It was fitting that Gardeners’ World, in the first programme of the new series, chose to highlight the miraculous resurrection of the gardens at The Salutation in Kent. In December 2013 a freak tidal surge in the English Channel inundated the grounds of Lutyens’ superlative Queen Anne style house, leaving up to 5ft of standing water trapped behind the high banks that were intended to guard against such an event. Head Gardener Steven Edney said “it made me feel a bit sick” when he surveyed the garden the morning after the night before. And who could blame him? Most of us have had to deal with one kind of gardening disaster or another, but few of us have had to rescue a garden of great note from a catastrophe of such magnitude.

Fortunately for the owners of The Salutation (Dominic and Stephanie Parker of Gogglebox fame) their Head Gardener is made of stern stuff, a true Man of Kent. The next day Steven and his team waded in, literally, rescuing whatever flotsam and jetsam had floated to the surface. Over the next week five million litres of sea water was pumped back into the River Stour, revealing slicks of silt and putrefying worms – a soil ecosystem drowned and poisoned by salt. What would happen next was anyone’s guess. The flooding looked pretty devastating, fatal in some places. I hope Steven will not mind me saying that the long-term effects have not been as terminal as one might have anticipated. Some plants swung back into action when spring arrived, as if nothing had happened. Others grew but failed to flower well for a season, before getting back into their stride. A few collapsed outright, whilst a handful remain in the throes of a slow, painful death. Among them are certain varieties of climbing rose, but interestingly not all of them.

A good gardener senses light on the darkest of days. Steven says he found solace in the words of Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer”. This was not a quote I’d heard before but it sums up the sense of hope and optimism (they call it bloody-mindedness) that saw the team through the difficult months that lay ahead. A visitor to The Salutation today would detect nothing of the disaster that befell the gardens little over 2 years ago. In fact they have rarely looked better. The idea has never been to undertake an historical recreation of the original planting scheme (which is thought to have been Lutyens’ work rather than Gertrude Jekyll’s), but to build a bold, colourful, experimental garden on foundations of incomparable pedigree. The Salutation itself was the first 20th century house in England to be listed Grade I, less than 40 years after its construction. The gardens are listed Grade II. Lanning Roper described them in Country Life in 1962: “One never doubts the apparent symmetry of the garden. Lutyens made the most of the elements of surprise and containment; indeed The Salutation consists of a series of separate gardens or outside rooms, each different in character, but so ingeniously arranged that there is a natural progression from one to another.”

What I enjoy about visiting any garden in winter or early spring is the opportunity to observe the underlying structure. The Salutation has it in spades. Lutyens was renowned for creating gardens with good cheek bones – always in perfect relation to his houses and with enough hard landscaping to contain and frame the ebullient planting typical of the period. Before too much foliage blurs the scene one can not only enjoy the great architect’s fabulously masculine gateways, but also views out of the garden to surrounding cottages and the solid, square tower of St Clement’s church. I suspect Lutyens and his rich clients wanted to do anything but look outwards, hence the high brick walls, dense hedges and poplar trees arranged around the boundaries. This was familiar territory for a man who designed hundreds of genteel village houses for customers who yearned for country life, but not necessarily the attentions of the locals.

Within the garden yew hedges are carefully maintained to prevent their great thickness from rendering them inelegant. Yew will take drastic pruning and come back thicker and more lustrous for it. Columnar, clipped trees along the holm oak walk stand like soldiers, saluting the gardeners that have kept them that way for over 100 years, on and off. Even in the kitchen garden, furthest away from the house and probably not part of Lutyens’ original plans, there are well-trained espalier apple trees and tidy borders edged with old railway sleepers.

In just a few weeks time, day perhaps, the poplars will start to fizz like limeade and soft catmint will begin sprawling over brick pathways. There will be bananas, cannas and other exotica near the house; roses and delphiniums in main perennial borders and dahlias everywhere one turns. This year Steven will plant a new border near the spring meadow with over a hundred varieties, organised by colour rather than flower shape. The Salutation will once again be a riot of colour, a fanfare of flowers, a triumph over adversity and a tribute to the combined skills of designer and gardener.

(Photographs taken on rather dim, blustery Easter Saturday).

