Over the next couple of weekends, two of Kent’s most beautiful and enigmatic gardens will be opening their gates to the curious public. Both reveal their secrets on just one day each year, so are a must if you are in the county and love to visit special places.

Kurume azaleas at Sandling Park

The first of our Kentish Belles is medieval Saltwood Castle near Hythe, home of the late Alan Clark MP, opening to raise funds for the NSPCC. This year’s date is Saturday May 3rd. Saltwood is everything one could want of an English castle; there’s a foreboding keep, crumbling walls wreathed in roses, dungeons and a ruined chapel. If you fancy going the whole hog, archery lessons are offered in the moat, which is thankfully now dry. There are always excellent plants on offer as well as art, pottery and artisan foods for sale. Shelter and other creature comforts are limited as this is a private home for 364 days of the year, so bring a coat, umbrella and an empty car boot for all your purchases. It’s a popular event come rain or shine. You can read more about last year’s open day here and get opening and entrance details from the NSPCC website.

Plant sales at last year’s Saltwood Castle open day

Only a stone’s throw away is Sandling Park, which opens on Sunday May 11th for Pilgrims Hospices. This year promises to be a vintage year for blooms, following a mild start to spring. If, like me, you love the unashamed exuberance of rhododendrons and azaleas you will love Sandling Park. There are some very choice rhododendrons, grown to perfection amongst a remarkable number of champion trees, and a second-to-none collection of deciduous azaleas. Last year was so cold that they were barely in flower in early May, so this year should offer a very different experience. Find out more about my visit to Sandling Park last year and more details on Pilgrims Hospices own website.

More of Sandling Park’s incredible azaleas 

Yesterday the hedgerows were heavy with may flower and vital with leaf as we drove from Broadstairs to Saltwood Castle for the 2014 NSPCC plant fair. Despite a chill in the air we threw the soft-top down and turned our faces to the sun for warmth. The venerable castle provided a romantic setting for this unmissable event, which happens annually on the May Day Bank Holiday. Hard working volunteers fired up barbecues, baked cakes and brewed tea to sustain hundreds of people that turned out to enjoy a perfect spring day and spot of horticultural therapy.

Last year we encountered carpets of daffodils and anemones leading to the castle’s formidable bailey. Thanks to milder weather, early spring flowers had been superseded by meadows of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), interspersed with comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and Rembrandt tulips. A more Pre-Raphaelite scene it would be hard to imagine; we were just missing a flame-haired lady floating in the moat.

Saltwood Castle has a long and turbulent history, but during quieter times The Queen Mother visited to plant a tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) which now looks mature beyond its years. Sadly, as elsewhere in the country, the English bluebell population was heavily polluted by its Spanish cousin (Hyacinthoides hispanica, the Spanish bluebell) in shades of blue, white and pink.

Our native cowslips fought on, uncontaminated, relishing the well-drained conditions on top of low walls and surrounded by carpets of Cerastium (snow-in summer).

I encountered several plants for the first time, including Podophyllum ‘Kaleidoscope’ and Anemonella thalictroides ‘Oscar Schoaf’, grown by Amy Green and James Amery of Decoy Nursery at Pevensey, East Sussex. The pair, who tour a number of plant fairs around the South East, specialise in shade loving perennials suitable for woodland gardens. I succumbed to the sugary pink powder-puffs of the Anemonella, for which I will find a pot in a lightly shaded corner of our London garden. Although it appears delicate and precious, Amy finds it surprisingly tough and easy to grow.

Spurred on by my friend Beth’s success in cultivating auriculas at Trevoole, I was on the look out for a handful of plants to begin my own collection. I was recommended three cultivars, ‘Old Smokey’ (single, reddish brown with yellow centre), ‘Cinammon’ (lightly fragrant, double russet-orange) and ‘Shaun’ (perfumed, double golden-yellow). They’ll be transported back to London where I’ll need to find them a cool spot protected from the rain.

We enjoyed an impromptu picnic on the lawns, protected by the castle’s ancient walls. Roses were already in abundance, filling the air with scent, draping themselves carelessly over moss-covered urns and statues. There was a terrifying search for an illusive dragon with our friends’ young boys, and a not-so-fruitless hunt for Saltwood’s magnificent peacocks, which were lapping up the attention. We raced across the manicured lawns (I was beaten by a four-year-old), peered down murky wells and enjoyed watching the Castle Moat and Folkestone Bowmen teaching archery.

As well as a plant fair this was a super family day out and an opportunity to glimpse a very special part of England’s heritage. I will leave you with a collection of additional shots taken in Saltwood’s grounds, which would, of course, be incomplete without Him Indoors reclining on an attractive seat, resting his eyes.

There was such an extraordinary amount going on in May that I am now working through a draft post pile-up. In contrast to the scarcity of blogging fodder during the winter months, early summer offers incredibly bounty. I find myself spoilt for choice and with a backlog of fine subjects to share. Now that June is here, I can reflect on the marvellous Kentish gardens I visited during May – Saltwood Castle, Sissinghurst, The Salutation, Goodnestone Park and, last but not least, Sandling Park.

Open on just one Sunday each year in support of Pilgrim’s Hospices, Sandling’s ancient woodland is situated in a small area with acidic soil, a rarity in chalky East Kent. The garden that’s been created in this unique spot is lavishly planted with a collection of rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas which have been collected over the last hundred years or so. After a period of neglect, beginning in the 1960s and ending in the 1990s, the Hardy family have effected a very successful restoration; nothing too neat and tidy, but reopening pathways and clearing some of the most overgrown areas. Old rhododendron and azalea cultivars, many no longer available commercially, have been identified and labelled. New stock has been planted in the gaps created by the Great Storm of 1987 and in areas cleared of Rhododendron ponticum. 

An unnamed double azalea with flowers in subtle shades of pink, amber and peach

Narrow streams cut into deep gullies drain the garden, each lined with its own unique shade of candelabra primula, ranging from pure white to cherry red. Osmunda, gunnera and polygonatum provide a supporting cast of foliage.

Primula japonica finds its feet in damp shade.

In a good year, when the weather is kind, Sandling’s deciduous azaleas steal the show with a display that’s nothing short of psychedelic. Flaming oranges and scorching pinks vie with zesty lemons and brilliant whites, creating a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour. This would be sufficient, but on top of the sizzling colour comes the unmistakable perfume of sun-warmed azalea flowers. It’s a scent I’d happily have under my nose every day.

Rhododendron ‘Orient’, an Exbury Hybrid introduced by Lionel de Rothschild in the late 1920s.

Deciduous azaleas originate from temperate areas of the world including Turkey, the USA, Japan and Taiwan. Most appreciate an acid soil and partial shade at the edge of woodland. Growing to around 1.5m in 10 years they are ideal shrubs for small garden. Prolific breeding means that there are varieties on offer which extend the flowering season from April through to early July. Autumn will see many deciduous azaleas produce colourful displays before the foliage drops. All azaleas are now officially classified as rhododendrons, but are still more commonly known by their original name. The identity of many of Sandling’s cultivars have been lost in time, although they lose nothing in their anonymity. I find it hard to choose favourites, but here are just a few of the garden’s specialities.

Rhododendron calendulaceum – commonly known as the flame azalea, and for good reason. The naked branches bear elegant scarlet flowers before new growth begins in spring. It flowers from May to June and has excellent autumn foliage colour.

Rhododendron ‘Mrs Oliver Slowcock’ – alas I can find no official description of this marvellously named variety, but it appears WC Slowcock was a nursery back in the 1960s. Clear tangerine flowers form shapely heads against a background of lime green foliage.

Rhododendron ‘Norma’ – a vibrant, sweetly scented rose-red double tinted with salmon and orange. Introduced in 1888.

Rhododendron ‘Favor Major’ – another stunner, and a parent of R. ‘Fireball’ which carries the RHS Award of Garden Merit. Flame red with an amber sheen to its petals.

Rhododendron ‘Cannon’s Double’ – more delicious than a knickerbocker glory, the flowers begin deep pink in bud, and opens light apricot and primrose with a reddish pink shading to the outer petals. It has excellent autumn foliage.

