse.  The hedge in the foreground is Margaret’s and will be cut by tractor in a few weeks time.

This is only the second year that I’ve cut the Priory hedges.  We used to hire in contractors but doing it myself, gives us flexibility in when it is done (and saves a shed-load of money).  But I have realised that taking two days out of the gardens in July is too much (I’m now behind with the mowing again).  Next year we’ll spread the job out over two weeks.  Hedge cutting is now an integral part of my gardening/estate management year; a milestone.  Though it is hard, tiring, muscle-screaming work it is also immensely satisfying.  Well done, Nick.  Well done, me!

Of Flowers And Foes

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I’m rather fond of lilies.

I know not everyone is.

But I am.  I grow them in some of the borders and …

… in pots.

After two years grace, lily beetles have now arrived at the Priory.

Did they smell the perfume from across Margaret’s fields and home in from some distant garden?  Smacking their lips?  Or were they smuggled in by my Arch Gardening Enemy (responsible for skewing so many of my gardening efforts)?

I wouldn’t normally relish squishing any creature; especially so handsome a beetle as this.  But having grown potted lilies for several years now, I know LB’s intimately and despise them.  And … and … and … (splutter) their larvae are overwhelmingly revolting.

They cover themselves in a thick, towering coat of their own slimy, glistening excrement – a deterrent to being eaten.  Works for me.

Gross, huh?  Want another shot of one?

Probably not but here you go anyway.

In addition another favourite plant has been subject to attack: Solomon’s Seal (polygonatum).

There is one small clump which survived the-years-of-neglect and, during April, it tends to draw me over.  Or causes me to stop and pause as I walk past.  It is a plant that re-pays being closely studied.

But now, in July, it is just a food crop for the Solomon’s seal sawfly.  In the past I have just let these grubs be – they don’t seem to affect the plant’s flowering.  But I read recently that having stripped the leaves, the fully fed and nicely fat larvae simply burrow down into the soil and pupate the following year.  Repeated annual feasting can’t be good for the plant’s vigour and, as it seems such a simple life-cycle to break, I have begun picking them off.

Another sawfly, which attacks birch (yep, it’s called the birch sawfly) has been a problem these past two or three years.  If I hadn’t removed them all last year, they certainly would’ve stripped my three young Betula jacquemontii ‘Snow Queen’ of all their leaves.  This year I found only one larva (and quickly crushed it thinking there would be many more – hence no photo) and only one branch slightly affected.  Did birds eat them?  I like to think so.  It would be a little payback for all the money spent on birdfood.

But not all the plants are under sustained assault.  Opium poppies survived the-years-of-neglect too – though this year, their numbers are way down.  They self seed prodigiously but I do pull them out of some of the beds.  You can have too much of a good thing.

But as much as I like them, some are too frilly by far.  Not only do I find them too fussy, bees struggle to get at their nectar.

The kidney beds are at long, long last putting on a show though it is not as hyper as last year.

Day lilies (again these are survivors from before my time and so variety unknown) have only just started flowering.  Behind them is …

… Campanula lactiflora looking jolly smart and at one bed’s end …

… a Stipa gigantea has reached maturity.

Also in the kidney beds are Verbascum chaixii ‘Album.’  I originally grew these from seed and they are now increasing in number sufficiently for me to spread about elsewhere.

And, talking of verbascums, out on the drive a single plant (which I didn’t have the heart to strim) has developed into a sizeable grouping.  Goodness only knows where the seed came from.  I shall dig some up and use in the gardens.  Anyone know the variety?

I also transplanted some Verbascum olympicum from the Old Forge – where they flourish on the dry, chalky soil.  But here at the Priory, they are still a long way from flowering; if indeed they will flower at all in this wet and cold, drab and overcast ‘summer’.

My Ligularia przewalskii (written with confidence but pronounced with none at all) has many more flower spikes than last year.  It, at least, appreciates all the rain we’ve had.

But roses do not relish rain.  A couple of weeks ago, this old Rosa ‘New Dawn’ around the front door to the house looked pretty but the flowers didn’t last as long as usual.  The rain and wind soon battered them to a sodden, pulpy oblivion.

The rose tunnel is also in flower (though there are gaps.  I have planted new bare-rooted plants to fill these).

After a visit last weekend to the stunning gardens at West Dean, I can at last identify the climbing rose on the tunnel.  I had suspected it was Sanders White but it’s nice to be certain.  What a beauty it is.  Just a shame we haven’t got the sunshine to show it off at its best.

Perhaps next year?  Or the year after.  Or the one after that.

Swallows And The Kestrel

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As buzzards will always remind me of the Priory, so kestrels will always make me think of the Old Forge.

I see them hunting over the gardens and the surrounding fields almost every time I’m there.

Today was no exception.  And I saw one closer than usual …

… as it perched on the house roof.

It had a good view from up there …

… and a perfect spot from which to launch, and set off …

… to hunt over the gardens.

Sadly, rather than its usual prey of small mammals (voles, field mice, shrews and the like), the kestrel’s victim today was a swallow nestling.  Swallows nest in an out-building at the very top of the gardens.  And I had been very pleased; swallows and swifts zipping overhead will always make me think of the Old Forge too.

The parents mobbed the kestrel as it tore at the young swallow.

But as in my recent post The Fox and The Duck the mobbing had no effect.  And the kestrel repeated its raids on the nest until all the nestlings were gone.  Apparently, when food is plentiful (eg a nestful of baby birds), kestrels will cache food.  Though alternatively, of course, it may have had young of its own to feed.

Even after the kestrel had emptied the nest …

… the swallows continued to …

… swoop down on the hawk.

Later, when the kestrel had returned to its vantage point on the roof, I watched a fearless chaffinch also have a go at it.

I think the kestrel might have been rather too close to the chaffinch’s nest.  Fearless little chap though, eh?

The kestrel took wing again …

… and the swallows continued their harassment of it.

We can hope that this wasn’t the only brood raised by the swallows this year (they can have up to three – though I doubt that will happen in this cold, wet year).   It was certainly upsetting to watch but I felt privileged to have seen such high drama at first hand.

But I do wish the kestrel would stick to voles.