I have met some Americans who believe all us Brits live in quaint thatched cottages and are intimately acquainted with The Queen. We might also happen to know a distant relative they might have in Kettering, Peterborough or Cumbernauld. It’s a small country after all. As a proud Englishman I am more than happy to go along with such mythology, despite the fact that Her Majesty always declines my dinner party invitations. I am keen to build on the idea that we all live a pastoral life, strolling around rose-filled gardens, picking flowers and placing them in trugs, or ordering servants to bring us tea, Darjeeling preferably, with just a dash of milk. Indeed I wish it were true. Hence, for any gullible US citizens reading this blog (I feel confident none of my regular followers fall into this category) I will state, quite unashamedly, that British gardeners purchase all their plants from sales held in the grounds of ancient castles. There is, simply, no more appropriate way for one to furnish one’s garden.

Saltwood Castle is everyone’s idea of the perfect English castle and therefore the ultimate plant fair venue. There has been a some kind of fortification here since 488AD and the main buildings have looked fairly similar to the present day for over 600 years. It was at Saltwood that the four knights who killed Thomas Becket plotted his death in the Great Hall on December 28th 1170. According to our friend’s children there are also dragons living in the castle’s dungeons, but I think that might be pushing the mythology too far.

There is nothing modern or updated about the fortress. Its rough-and-tumble walls, lagged with common polypody (Polypodium vulgare), yellow wallflowers and blue campanula are maintained just sufficiently to permit them to remain standing. Nevertheless it seems that small improvements are underway. Some of the stonework has been re-pointed and the borders in the inner bailey have been cleared and mulched, showing off clumps of bright red tulips and sky-blue Dutch iris. The grass bordering the drive has been neatly edged and there is evidence of drainage work in and around the moat. Being custodian of a building so old and of such national importance must be a source of great joy and enormous stress, especially on the pocket.

Hence the spring plant fair is an opportunity for the owners of Saltwood Castle, the Clark family, to raise funds for the upkeep of the buildings and, this year, for the Air Ambulance Service. It being May Bank Holiday weekend we expected the weather to be unpredictable at best, chilly at worst, and so we were pleasantly surprised to be treated some warm sunshine on the quick run down through east Kent, passing by Dover and Folkestone en route. There’s always a great turn-out in terms of local nurseries and naturally, it being spring, all the plants looked fresh as a daisy. There was an abundance of herbs, ferns, spring-flowering perennials, auriculas, geraniums and irises, as well as a handful of trees, climbers and shrubs for those with big gardens or big cars to fill.

There are many factors guaranteed to get me spending, sun and the scent of freshly mown grass being two of them, so here’s the damage:

From Decoy Nursery, Pevensey, East Sussex:

• Epimedium zhushanense ‘Zhushan Fairy Wings’ – divine copper-coloured foliage and huge, bicoloured lilac and purple flowers. Utterly oriental.
• Matteucia orientalis – (oriental ostrich fern) – More compact than M. struthiopteris, with a longer leaf stem.
• Hosta “Liberty” – thick green leaves with a contrasting wide border of yellow that later changes to creamy white. Makes a vase-shaped plant. Relatively slug resistant and therefore a useful variety to have in the garden.
• Podophyllum “Spotty Dotty” – (May apple) – Upright stems appear in spring, bearing large, lobed umbrella-shaped Chartreuse leaves boldly marked with chocolate-brown spots. Mature plants produce garnet-red flowers and fleshy fruits. An exciting plant for shade and rich soil.
  

All of the above are destined for our London garden.

From Ringwould Alpines, near Deal, Kent:

• Gallium odoratum – (sweet woodruff) – four plants of this pretty native groundcover plant to replace a colony in Broadstairs that’s slowly died out.

From Bean Place Nursery, Headcorn, Kent:

• Viola sororia “Albiflora” – Neat clumps of short-stemmed, deep green leaves and masses of rounded white flowers in spring.
• Viola sororia “Red Cloud” – purple-red flowers in spring produced over mounds of heart-shaped, dark green leaves.
• Euphorbia stygiana – an imposing, architectural evergreen euphorbia from the Azores.

From Rotherview Nursery, Hastings, Kent:

• Currania dryopteris plumosum – (Gymnocarpium dryopteris or oak fern) – a low-growing, spreading, deciduous fern with triangular fronds. Purchased to underplant Lilium “Scheherezade” in large planters.