Rhododendron ‘Thisbe’ – I haven’t found any information about this lovely variety, which appears no longer to be available commercially. Shell pink flowers emerge from deep pink buds with the upper petals stained the colour of egg-yolk. Glorious.

Rhododendron ‘Corneille’ – vivid crimson buds open to reveal cherry blossom pink blooms which fade subtly with age. The flowers, which have the appearance of growing one inside the other, are described as ‘hose-in-hose’. A prettier shrub it’s hard to imagine.

Rhododendron narcissiflorum AGM – a nicely shaped shrub covered with sweetly scented, double flowers in May and June, followed by good autumn colour. At Sandling, carpets of pink saponaria grow beneath the spreading branches.

An unnamed azalea with white flowers stained golden yellow and blush pink petal edges. Rhododendron ‘Northern Hi-Lights’ is an Exbury type with similar colouration.

Rhododendron atlanticum ‘Seaboard’ – If all those fancy colours and fussy flowers are not for you, this is a perfect choice with flowers shaped like jasmine and a heavenly fragrance to match. Low growing and stoloniferous, so will slowly creep along the ground, rooting as it goes.

For an excellent selection of deciduous azaleas in the UK, try Chelsea gold medal winners Millais Nurseries in Surrey.

If you missed this year’s open day at Sandling Park, your next chance will be in May 2015.

Nestled in a broad, fertile valley cutting a swathe through East Kent, Elham is the very essence of England. During W.W.II Sir Anthony Eden lived in a house outside the village and Audrey Hepburn attended school here. The settlement has a long history beginning in the Neolithic period, but is defined by its fine Tudor and Stuart architecture. Elham Manor, pictured below, dates back to 1387 but was significantly altered in the 16th century. Building regulations relating to foundations were a little different then, but the manor still sits proudly atop Cullings Hill, looking out over the village to the countryside beyond.

Our destination for lunch, The Abbot’s Fireside, was built much later than the manor in 1641 and is reputed to have been the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington during a period when there was threat from Napoleonic invasion. The magnificent St Mary’s church dates from about 1200, when Elham was one of the most important and wealthy villages in the area.

As befits a village endowed with so much history and charm, Elham has a thriving community and an active gardening society. This weekend nine gardens opened for the National Gardens Scheme, offering visitors a glimpse of the glories behind Elham’s buildings, old and new. There was none of the fuss or commercialism seen in frequently opened gardens, just displays of good honest horticulture and enthusiastic owners keen to share their experiences with like minded people.

The official tour began, funnily enough, with property number one, Manor House Cottage, in The Row (at the top of the map above). This was one of the smallest gardens on the circuit, but full of inspiration, especially for keen vegetable growers. Vigorous rows of sweet peas scented the air alongside their culinary cousins.

Nothing beats the smell of a well kept greenhouse, especially when it’s sheltering a crop of tomatoes. Small pots of basil and marigolds added a lovely piquancy to the air, but were mainly present to deter pests. I could have stayed in there all day.

Garden number two, a short walk away at the bottom of the valley, boasted two ponds; one generously stocked with goldfish and the other designed for attracting wildlife. Owners Janice and John Cooper have had a big job on their hands this spring after their garden was flooded by the Nailbourne during January and February. They have been busy replanting with roses, fuchsias and herbs, which complement their pretty weatherboarded bungalow.

Retracing our steps through Elham’s main square (granted a market by Edward I in 1251), we found our way to Springfields in Duck Street. This was one of those utterly immaculate gardens which draw gasps of admiration from visitors. There were some very choice roses, hostas and acers to admire, as well as a pond and small vegetable plot. My friends’ sons appreciated the range of children’s toys on the patio, especially the Hello Kitty bicycle with its blaring horn.

Elham’s railway line linking the village to Canterbury and the coast closed in 1947, releasing land for building new homes. The lovely garden at 3, Station Mews hovers above the Nailbourne on land close to the old tracks. The garden escaped flooding this year, although properties on the other side of the stream were less fortunate. Owners Pauline and Barry Flanagan have packed in an extraordinary number of plants (gardeners after my own heart), especially roses and clematis. I particularly loved the quiet seating area they’ve created on a deck above the stream.

Just around the corner, Sleepers Cottage had the largest garden on the tour and was one of my favourites. At the end of a row of newer houses built on the former railway’s sidings, the smart red brick cottage has unbroken views of the countryside and the church. This is the kind of house I could happily aspire to live in one day. Owners Carole and David Kincaid clearly enjoy sport as they have a fine grass tennis court and putting green. Chickens peck around in the garden’s pretty meadow, which has a secluded corner devoted to bee hives.

At the back of the cottage a lovely seating area was surrounded by roses and vines. The unusual ‘spoke’ design of the garden furniture was perfect for the setting.

Down one side of the garden a long border full of vegetables and flowers for cutting was planted in diagonal rows. There were alstromerias, delphiniums and sweet williams in abundance, perfect for flower arranging.

A short walk brought us to Hog Green, a road lined by modern bungalows each sporting wonderfully neat front gardens. At number 25 the riot of fragrant roses and sweet williams gave us a hint of the class act that lay behind. John and Hilary Mitchell have created a very special garden here, with a pristine lawn, curving paths and choice planting. Every corner offered something new to admire and the way the plants were combined confirmed that the owners knew their stuff.

As at Sleepers Cottage, the views out to the countryside are priceless and The Mitchells have taken full advantage of the borrowed landscape. Just four years ago the garden was a bland patch of concrete and lawn, so the change they have effected is all the more admirable. Immediately outside the back door there are pots of annuals and tomatoes, giving way to a generous herb garden. Alpines, including erodiums and sisyrinchiums, bask in gravel between paving stones. The pot in the foreground of the photograph below was crammed with petunias in lemon yellow and velvety black, planted around a sunny yellow osteospermum.

My favourite plant combination in the garden was Digitalis parviflora planted beneath Rosa ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’.

It was less than twenty paces to garden number 7, across the road at 1 Hog Green. Here Hugh Buckhurst has created a small garden with huge variety. There’s a wildflower meadow, rose arbour, vegetable garden, wildlife pond and new stepping stone garden.

With every twist and turn in the garden’s winding paths there’s an amusing sculpture to be found. Hugh told me that this particular Hog (or rocking ham!) is called Deirdre. Made of paper maché and coated with fibreglass she is able to remain in her sty all year round. Your won’t see one of these in a National Trust garden!

At the rear of the bungalow a quieter area has another sculpture made from organ pipes, and a water feature engineered from old zinc bathtubs. No corner of the garden, which wrapped around the house on three sides, was left untended.

Running out of time we sadly had to skip garden number 8, the village allotments, to get to Church Cottage. This turned out to be my favourite garden of all. Sheltering beneath the hulk of the church, the tiny dwelling was surrounded by a garden of great quality and plantsmanship. Varied levels, clever screening and running water created interest and variety, giving the illusion of a much larger plot. Maggie Newington talked to me about the challenges of keeping such a small garden; what to do when plants outgrow their space and where to squeeze in new acquisitions. It’s a constant juggling act, but Maggie and her husband Richard seem to know how to keep all their balls in the air.

A gift from garden number one, Manor House Cottage, an enviable clump of Madeiran orchids (Dactylorhiza foliosa) was a real showstopper. They are so prolific that Maggie has enough to fill a large terracotta pot as well as an open space in the garden.

It’s through the generosity of garden owners such as Elham’s that the NGS is able to raise so much money for charity. At the same time, enthusiasts such myself are able to gain inspiration from gardens of all shapes, sizes and styles: gardens that you’d never find in a fancy book or magazine. Like Elham and its glorious valley, these gardens are the very essence of England and why our reputation as a nation of gardeners endures.

Find out more about Elham, it’s history and community here.