As always the Saltwood Castle Plant Fair was a lovely occasion on which to bid farewell to April and celebrate the arrival of May. As we loaded the car up with plants the sky behind the fortified walls turned ominously black. The heavens opened just as we drove away. April wasn’t quite ready to call it a day.

The next plant sale at Saltwood Castle is on Sunday September 18th 2016

When a new garden opens for the National Gardens Scheme in Thanet it’s a major event, principally because there are only three others, one of which is my own. And this year’s newcomer, situated in an isolated rural spot known as Thorne Hill, is a beauty. Created by Andrew Montgomery, The Chapel is a formal garden, divided into a series of “rooms”, arranged around a listed flint and brick building. Each room has a very private feel, and one immediately senses the theatrical personality of this intimate, stylish garden.

If I had to make a comparison, it would be to Tintinhull or Hidcote rather than Sissinghurst, such is the influence of classical garden style and decoration as opposed to the shaggier Kentish landscape. However, the vernacular is celebrated at The Chapel. The garden has been created in the midst of a working farm, which has allowed for some intriguing juxtapositions between utility and ornament. On one side of the estate fence there are handsome sheep; on the other, borders of lavender leading to a Lutyens bench. Generously proportioned livestock sheds have been repurposed for potting, disguised by Mediterranean figs and then occupied by swallows. And in the kitchen garden, steps have been fashioned from workaday concrete kerb stones. These agricultural references have all helped to keep this elegant garden grounded in its pastoral setting.

On arrival visitors are directed to a neatly lawned area in front of a traditional Kentish farm building. Here, excellent teas are served and a huge range of scented leaf geraniums offered for sale. I was immediately struck by a rectangle of yew hedge overflowing with pillar-box red Salvia “Royal Bumble”. The contrast between honey-coloured gravel drive, green foliage, red flowers and white weatherboarding is simple yet striking.

To the right of the building is a large pond, possibly a legacy of the site’s agricultural past, neatly edged with brick and plainly planted with yellow flag iris, Iris pseudacorus. Compared with the rest of the garden this is a delightfully relaxed, informal space which helps wed the garden to its surroundings. With chairs and tables ranged about it is also a lovely spot to enjoy one’s obligatory garden visiting tea and cake.

The garden proper is entered through a gap between two sturdy brick piers, capped with stone balls. This silhouette is repeated later on in yew hedging. To the right, an old flint wall and the border in its shadow are sheltered by a row of apple trees. They are neatly pruned so that their limbs are exposed with their canopies sitting flat beneath the sky. This is an unusual and rather Chelsea-esque contrivance that immediately suggests this is no ordinary garden. Underneath the trees, fading hellebores give way to an abundance of one of my favourite plants, Geranium palmatum. On our visit the blizzard of candy pink blossom surpassed anything I have achieved in my own garden, filling a gap before the roses bloom.

Another favourite plant of mine and seeker of footholds in stone, Erigeron karvinskianus, sprouts from the ancient pier caps leading to The Chapel’s lower floor. The Mexican daisy, as it’s commonly known, is a plant that lets rip if it’s happy, finding a home anywhere warm, dry and sunny. Once you’ve got it, you’ll never be without, but it can be tricky to establish if it’s not completely happy with its lot.

In front of the house a large rectangular lawn centres itself on an armillary sundial surrounded by tightly clipped box pyramids. Trees at the end of the garden cast a deep, elongating shade, creating the perfect home for ferns, hydrangeas and Japanese anemones. In the far corner of the lawn a narrow gap in a yew hedge provides access to a kitchen garden; an impeccably neat, no-frills area abundant with fruit trees, vegetables and flowers for cutting. The aluminium greenhouse is bigger than my entire garden, filled with tomatoes, marigolds, lettuce and benches of geraniums. Such luxuries as this are beyond my wildest dreams!

Tracing one’s footsteps back up the kerbstone stair and through the sundial garden, the next “room” is entered beneath a pergola dripping with Eccremocarpus scaber, the Chilean glory flower, already forming its fat, faintly testicular fruits in June. I like the way in which a yew hedge has been trained to create a window within the pergola’s structure, framing the view to a pair of more ancient yews in the next garden room. One can also see here that the garden has been planted for all seasons, with layers of plants carefully positioned to deliver colour and texture throughout the year.

The space that follows is more formal than the last, bounded by two parallel borders, constrained by hedges and brimming over with roses, alliums, lilacs and tall perennials such as thalictrum and Macleaya cordata. A beautifully maintained lawn is punctuated by two rows of conical yews, leading in one direction towards a small figurative statue and in the other towards a beautiful space which I’ll call the pond garden.