Joyful and life affirming is how I’d describe the garden at Old Bladbean Stud. Hidden among the labyrinthine lanes of South East Kent, owner Carol Bruce has created a garden of great substance from a site that was utterly derelict as recently as 2003. It’s a rarity these days to come across a new, large garden created by a private individual, and all the more compelling when you discover that Carol has no horticultural training and maintains the whole place single-handed. Having gardeners would be ‘like buying a jigsaw puzzle and then hiring someone to do the puzzle for me” remarks Carol in the garden’s new guide book. Old Bladbean Stud is testament to what can be done with a little grit, determination and imagination. I came away feeling genuinely encouraged and at the same time slightly humbled by her achievement.

Up the garden path, a view through the patte d’oie layout of the rose garden

Of course, a garden on this scale (three acres) does not come cheap and Carol is candid about the total cost of her project: about £100,000. However when one reflects on what this might equate to in property or even cars, it’s lot of bang for your buck. Spread out over ten years, it’s probably less than some people (ahem) spend on clothes in a year. Best leave the comparisons there!

A lovely combination of Astrantia major with Hydrangea arborescens and Allium christophii

A tour of the garden begins in an unprepossessing gravelled yard, where Carol sits in the cool shade of a tree, welcoming visitors. Passing through a brick arch, the experience is how I’d imagine entering Narnia’s summer counterpart. Immediately one is immersed in a maelstrom of scent, movement, texture and colour. Crowds of spikey allium heads carpet the ground beneath robust, lusciously scented roses; campanulas and delphiniums shoot up like rockets in the spaces between the bushes; and verbascums, eryngiums and geraniums flood any gaps that their compatriots have left. Like Narnia, the scene represents what is for many of us a fantasy, a dream of what an English garden should look and feel like.

Biennial sea holly, Eryngium giganteum, mingles with roses and white geraniums

The plot’s unusual shape calls for some interesting transitions. What could be an awkward, curving lawn, named Lamby’s walk, is afforded a focal point in the form of a life-sized Irish Wolfhound sculpture. The grassy walk leads visitors from the rose garden to the most ambitious of Old Bladbean Stud’s features, the double mirrored borders. How many people in this day and age have the vision and guts to create parallel herbaceous borders 300ft long by 60ft wide? Not many. The planting is superb, even following a spell this winter when large sections were submerged in water for over six weeks.

The planting in the 300ft long borders is mirrored in two planes, designed to reflect the colours of the sky

There are two lines of symmetry in the planting, one running down the length of the lawn and the other across the middle, meaning that every plant grouping appears four times. The architecture of the borders is important as it bears little relation to the house or any other anchor point. Handsome stone benches provide a spectacular vantage point at either end of the lawn, whilst obelisks create height, rhythm and accentuate the symmetry of the planting. Carol has chosen flowers which echo the colours of the sky, creating a third line of symmetry. Naturally in borders of such immense scale, planting blocks are substantial and there is room for beasts like Crambe maritima, Campanula lactiflora, Macleya cordata, Cynara cardunculus and Eryngium yuccifolium. Not denying the frequent greyness of British skies, Carol has made abundant use of silver leaved plants such as Artemesia ludoviciana ‘Silver Queen’.

Eryngium yuccifolium, known locally in the USA as rattlesnake master

A long gravel path shaded by Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ guides visitors to the enviable kitchen garden, itself 330ft long. Carol describes it as a ‘crop rotation conveyor belt’ and has positioned taps and compost bins along its length the reduce the amount of plodding up and down required. The soft fruit was at its peak this weekend; blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries and strawberries all sweet, jewel-like and begging to be harvested. Of course we restrained ourselves, but it was tough!

Ripening berries against the wall which divides the double mirrored borders from the kitchen garden

Closer to the house, which unusually has very little relationship with the garden, lies the pastels garden. This enclosed square space is so called because of the way Carol has arranged the pale colours to blur into one another, like an artists pastels. To the left of the photograph below, the cloud of pale pink is composed of Campanula lactiflora (perhaps ‘Loddon Anna’?) and a pale pink delphinium of exactly the same shade.

The greenhouse, rising from its own gravel peninsula, lies on one edge of the pastels garden

The yellow garden was one of the very first areas Carol tackled, and was intended as a place to sit, eat, read the paper, shell seeds and brush her dog. It now provides a beautiful setting for a refreshing cuppa and is slowly morphing into a tea garden. The rose varieties are predominantly hybrid musks and David Austin hybrids mixed with white flowered albas. Other plants include sissyrinchiums, aquilegias, geraniums and Digitalis lutea.

White geraniums, yellow aquilegias and cream roses in abundance in the the yellow garden

The garden was exuberant when we visited in late June, filled with bloom, alive with bees and heady with scent, but this stud is far from a one trick pony. Carol has planned her planting schemes to provide a long season of interest, extending from April to October. She recommends the peak time for the double mirrored borders and pastels garden is August and September, demanding a return visit. Despite its off-beat location, Old Bladbean Stud is a garden that deserves to be better known. For now, let’s keep it our little secret ;-) Old Bladbean Stud is open for the National Gardens Scheme on 13 and 27 July, 24 August, 7 and 21 Sept and 5 Oct 2014. Admission £5.50.  Click here for more details. The damage – extraordinarily only one plant this time, Phuopsis stylosa, the large-styled crossword, which Carol allows to romp around beneath her roses.

A view through the rose garden towards ‘Angel’, a sculpture by Pete Moorhouse

In just less than two weeks, we open our garden at The Watch House in Broadstairs for the National Gardens Scheme. It has not been a long held ambition to let the public in, in fact it still seems a little absurd to me when you consider the garden measures just 20x30ft. However we were persuaded, quite forcefully by some proponents, to take the plunge and here we are just days away. The garden’s diminutive size is intended to be its USP amongst the other, more expansive gardens that open in Kent each year. We hope it gives visitors lots of ideas about they could do with their own small spaces and look forward to inviting them in to our little sanctuary.

The view from the living room window towards the outdoor kitchen, July 2014

We moved to Broadstairs to be close to the sea and chose a town centre location. This meant a small courtyard garden, which we hoped would look after itself. We quickly found that we spent most of our time outside, but the space was cluttered with outbuildings of no particular historic interest. The house itself, two fishermen’s cottages knocked together, is not without charm, but hardly distinguished. In six years it will be 200 years old, an age I am sure the builders never anticipated it would reach. At the time of construction it was at the very edge of town, looking over the rooftops to the English Channel beyond, hence the name, The Watch House.

Broadstairs is famous for its seven sandy bays, each backed by gleaming white cliffs

It’s probable that the plot would have originally belonged to one of the buildings in the High Street, but is unlikely to have had a layout that would have been worth recreating. We took the decision to start again and turn it into a contemporary space where we could entertain visitors (it’s amazing how popular we became when we moved to the seaside!). Nothing apart from the surrounding walls remains from the garden we inherited in 2006.

With a rectangle of this size the opportunities to create surprises and areas with different moods are limited. Instead, we decided upon what one might call a very traditional layout, with borders around the edge of a terrace. This was born out of necessity, as beneath the garden lies two vaulted undercrofts that cannot take a great deal of weight. One of our proudest moments was being chosen to feature in a BBC2 programme about Sissinghurst’s influential role in 21st century garden design. We have a garden room but, in comparison to Sissinghurst, The Watch House is a broom cupboard alongside the presidential suite!

Him Indoors during the filming of Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Secrets in 2009

I hope the result of our garden transformation is anything but traditional. We have made as much use as possible of the vertical plane, choosing trees which are taller than they are wide to screen ourselves from neighbouring houses. The planting is unashamedly non-native. Indigenous plants in this essentially urban setting would be incongruous and the flowering season too short. Instead I’ve looked to California, The Canary Islands, Tasmania and South Africa for plants that will thrive in our sheltered microclimate. We also have a lot of evergreens for structure, which are wonderful until July when they all seem to drop their old, yellowing leaves simultaneously.

Digitalis sceptrum (formerly Isoplexis sceptrum), one of my favourite plants in the garden

Slowly the garden has assumed the feel of one of those tranquil courtyards one finds at the heart of the Riads of Marrakech. The mass of foliage, which needs keeping in check constantly, deadens any noise that comes from the narrow back street running alongside the house. Birds seem to think it’s a paradise, regularly nesting in our trees and climbers, serenading us all day long. The only thing we are missing is a water feature, but I figure we have the best kind just two minutes walk away, the sea. When we come home and close the gate behind us, the hubbub of Broadstairs seems a million miles away.

In such a small space it’s been easy and inexpensive to incorporate little luxuries such as lighting, speakers and mains gas appliances, making the garden perfect for entertaining. Over the years we’ve probably spent more time in our beloved outdoor room than in any other part of the house. The initial project, which included design fees, demolition, materials, services, plants and labour, set us back the princely sum of £35,000. In my book that’s a small price to pay for such sustained pleasure and enjoyment.

Lunch at The Watch House in the early years. Our friend Oli holds court

The garden is approached down a narrow passageway, which is the only opportunity we have to create any element of surprise or mystery before the whole space is revealed. The vista from the front gate remains important and is terminated by my favourite tree, Lyonothamus floribundus ssp asplenifolius, the Santa Cruz Ironwood. This year it is flowering for the first time; the heads of white, achillea-like flowers are the size of dinner plates. I hope they will hang on for visitors to admire in August. My attempts to keep the passageway clear of pots have been pretty lame. If the garden is the stage, then the slate path acts as the wings where a cast of young plants await their cue. Getting to the front door often involves wading through foliage and getting wet trousers!

The garden viewed from the narrow passageway which leads from Thanet Road

Our outdoor kitchen is the feature that’s most often commented on by first time visitors. “How do you keep it covered?” we are asked, “we don’t” is the reply, it survives perfectly well with just the barbecue protected, mainly from seagulls and their shocking toilet habits. We did not get it right first time. The original slate worktop had too many joins and wicked water into the cupboards, so it was replaced last year with the granite surface we’d always aspired to. A ceramic sink in a garden is a godsend, useful for washing up pots, refreshing dried-out plants and chilling drinks. It looks as good as the day it was installed and comes up sparkling white after a quick scrub with my secret weapon, Astonish. Marine grade steel ensures that the barbecue and hob remain blemish free.

The outdoor kitchen after adding the new granite worktop in 2013

We have no shed or garage, so the cupboards make a convenient storage space for pots, tools, fertilisers and garden chemicals – no room for baked beans here! The shelves to the side of the barbecue were meant to be decorative, used occasionally for ingredients awaiting their turn on the grill, but have become the place to bring on seedlings and young plants in spring. In summer trailing begonias in fiery reds and oranges dangle dangerously from the top shelf.

The last of the day’s sunshine hits the sink area at about 4.30pm, after which the garden is plunged into shade. It’s a warm spot and perfect for grouping pots of sun worshippers which I swap around regularly to keep them looking fresh. The combination of the moment brings together hot pinks, wine and plummy shades. It is lovely to be able to examine up close the unusual flowers of plants like Rhodochiton atrosanguineus, the purple bell vine.

A combination of Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’, Rhodochiton atrosanguineus, Fuchsia arborescens and Begonia ‘Benitochiba’ by the outdoor sink.

Maybe it’s a gardener’s natural instinct to try growing things against the odds, but I do like a challenge. Many of the plants I have collected over the years are slightly tender and on the whole they survive thanks to Thanet’s mild temperatures and long sunshine hours. Geranium maderense is the most borderline hardy for me, but emerges afresh from seed in years where the frost gets the better of the mature plants.

Geranium maderense in bloom the year after the garden’s new design was completed

I am not interested in having a low maintenance garden, they have no appeal to me, and instead create work for myself at every opportunity. The profusion of pots around the front door requires the most labour and planning. In October they are crammed with tulip, narcissus, muscari and fritillary bulbs, every year a slightly different combination depending on my mood in July when I order them. Bright colours work well because of the amount of evergreen foliage in the garden and enhance the generally tropical feel. I have tried limiting myself to white, but it just doesn’t work, so in come the reds, oranges and plums which I seem to gravitate towards. I have nowhere to store or replant bulbs from year to year (unless they are very special) so they are replaced anew every season.

Tulipa ‘Red Shine” and T. ‘White Triumphator’

Winter is a quiet time, but the garden remains vital and green unless we experience a frost. Then the echium leaves hang down sullen and dry and the zantedeschias turn to slimy green mush. Once March arrives, the work, all done at weekends, is pretty constant, moving around pots to create new combinations of foliage, flower and texture. I start planting out tender perennials and annuals from Easter time, after which we rarely experience frost. This year the gamble has paid off, with many plants a good six weeks ahead of where they were last year. I make no apology for filling any gaps that appear unexpectedly with mature plants from the garden centre – this is something one can do inexpensively when working in a small space.

Now I hope for a perfect storm of regular, steady showers, cool days and light breezes to keep the garden in tip-top condition for our open weekend. A chance would be a fine thing – our weather just isn’t that well behaved. I hope that one way or another I will have done enough to interest people and make the experience worth the £3 entrance fee. If you can come along on August 2nd or 3rd, I look forward to meeting you and showing you around. If not, I hope you enjoy this post and that a little of my enthusiasm for small scale gardening will rub off on you.

Click here for a full plant list

New garden furniture arrived this June, a reclaimed teak table surrounded by ‘Air’ chairs by Magis.

Open Weekend Practicalities

The garden will be open on Saturday August 2nd and Sunday August 3rd from 12-4. Entrance £3. Well behaved adults, children and dogs are most welcome. Please be mindful of the garden’s size (you can see more than two thirds of it in the image above) and that at times it may become quite cramped. This being our first time we don’t know quite how many people to expect.

There will be refreshments in the garden, but in a town like Broadstairs there are lots of options from fine dining to fish and chips so perhaps combine your visit with a stroll along the seafront and a nice lunch.

There is no car parking immediately outside the house. A carpark immediately off the High Street is your best bet, turn in between Cooke and Co. Estate Agents and The Fireplace Company. On Sunday there is unrestricted parking on some of the surrounding streets. From the station, The Watch House is about a 7 minute walk.

The address of the Watch House is 7, Thanet Road, Broadstairs, CT10 1LF.  It is immediately next door to Elite Fitness Studio which is well signposted around the town.

It was about this time last year when our friend Beth began twisting our arm to open for the National Gardens Scheme. We took the plunge, and in February found ourselves numbered 104 on the map of Kent in the famous Yellow Book. On the eve of this weekend it still seemed unlikely to me that anyone would go out of their way to visit a garden that measures just 20x30ft, but I was to be proved wrong. Over the two days we welcomed 220 charming visitors and 6 well behaved dogs in a steady stream from midday to 4pm. Everyone who came along was kind and appreciative. Some had travelled from as far away as Leicestershire; many came from the four corners of Kent. It was a pleasure to stop, talk and share gardening tips with so many interesting folk. This alone made it all worth the effort.

The garden was thronged with visitors on both days

The Gods were smiling on us in every way, providing two days of almost unbroken sunshine, a cooling breeze and light, refreshing showers overnight. And we could not have wished for the garden to look more fulsome; the dahlias were in their prime and fragrant gingers soared skywards. Dahlia ‘Amercian Dawn’ was a big favourite with visitors, as was Hedychium densiflorum ‘Stephen’, the kangaroo apple (Solanum laciniatum), elephant’s ears (Colocasia esculenta ‘Black Magic’) and towering Echium pininana.

Reaching for the stars, visitors were fascinated by Echium pininana, photographed by Scarlett Wardell

I chatted solidly for the whole eight hours we were open, thus was in my element. I answered countless questions about how to get agapanthus to flower well, to which the answer was always “grow them in a bright, well drained spot; keep them tightly confined and feed with a high potash fertiliser from April to September”. Hopefully the agapanthus of Kent will bloom brighter and more bountiful than ever next year. There was a lot of interest in how to cultivate dahlias in pots and how to reduce the amount of water needed to maintain containerised plants. I shared my secret, which is to use the biggest pots available, use water retentive John Innes No. 3, pack pots together tightly and mulch with surface of the compost with horticultural grit. This way we only need to water our pots twice a week, even in the hottest weather.