Entered between two lichen-clad stone obelisks, the pond garden is full of incident and must be a lovely place to sit in the morning with a paper, or in the evening with a gin and tonic. The pond itself is planted only with waterlilies and there are no fish; we suppose because the open location is a clear lunch invitation for herons. If the owner’s passion for geraniums is not already apparent, in this part of the garden it becomes clear. There are deep borders packed with hardy geraniums in shades of pink, magenta, mauve, blue and white, mingling with roses, ferns, foxgloves and more frothy thalictrums. This is where Him Indoors found a suitable bench on which to sun himself whilst I continued my tour.

From a quiet corner of the pond garden one can explore a small, sheltered courtyard, entered through an old flint outbuilding which has one side open into the space. Here specimens of Fatsia japonica are pruned to create a tall, high canopied trees. Underneath there are box balls surrounding a gently bubbling fountain. A wonderful place to shelter during a rain shower, or in the heat of a hot summer’s day.

Andrew’s garden is blessed with some lovely pieces of garden ornament: A lead tank is planted with deep blue lavender and deep orange nasturtiums and the brim of a stone urn flows over with Thymus serpyllum, Oxalis triangularis and Euphorbia myrsinites. I especially enjoyed discovering a “Wise Monkey” sheltering beneath an acer in the pond garden, his brow furrowed by all that thinking.

At the end of the tour the garden opens into an orchard and finally an extensive open meadow. Running along the back of the pond garden wall is a lavender walk leading to a small Lutyens bench. Espalier pear trees are neatly trained against the brickwork, promisingly laden with young fruit.

The garden’s main focal point was perhaps my least favourite feature at The Chapel. I never feel attempts to shrink features which rightly belong in a landscape park work, and this domed rotunda in the manner of Studley Royal did not much for me. I could not work out if the stone was real or reconstituted, but the effect was a little manufactured. Sitting inside, the way the supporting columns broke up the view bothered me too. No matter, this is not my garden. All that should concern us is that the owner enjoys it, and I am sure he does as a spot from which to survey the fruits of his labours.

Until one has done it for one’s self, it is impossible to imagine the hard work and pressure that accompanies the opening of one’s own garden for the first time. Andrew had pulled out all the stops and presented his garden in immaculate condition. Hedges were neatly trimmed, the grass was mown into stripes, flowers were carefully deadheaded and I could swear there was not a single weed to be found, even if I were looking, which I was not. We had a splendid afternoon at The Chapel and came away full of admiration. Thanet is lucky to have this fine addition to the National Gardens Scheme and I hope there will be more opening dates next year.

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When preparing for our garden opening, I find I end up doing anything but gardening. Over the last two days I have been painting the front gate, unearthing chairs from the cellar, jet-washing the terrace, scrubbing garden furniture, making beds, stapling leaflets and dashing to the shops for this and that instead of tending to my plants. This is why I try to have everything in place at least a fortnight in advance, but in truth the tweaking and preening never ends. Following a day of lifting and carrying, every part of me aches, but on the bright side I have burnt a healthy number of calories.

I caught up on a couple of episodes of Gardener’s World last night, whist tacking a pile of ironing resembling the north face of the Eiger. Monty Don declared that he likes August because the garden is still burgeoning with bloom, offering the promise of more to come. I concur. Our garden is only just getting into its stride and I expect it to get better and better through September. Warm days and warm nights are needed to get many of my plants going, so although daylight hours are shortening, it’s the temperature that really helps produce bright flowers and lush leaves.

After a run of excellent weather it seems our luck may be about to run out. Today’s predicted rain wasn’t enough to wet a baby’s head, so I resorted to the hose to give everything a thorough soaking. I’m more fearful of the havoc tomorrow’s high winds might wreak; hardly conditions for garden visiting, or enjoying tea and cake, and guaranteed to bring down gazillions of leaves. Sunday may be a little more settled; one never really knows.

Whatever the weather, if you are coming to see us we’ll be very glad to welcome you. And if you are too far away to make the journey I’ll endeavour to make a little video to share at some point over the weekend. We are open 12-4 on both Saturday and Sunday, serving teas in the garden at Polegate Cottage. Click here to visit the National Gardens Scheme website for further details.