Dahlia ‘Amercian Dawn’ photographed by Scarlett Wardell

On both days there was a lovely atmosphere, with visitors relaxing in the sun and unexpectedly bumping into friends and neighbours. What was so encouraging was that several people told us that they had only come to see us because our garden was is so similar in scale to their own. We were flattered that visitors told us how inspired they were by what we’d achieved in a small space and how many plants we’d packed in. The slate terrace was especially admired for its simplicity and clean lines, whilst the outdoor kitchen generated a lot of questions about maintenance and how often we use it. Fortunately this summer we have been able to cook in it almost every weekend, and in truth the kitchen requires very little routine care.

Radiant, Lilium ‘Debby’, photographed beautifully by Scarlett Wardell

My partner Alex (aka Him Indoors) slaved over a hot stove to create delicious orange and poppy seed loaves, lemon cupcakes, chocolate cookies, flapjacks and fruit cake. They went down a treat with a chilled glass of Belvoir fruit cordial, with the elderflower proving to be the favourite thirst quencher. Apologies to those who missed the offer of a refreshing cuppa, hopefully we can add this to the menu next time.

Our outdoor kitchen came into its own

Refreshing Belvoir cordials were kept on ice

Friends Nigel and James peruse the home-made cakes

Special thanks go to the special people who made the open weekend possible, starting with the wonderful Vanessa, Irrigator General and PR Guru. Here she is with husband Colin, who did our write up in the church magazine. Thanks to Vanessa, many people arrived with their NGS brochures pre-circled with our garden’s details.

Unsung heroes, Vanessa and Colin

Garden journalist Lesley Bellew gave us a glowing write-up in the Kentish Gazette which tempted a lot of visitors to make the pilgrimage to Broadstairs. NGS Assistant County Organiser, Caroline Loder-Symonds was marvellously supportive and encouraging throughout, convincing us that our garden was worthy of wider attention. Having persuaded us into opening in the first place, it was only right that Beth should travel from deepest Cornwall to make sure we did things correctly. No stray leaf, bare twig or fading bloom escaped her expert scrutiny and was dealt with accordingly.

Me and Beth, NGS pro and Artistic Director (shirt and blouse, models’ own)

On the gate collecting entrance fees, and on occasion managing the crowds, was Jack, Scarlett, James, Nigel and Simon. They did a marvellous job talking to visitors, dishing out booklets and providing directions. Scarlett, aged just 11 years, doubled as my talented young photographic apprentice and, I am sure you will agree, took some cracking shots for this post.

The men with the money, Nigel, James and Simon man the front gate

In the kitchen Rachel and Alex ran a very tight ship, keeping me out of the way until the very end of the day on Sunday when I just had to help myself to cake.

My attempts to blend in with the flowers was futile. Captured expertly by Scarlett Wardell

The whole experience has renewed our faith in human nature and put us in touch with lots of local people and keen gardeners. I won’t pretend that it didn’t involve a lot of planning and work, but it was worth every bit of it to hear visitors’ lovely comments. Preparing for the weekend helped crystallise my ideas about how the garden should develop in the future and this morning I looked upon our tiny patch with fresh eyes and a new determination to make it better than ever next year. Thank you to everyone who helped, visited or wrote about us, and in doing so provided valued support for the NGS charities.

Just desserts – a glass of chilled rosé and a cupcake to round off the day.

Whether it’s candy floss, baby, lipstick or rose, when it comes to autumn flowering bulbs, shades of pink are decidedly de rigueur. Right now there are colchicums, schizostylis, crinums, cyclamen and nerines, all emerging blushing and bright when earlier flowers are starting to fade. Queen amongst these rubicund beauties is Amaryllis belladonna, a slightly tender bulb native to South Africa but widely naturalised in warm temperate regions of the world. Like colchicums, Amaryllis belladonna produces flowers before coming into leaf, and shares the same unflattering common name ‘naked ladies’. The large bulbs enjoy the shelter of a south or west facing wall where they will remain dry in summer and find protection for their late developing leaves. If in doubt, they make lovely subjects for an unheated greenhouse. These particular blooms were captured emerging from the earth at the foot of the curved wall in Sissinghurst’s rose garden, flattered by a backdrop of vine leaves. Pure pink perfection.

The shelter and warmth created by a south or west facing wall helps to protect Amaryllis belladonna

By late summer both of our plots have started to run out of puff, so I am always keen to seek out gardens which manage to keep up a good head of steam into autumn. Sissinghurst is open almost every day of the year and has to cope with hoards of garden-loving pilgrims expecting picture-book perfection. This makes it the ideal place to go in search of ideas. The gardening team keep the place looking tip-top with meticulous maintenance and by continually filling gaps with seasonal plantings.

Sissinghurst’s White Garden still looks exuberant after a long summer

On my last visit, at the end of August, the scene was stolen by flowers at two ends of the colour spectrum: the cool whites and the fiery oranges. The intensity of light in late summer brings out the best in assertive shades and Sissinghurst’s White Garden positively sparkled. An early clip in June meant that the complex arrangement of box hedges had once again assumed a soft, fuzzy outline, gently penning-in the exuberant perennials and roses inside.

The flowers of Zephyranthes candida sparkle like tiny stars in a dry, sun-baked spot

Zephyranthes candida is rather poetically known as the white rain lily

At the foot of a wall, basking in the warm sun, was a carpet of sparkling flowers belonging to the white rain lily, Zephyranthes candida. Rain lilies are bulbous perennials native to the Rio de la Plata region of South America. In the wild they burst into bloom following heavy periods of rain, hence the common name. After the soggy August we’ve had, these little stars were right on cue.

The white form of Thunbergia alata cascades from a glazed urn beneath The White Garden’s arbor

My first experience of the white form of black-eyed Susan, Thunbergia alata, was at Sissinghurst, where every year it pours gently from the lip of a glazed ceramic urn. The thunbergia’s flowers are a deliciously soft curd-white, centred around a bitter chocolate ‘eye’. It’s a lovely contrast and one of this garden’s typically well composed ‘moments’.

Arctotis x hybrida ‘Flame’ creates a bold sweep either side of the South Cottage front door

All this cool whiteness is juxtaposed in the The Cottage Garden, where fiery heat reigns supreme. As enduring as the thunbergia are the blooms of Arctotis x hybrida ‘Mahogany’ and ‘Flame’ skirting Harold Nicholson’s hideaway. Harold bought one plant of each at an RHS show in 1959 and they were propagated until his gardeners were able to plant bold sweeps either side of the front door.

Stalwart Dahlia ‘David Howard’ is a tall, vigorous variety for the back of a border

Helen, one of Sissinghurst’s gardeners, had recommended to me the Dahlia ‘David Howard’, so I was keen to seek it out. Making a big splash in the middle of a border was this sturdy hybrid, blessed with burnt-orange flowers and dramatic, purple-bronze leaves. This truly is the ultimate dahlia for a ‘hot’ border or exotic planting scheme, best underplanted with shorter perennials to disguise any legginess.

A relative of the alstromerias, Bomarea caldasii has a climbing habit

Occupying a pot next to the cottage’s rose-red brickwork was a divine specimen of Bomarea caldasii, the Peruvian lily vine. This rare twining plant can be found scrambling over other vegetation in its native South America, producing pendulous clusters of orangey red, waxy, bell-shaped flowers. This plant had especially vividly coloured flowers and was clearly in its element. A joy to see such a splendid plant grown so well.

I was equally pleased to see my favourite ginger, Hedychium ‘Tara’, ablaze with tangerine flowers. I recently acquired three healthy plants from Great Dixter, which I am growing on in pots ready for planting out next year. I can already smell the sweet spicy scent of the spidery flowers wafting across the terrace at night.

Sissinghurst never disappoints, offering gardeners inspiration at any time of the year. I came away full of ideas to keep our gardens’ engines running, whether it be with carpets of colchicums, cool waves of Aster divaricatus or classic Anemone japonica.  Whether you’re blowing hot or feeling autumn’s chill, I hope something in today’s post fuels your fire.

Tantalising Hedychium ‘Tara’ has strong stems and fragrant flowers

These juicy shots are principally for the delight and delectation of my Aussie friend Helen, who is a great proponent of all sorts of heritage fruit and vegetables. For the first time in many years we have grown tomatoes outside in London, planted in raised beds. They have kept us in petite red and gold fruits since August, with lots more to come. We have room for double the number of plants next year, so I can be more adventurous with my choice of varieties. Spurring me on is this super assortment of fruits purchased at Broadstairs Food Festival at the weekend. They were grown locally at Thanet Earth, the UK’s largest greenhouse complex, and taste as good as they look. Him Indoors has been making soups and pasta sauces with them, but they’re amazing simply sliced and sprinkled with salt, balanced on lightly grilled, olive oil-drizzled Italian bread. Heaven!

More sweet and savoury goings on tomorrow when I visit the RHS London Harvest Festival Show in the Lindley Hall.

A tempting trug of Thanet-grown tomatoes

Just after Christmas we popped over to Whitstable for a spot of Champagne and shopping with our friend Karen. Situated on the Thames estuary, Whitstable’s beaches are shingly rather than sandy, their tide-rounded bounty stoutly defended by rank after rank of sturdy groynes. As the sun lowered we stumbled towards The Neptune (above far left) for a postprandial pint. With hats wedged on and scarves flying in the wind, we witnessed a magical golden light extending over the shore towards the freezing water of the estuary. The evening was spent warming chilly feet in front of a roaring stove, unpacking the last of the seed catalogues. The perfect way to spend a winter’s day.

The last of the day’s sun warms the rusty posts supporting Whitstable’s groynes

We have much to thank the Romans for – libraries, hot baths, straight roads, aqueducts and stinging nettles among them – but over time we have forgotten the delights of Smyrnium olusatrum, otherwise known as Alexanders. A native of the Mediterranean, Alexanders arrived on our shores with the Romans. The invaders used this versatile plant, with a flavour hovering somewhere between parsley and celery, as a vegetable. Some describe the taste as similar to myrrh, the precious resin which lends the ‘myr’ to Smyrnium. (To complete the translation, ‘olus’, means pot herb or cooking vegetable, whilst ‘atrum’ means as black, in reference to the ripened seed.) Alexanders must have been very happy with the British climate as it soon escaped cultivation and found a home in coastal hedgerows and on clifftops, especially here in Kent.

I love Alexanders because it’s one of the very first umbels to appear in spring, throwing up luscious clumps of glossy lime green foliage topped by chartreuse flower heads. The bees appear to adore it just as much as I do. Alexanders shout summer when everything else is harking back to winter. The contrast between leaves, sea and sky along the clifftops of Broadstairs is enough to send a shock-wave of energy through my system. Throw in a few wild-grown wallflowers with their heavily-scented yellow flowers and you have a life-affirming cocktail of fragrance, form and colour.

Thankfully not everyone has overlooked Alexanders since since it broke free from the monastic gardens that sheltered it after the Romans departed. That great champion of seasonal food, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, describes Alexanders as one of the best wild vegetables of spring. The Romans ate all parts of the plant (they referred to it as the ‘pot herb of Alexandria’), but the most straight-forward bits for modern-day cooking are the fleshy young stems. Cut close to the ground they should be trimmed and stripped of any stringy fibres, just like celery. They can then be steamed for a few minutes, drained and smothered with lashings of salted butter and pepper. Hugh describes the flavour as ‘a little musky, a touch juniper-ish’.

Emma Gunn, a foraging expert at The Eden Project in Cornwall, goes further, suggesting candying the stems like angelica, deep frying the flower heads in tempura batter, using the dried seeds as a substitute for pepper, and roasting the parsnip-like roots. I am no forager, and likely not of Roman descent, but I am already converted. Given the plant tastes of myrrh, I imagine it might also make a good flavouring for my favourite tipple, gin.

Whether or not you’re brave enough to try cooking with it (and make sure you are certain what you are putting in the pot before you do) Alexanders is a wonderful plant for a wild spot in the open garden. On our chalk clifftops it grows shoulder to shoulder with violets, Cineraria maritima, wallflowers and clusters of abandoned daffodils. As always, we can rely on Mother Nature for the best planting suggestions.

Seeds of Smyrnium olusatrum are available from Chiltern Seeds.

Driving south to the pretty village of Saltwood for the annual NSPCC plant fair has become something of a tradition in our household. Even Him Indoors looks forward to going, or at least pretends to. We have both been poorly this week – Him Indoors with a cold and me with tonsilitis – but after a recuperative lie-in we set off. Having not been to any of the RHS London plant fairs this year, the opportunity to kick start my plant buying campaign for 2015 was too tempting to pass up on account of a sore throat.

Lead planter with pale peach tulips – an elegant combination

For as many years as I can recall the day of the fair, held in the magical grounds of Saltwood Castle, has been cold and breezy. Today was no exception, but for once we were prepared with coats, scarves and an unnecessary umbrella. Swallows dipped low over the castle’s lawns, a little early to signal the start of summer, but a welcome sight nevertheless. The wooded slopes around the ancient walls grew thick with Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and late flowering Narcissus poeticus. The orchard, apple trees in full bloom, was artfully planted with Rembrandt tulips, elevating it from the ordinary to the sublime.

Pretty but polluting, Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica

The fair is attended by a select band of twenty nurseries offering really top notch plants. For geraniums there’s Hall’s Court Nursery and for herbs, Invicta. The one nursery I cross my fingers will turn up is Decoy from Pevensey in East Sussex, a specialist in shade plants. Last year I purchased Anemonella thalictriodes ‘Oscar Shoaf’, but was not confident it would grow for me. I am happy to report it has thrived, although I think I probably let it dry out more than I should during the summer. This year I went a little wild, as you can see from the list below but, when presented with such treasures, what is a plantaholic to do? Among those that got away this time were Epimedium ‘Spine Tingler’, Cyclamen repandum, Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex ‘Plena’ and Athyrium filix-femina ‘Dre’s Dagger’.

Decoy Nursery, with a fine selection of plants for shady gardens

There were some tantalising auriculas for sale, including P. auricula ‘Forest Lemon’ (top of post), but I was not buying. Last year’s purchases did not fare well in our snail infested garden; they were munched to within an inch of their lives before winter finished the job. I will try again another day when I have the time and patience required to grow these charming little primulas.

Auriculas – easier to look at than to grow

The Damage:

• Anemonella thalictroides ‘Green Hurricane’ – an unusual anemonella with green flowers over thalictrum-like foliage.
• Dryopteris wallichiana – a hardy fern, with upright stems covered in brown-black bristly hairs.
• Asarum delavayi ‘Giant’ – huge cyclamen-like leaves and curious chocolate brown flowers at carried at ground level.
• Pleione formosana ‘Clare’ – that white pleione I had been on the lookout for. Bought in generous potfulls which can be split in February.
• Jeffersonia diphylla – an American woodlander with white flowers and dancing leaves that appear lighter than air.
• Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ – an advance on the species with brighter red fronds that retain their colour.

Chinese Paeonia ludlowii flourishes in the shadow of Saltwood Castle’s walls

The car boot packed with plants, including others bought as gifts (honest!), we headed down a mile along a dead-end to The American Garden (about which more soon) for a spot of rhododendron appreciation. This part of Kent is unique in that a swathe of acid soil sweeps across the chalk landscape, creating little pockets that are just right for growing rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. Next Sunday I can look forward to the annual opening of Sandling Park, one of the finest woodland gardens in this part of the country, especially if you like deciduous azaleas. Now all I have to do is persuade Him Indoors.