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It has been a long time since Him Indoors and I spent Christmas at our seaside house, but it is good to be back this year. The coast in winter has very special appeal: in good weather the chalk cliffs sparkle like freshly painted walls and the low sun creates dramatic patterns in the sand where dogs, adults and children leave their footprints. In squally weather it is comforting to stay inside and toast oneself by the fire, or to wrap up warm and watch the waves breaking over the harbour arm. Windy days are brilliant for flying kites and blowing the cobwebs away, whilst calm days are perfect for paddling and sitting outside a cafe with a mug of hot chocolate. Generally there are fewer people and cars than in summer and more dogs and human kindness.

Boxing Day dawned clear, bright, still and mild; a perfect day for walking. It appears that most of the town felt the same, setting forth in the lightest of winter attire. There were a few brave men in shorts and an even hardier family braving the sea without wet suits. The admiration from onlookers was enough to warm their cockles as they emerged from the opaque water. Broadstairs seafront was thronged with cheerful families, glad to be out in the open and working off their excess calories. And, for the first time in a fortnight, we were blessed with a lie-in. It really did the trick: I’ve felt almost human all day.

Initially it seemed that our traditional Boxing Day walk might be doomed. Martha required carrying after about 200 metres. Once tempted by sand and water she was off into the shallow waves, which promptly broke over the top of her glittery wellies, soaking her pink tights. Martha found this most amusing, repeating her folly ‘again, again!’. After a very public change of clothing we managed to walk most of the way to Ramsgate, stopping off at Dumpton Gap for a mug of tea and a revitalising satsuma.

When not keeping my eye on Martha I was on the look out for Boxing Day blooms. Sadly, these were in short supply. I spied a handful of yellow wallflowers, some rather weary escallonia, and little else. This surprised me given the diversity we normally experience in London on Boxing Day and how mild the weather has been so far this winter. Returning home I noticed just how many plants I’ve left to fend for themselves whilst I’ve concerned myself with the library. Begonias, geraniums, fuchsias and passionflowers are all still fending for themselves outside, each waiting for the day when my optimism is rewarded by a sharp and devastating frost. I took pity on puce-pink Passiflora x violacea ‘Victoria’ and brought her into the garden room for a reviving drink and some gentle warmth.

All-in-all today has been a far more relaxing and enjoyable day than Christmas Day, without the pressure of the main event and motivated by a desire to get out of The Watch House, lovely as it is. As I write we are snuggled up together in the library, Martha and Him Indoors blissfully asleep, me tapping away on the iPad and my sister reading a book with Christmas lights twinkling behind her. A fine and fitting end to our beach blanket Boxing Day.

It was possibly a little too early to go out snowdrop spotting. In another year it might almost have been too late, but January and February have been cold and the flowers have responded accordingly. We arrived at Goodnestone Park just before midday and found the carpark already half full. A handful of hardy-looking types huddled near the garden gate, their scarves held aloft by a stiff easterly breeze. Even this far inland, the wind off the English Channel has a ferocious bite. As we flung open the car doors we caught a lung full of country air, laced with a heady cocktail of ozone and cow pat. No hint of the sensual perfumes held within the garden’s sheltered confines here.

Since lady Fitzwalter passed away in autumn 2015 the house and gardens at Goodnestone have undergone serious renovations. The Palladian Mansion has had a facelift and its interior has been tastefully decorated in manner befitting the paying guests that will now occupy its airy rooms. It is heartening to see Goodnestone’s magnificent sandstone portico gleaming in the low winter light, and freshly painted shutters at the windows. Occupation of the house may now restrict access to parts of the garden. This is a pity, but the grand old building must pay its way.

In the grounds, the focus seems to be on major structural work such as clearing woodland boundaries, removing low, decaying branches and pulling overgrown vegetation away from the ancient garden walls. It’s not glamorous stuff, but almost certainly necessary. One hopes that the flair and finesse Lady Fitzwalter brought to Goodnestone will prevail again, once the garden’s fragile infrastructure is secured. In front of the house, mirroring clumps of Betula utilis ‘Snow Queen’ have been planted at either end of the lower terrace, linked by an avenue of yews. These should be striking additions to the garden when they become established.