Other posts about Sandling Park: Great Balls of Fire (2014), A Spring Spectrum (2013)

Other posts about Saltwood Castle: Spring Comes to Saltwood (2014), Saltwood Castle, Hythe (2013)

Azalea ‘Thisbe’, Sandling Park

The chance to view the extraordinary collection of rhododendrons and azaleas built up by the Hardy family at Sandling Park in Kent is one of the highlights of my May. I adore these acid loving shrubs, especially as I have neither the space nor the soil conditions to cultivate them. At Sandling, sheltered in a shallow valley deep with peat, they find the perfect environment and are grown to perfection. Deciduous azaleas, with their fiery flowers and heavenly scent, are a speciality, although a cold April could mean they are a little late coming into bloom this season. Never mind, the range of cultivars grown at Sandling ensures there is something beautiful to see whatever the weather throws at it. It’s the lavender blues that always get me, so dazzling, plentiful and ridiculously romantic.

A garden needs a lot of space to accommodate so many potentially clashing colours. A walk around Sandling’s 25 acre garden will take about 2 hours if you dawdle and stop to take photographs like I do. If the weather is fine you will want to take a moment to find a bench and drink in the sights and sounds. Wear stout footwear as the valley sides are drained by hundreds of springs and tiny rivulets, each fringed with candelabra primulas and erythroniums. The ground can get boggy underfoot towards the bottom of the garden.

Sandling Park is a garden worth going out of the way for and is open just once every year. In 2015 it’s Sunday May 11th from 10am until 5pm. You need not go hungry as there are lovely teas available and plants to buy too. All proceeds go to our marvellous local Kent charity Pilgrims Hospices, so you can indulge yourself in flowers, ferns and fondant fancies without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt.

Click here for directions and further details on the Pilgrims Hospices website.

Other posts about Sandling Park: Great Balls of Fire (2014), A Spring Spectrum (2013).

Primped and polished gardens are all very well (we’ll be seeing a lot of them at Chelsea in a few days’ time) but for those of us who work and can’t afford help they can be a little intimidating. Small imperfections are natural and larger ones excusable. They render a garden approachable and understandable, revealing something about the way it works and the gardener that tends it. Flaws also lend a garden part of its atmosphere: glorious disarray is so much more evocative than clinical maintenance. The only gardens I never warm to belong to those stately homes, suburban villas and monotonous bungalows possessed of velvet-pile lawns, gappy planting and bushes so tightly pruned that they appear to have given up on life.

Exemplifying glorious disarray, if not wild abandon, is a little known valley in South East Kent known as The American Garden. You won’t find it in any guide book, and without a decent map you may not locate it at all. However, during the month of May you’ll find The American Garden open each weekend from 2-5.30pm. I’d urge you to make the detour and immerse yourself in its dank, dark, yet exuberant depths.

This part of The Garden of England has been mercilessly bisected by both the M20 and the HS1 train line on which Eurostar runs. Many years ago, as a Landscape Architect, the firm at which I worked acted for many of the landowners in this part of England who wished to keep their estates intact. Most, including Sandling Park, failed in their appeals. Both routes narrowly miss The American Garden, but the roar of traffic can still be heard.

The American garden is so called because of the Californian redwood tree that was planted at its heart by William Acomb in 1854. Acomb was employed by Archdeacon Croft, who was rector of Saltwood from 1812 until his death in 1869. Educated at Eton and Cambridge (a winning formula then, as now), he married, appropriately, a daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. With his stipend of £4,850, which was one of the richest in England at the time, he purchased Saltwood Alders, an area of bog created behind ancient beaver dams. Croft proceeded to clear the land for charcoal manufacture, creating a garden in its wake.

At that time new plant discoveries were arriving thick and fast from around The British Empire, including rhododendrons and azaleas from the Himalayas. Conditions in Archdeacon Croft’s garden mimicked the humid mountain valley climate perfectly and new introductions such as Rhododendron ponticum and R. arboreum flourished in their new home. Having employed William Acomb as gardener, the Archdeacon went on a spending spree, purchasing plants from all corners of the Far East and North America. His successor, Canon Hodgson, continued to build the collection, followed by a gentleman called Alfred Leney, a brewery entrepreneur from Dover who improved the structure of the garden. Between 1947 and 1976 Stanley Harland and his gardener Alex Pleuvry replaced large swathes of laurel with newer varieties of rhododendron, including the Kurume azaleas which still grace the Dell Walk.

Stanley Harland died in 1998, passing the garden on to his son Nigel, who valiantly continues its upkeep. Managing a garden on this scale cannot be easy, especially on a budget. The maintenance regime appears to be one of managed decline, with the focus on clearance and access rather than new planting. This is a pity as there must be many unmarked hybrids in the garden that are worthy of identification and propagation.

On a previous visit a tree-sized Embothrium coccineum, the fabulous Chilean fire bush, grew in the centre of the garden’s largest glade. Sadly this has now fallen, leaving behind the clump of wisteria-covered azaleas that grew in its shade. I hope The American Garden does not go the way of other gardens from this era that have found themselves without sufficient funds; swamped by sycamores and brambles, waiting for rescue. East Kent could benefit from a garden of this kind if only it had the means to smarten up its act and resume the building of a strong plant collection. In the meantime the experience of a visit to The American Garden, parking in a neighbouring orchard and plunging into the gloaming of The Dell, is like entering Jurassic Park. Your senses alive, you’ll discover many things, but there won’t be a tightly clipped bush in sight.

Discover more on The American Garden’s website.

We needed to blow away the cobwebs today, so settled on a drive down to one of our favourite spots, the stretch of coastline between Kingsdown and Walmer in Kent. The sun was up, the hood was down and the countryside smelt of damp grass and lilac blossom. It was about as good as a May day gets. Kingsdown is a charming, oft-overlooked little village, tumbling from the fledgling white cliffs to a grey English Channel. Above the tide line, marshalled rows of whitewashed cottages spring directly from the pebble beach.

Immediately on the shoreline, The Zetland Arms is now a rather smart pub. Having felt decidedly run down the last time we set foot inside it has been tastefully done out with bleached wood, ticking-stripe cushions and nautical paraphenalia. If you are not ‘in the know’ Zetland is the old name for the Shetland Isles and the pub’s name probably refers to The Marquess of Zetland.

Together with Him Indoors I enjoyed an enormous homemade burger washed down with Whitstable Bay Pale Ale brewed at Britain’s oldest Brewery, Shepherd Neame. Sitting on benches fashioned from stone-filled gabions the front of the pub is the perfect place to watch the world and his wife go by.

Most plants look their best in May, even wild ones. That’s why May is my favourite month. Through the golden shingle emerged feathery mounds of fennel, stiff, upright tree mallow (Malva arborea) and the conical plumes of valerian (Centranthus ruber) in shades of pink, vermillion and white. Outside their cottages residents had improved upon nature with colourful swathes of osteospermum, the Cape daisy from South Africa.

Strolling towards Walmer, past widely-spaced beach huts, we stumbled upon an imaginatively named boat…

….. smirking we walked onwards to a spot in the shingle where an elderly gentleman was tending a garden of broom, phlomis, mallow, calendulas and teasels. The garden possessed no boundaries and bled seamlessly into the beach.

The shingle banks along this stretch of the shore have been invaded by all sorts of garden plants. I spotted bergenias, red-hot pokers, yuccas, Spanish bluebells and rosy garlic (Allium roseum) making themselves at home. Looking at the scene below, featuring windswept holm oaks, yuccas, alexanders, fennel and Spanish bluebells, one could almost imagine oneself in the Mediterranean. In fact, apart from the yucca, that’s where all of these plants originally come from. Like Broadstairs, this part of the Kent coast is dry, sunkissed and rarely suffers from frost.

As I did between Polperro and Talland Bay in April, I collected a small bunch of blooms to enjoy at home. They are, clockwise from top left, valerian (Centranthus ruber); ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare); honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) – an especially rich red form which may be ‘Serotina'; rosy garlic (Allium roseum); kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria); valerian (Centranthus ruber); alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum); tree mallow (Malva arborea); meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris) and hoary cress (Lepidium draba).

Much of the shoreline and clifftop between Kingsdown and Dover is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, so I took care to pluck my flowers from the path side and not to trample the undergrowth. Any plant that survives here in salt laden gales, exposed to the sun, has to be pretty tough. But, as we can see from the foreign species that have integrated themselves, the balance is a fine one.

The combination of real ale, vitamin D and sea air did the trick, and I write this from the garden table feeling full of vim and vigour. It’s time to return the dahlias to their night time shelter as I prepare them for planting out, so I will leave you with a picture of the beautiful tree mallow, Malva arborea. Have a wonderful weekend and happy gardening.

After a night of tumultuous storms, Saturday, the day of our friend Karen’s annual beach hut party, dawned bright and fresh. We made our way to Whitstable on the train and, by way of Regent Street, to the town centre. En route we passed a low brick wall adorned with hessian sacks crammed full of geraniums. The gardener had chosen varieties with gaily patterned leaves, such as ‘Mrs Pollock’, a zonal pelargonium.

I rather liked this rustic, inexpensive approach to garden decoration.

In Harbour Street, the fluttering heart of this chichi seaside town, I always stop to admire the narrow plots in front of a row of weatherboarded holiday cottages. They’ve be laid out in the prairie style with grasses, heleniums, Verbena bonariensis and Cephalaria gigantea (in the foreground).

Visiting this stretch of the Kent coast for the first time, Helen of Oz struggled with the concept of a pebbly beach. In Australia a beach is only a beach if it’s sandy. To add insult to injury there were ‘weeds’ on the foreshore: plants we consider to be wild flowers. Even my pointing out of a yellow horned poppy, Glaucium flavum, failed to impress.

Whitstable’s beach is not backed by a fringe of palms or thick eucalyptus forest, but by beach huts and industrial buildings. I rather like this reminder that there’s something gritty behind Whitstable’s facade of fancy shops and restaurants. As the day drew longer I could sense a certain warmth developing between Whitstable and our friend from Oz.

We strode out into the Thames estuary following a long gravel spit uncovered by the receding tide and admired the kind of sunset that Turner would have been glad to paint. The sky had the quality of marbled glass lit from behind. On one thing we were both agreed – it was a fitting end to a delightful afternoon.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of echiums. I love their jewel-coloured flowers, the way they attract bees to the garden and their incredible range of stature; from sprawling Echium tuberculatum to sky rocketing Echium pininana. Slowly but surely I am increasing my collection in our coastal garden, adding E. gentianoides, E. wildpretii and E. candicans this year. One species, our native viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) is missing from the line-up. The reason? There’s more than enough of it already on the shores of East Kent and I doubt very much that I could grow it better than it grows itself.

Viper’s bugloss shares many attributes with its Mediterranean cousins and may indeed have originated in North Africa. The plants form a rosette of coarse, bluish-green leaves which give rise to hairy spikes of gentian-blue, funnel-shaped flowers from May to September. Viper’s bugloss favours disturbed chalk grassland and shingle beaches, rubbing shoulders with fennel, red valerian and mallow. The shoreline between Sandwich and Kingsdown in Kent is festooned with this handsome plant right now, its intense flowers alive with insects including buff-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees, large skipper and painted lady butterflies, burnet moths, honey bees and red mason bees. Honey made by bees that have feasted on echium pollen, which is violet-blue, is said to taste delicious.

Historically, viper’s bugloss was believed to cure snake bites and to protect people from being bitten by reptiles. This could well be because the open, parched, wild habitats the plant enjoys are the same as those frequented by snakes.

A biennial, viper’s bugloss is perfectly easy to cultivate from seed (some might say a little too easy) provided you can offer it chalky soil and sharp drainage. Personally I think the lapis-lazuli flowers look best emerging from a sun-drenched shingle strand, set against an azure summer sky. A litte touch of The Med on our cold, windswept shores.

A sun-soaked stroll along the beach between Broadstairs and Ramsgate, picking up chalk pebbles and gnarled flints, ultimately leads us back to The Italianate Glasshouse in King George VI park. Through the delicate structure the solitary panicle of canary yellow blossom belonging to Agave americana still lurches defiantly into the sky. A thick blanket of white cloud now obscures the heavens. The first flowers, having opened just three weeks ago, are already turning brown and collapsing. The curious spectacle puts me in mind of Donald Trump’s wig stand.

Inside it’s a different story. The agave’s thick, plumptious leaves have started to sag downwards, flailing helplessly, pock-marked, yellowing and puckered near the central rosette. It’s as if something were sucking the very life out of the mighty plant. The death knell has sounded and the agave has begun its slow, ugly death.

Rain begins, coursing precisely down the armadillo form of the glasshouse, cascading from the apex of one pane to the top of the next in neat rivulets. It is as if the building were weeping for the plant which it has protected for the last 40 years.

Nearby a small offset no more than 2ft across languishes in a brightly glazed pot, witnessing its parent’s fate. A reminder of how the mighty fall and how life goes on.

The Italianate Glasshouse is open to the public from 9am to 5pm until September 30th 2015.

Like fry through the holes in a fisherman’s net, certain gardens I visit manage to escape being written about on my blog. It’s not that these gardens are too small, simply that the day’s catch is so large that I can’t get to them in a timely manner. The gardens at Walmer Castle are a case in point, an oversight I am determined to correct today.

Walmer Castle is one of the squat, utilitarian castles built by Henry VIII to protect England from invasion by the French and the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th Century. Their blocky forms line the south coast from Pendennis in Cornwall to Walmer, Deal and Sandown in Kent. These fortresses were never really called upon for a major defence of the realm, although they were built to last. Their low profile made them hard to attack from the sea but didn’t afford them good looks. From the air Walmer is considerably more attractive to look at, with a circular keep surrounded by a narrow courtyard. The fort is protected by a concentric outer wall from which four curved bastions project to form the shape of a clover leaf. Today the moat is dry, filled by an emerald hoop of lawn edged with exuberant shrubs.

Walmer Castle is distinguished from other Tudor forts by its role as the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a largely ceremonial role which has been bestowed upon the great and the good, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Curzon, Winston Churchill and the late Queen Mother. Few Lord Wardens demonstrated any great enthusiasm for residing permanently at Walmer (the Queen Mother managed just 3 days each year in July); not surprising given the castle was built for defence not gracious living.

After the castle’s effectiveness as a military outpost had waned, successive Lord Wardens made attempts at gentrification, layers of which can still be admired thanks to the excellent efforts of English Heritage. The juxtaposition between monumentally thick walls, tiny windows and fine furnishings is quite startling. The men’s lavatory is still in a wooden structure directly overhanging the moat.

Unsurprisingly a garden was not part of the Tudor master plan but developed with subsequent efforts to make Walmer a comfortable home. It was William Pitt and his neice Lady Hester Stanhope that began to create the layout visitors enjoy today in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. By 1859 Walmer boasted an established shelter belt of mature trees, lawns, kitchen and walled gardens and a paddock, now a wildflower garden. In the second half of the 19th century Earl Granville commissioned a gravel walk west of the castle now known as the Broadwalk, flanked by herbaceous borders and great yew hedges.

Walmer’s most recent addition in 1997 was the Queen Mother’s Garden (below), designed by Penelope Hobhouse to commemorate the presiding Lord Warden’s 95th birthday.

There are two highlights for me in Walmer’s gardens. The first is not the enormous double herbaceous border flanking the Broadwalk, recently replanted in the style of Gertrude Jekyll, but the hedge that protects them from the elements. The hedge has been allowed to assume the lumpy-bumpy form of a dropped blancmange, which must be a nightmare to clip but is very charming to look at. The misshapen yews lend the garden a sense of antiquity befitting such a venerable castle. The second highlight is the kitchen garden, in particular the glasshouse range which is beautifully maintained and always packed with exciting plants.

Star of the show in early August is Fuchsia boliviana (above) dripping with huge trusses of carmine flowers. I am green with envy each and every time I visit. The Queen Mother’s Garden, although well planned and symmetrical, just doesn’t do it for me.

The kitchen and cutting gardens are always impeccably presented and bright with flowers. Set against a bright summer sky and the castle’s solid grey outline they positively effervesce. English Heritage sometimes feels like a poor relation to the National Trust, entrusted with so many magnificent properties, but at Walmer they have created a real jewel in their crown.

Find out more about Walmer Castle on the English Heritage website.