Peering through the windows of the enviable greenhouse, one could see young pelargoniums, helichrysums and marguerites potted up in readiness for May, when they will be set free into sheltered confines of the walled garden for visitors to enjoy. A poly tunnel was already planted out with various salad leaves, suggesting it’s very much business as usual in Goodnestone’s gardening department.

Back outside, the woodland garden provided shelter from the chill wind. It had snowed in Broadstairs, but nothing had settled. At Goodnestone little patches of thawing snow sheltered in gutters, among rocks and between stacks of logs. The ground was boggy underfoot and we soon had mud halfway up our legs. It was good to be out of our sanitised urban world for a change.

We’d expected to see snowdrops and aconites. These were present and correct, if not tightly braced against the cold weather, but it was the daphnes that stole the show. Their lanky frames were weighted down by a profusion of richly perfumed blossoms, garlanding every branch. It was so chilly that we struggled to catch the scent of sweet box or witch hazel, but not so the daphnes – their intoxicating fragrance carried as clean and clear on the air as a fine soprano. They were so lovely that I kept having to go back for another hearty sniff. (Daphnes will tolerate chalk, the prevailing soil type at Goodnestone, and so ought to do well in our Broadstairs garden too.)

An abundance of mature, winter-flowering shrubs, as well as colourful dogwoods and honey-coloured grasses suggests that Lady Fitzwalter planned her woodland garden as carefully for winter as she did for the spring, summer and autumn. The famous walled gardens are much quieter at this time of year, biding their time until spring comes. Any action here is happening beneath the soil surface.

With cold hands and ruddy faces we returned to the car, passing up the opportunity of tea and cake in order to collect yet another load of logs to keep our trio of woodburners roaring at home. Our first garden visit of 2017 under our belts, Him Indoors exclaimed ‘which one are we going to next then?’. Having established that he hadn’t suffered a stroke or some kind of memory loss, I quickly suggested Sissinghurst and put a date in our diary. Opportunities like that don’t come along very often.

Goodnestone Park’s 2017 open days are as follows:

• March: Sunday 26th: in aid of NGS from 12 – 5
• April – September: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Bank Holidays from 11 – 5. The tea room is open May – August on garden open days. Open for the NGS on Saturday 27th May from 12 – 5
• October: Sunday 1st – in aid of NGS from 12 – 4

I recommend checking the garden’s website before making a special journey, just in case.

Wishing you a fabulous week ahead. TFG.

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Every visit to Great Dixter is a treat, but when the additional carrot of a plant fair is dangled in front of my face, that treat becomes an irresistible temptation. And so it was, having hauled myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to complete my domestic duties, I set off towards the farthest corner of Kent and across the border into East Sussex. Passing through Biddenden, Rolvenden and Tenterden, enjoying the gentle countryside in between, I quickly became part of the picture-perfect world of oasts, orchards and weatherboarded cottages which typify this part of England. 

Despite arriving a little early, I was not the first; not by a long stretch. Having been ushered into a parking space by Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter’s Head Gardener, I slid out of the car to the sound of people earnestly and eagerly buying plants.

Fergus, in a neon-orange hat, complimented me on my parking, which I thought was kind given we were in the middle of a field. Having not attended one of Dixter’s bijou plant fairs before I was not exactly sure what to expect, but my guess was that it would be a classy affair. I was not disappointed. The set up was so rustic it could almost have been the set of Darling Buds of May; all rough-hewn poles and sack-cloth awnings, hay bales covered in ticking and blackthorn branches for decoration. It was wonderfully low-tech and utterly delightful. Most of the fair-goers, myself included, had got the memo, donning themselves in tweed jackets, oversized knitwear, waistcoats, fitted jeans and posh wellies. I rarely have occasion to wear my sloppy indigo-dyed sweater, but here was the perfect event for it.

The early birds were not about to leave any worms for those tardy types who aren’t prepared to tip out of bed until lunchtime. Two friends who I haven’t seen in years temporarily suspended themselves from our surprise reunion in order to bag the best of Cotswold Garden Plants’ tender exotics table. By the time I had organised my camera and taken a deep breath, they had already filled an apple crate with all manner of goodies for their garden and were guarding it against other plant plunderers. Even in these rarified surroundings plant shopping can be a cutthroat business.

I promised myself that I would not get drawn into the feeding frenzy, but within minutes I had my hands on Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ which I had first admired in Arit Anderson’s ‘Near Future Garden’ at Hampton Court Flower show, and then forgotten about. I seem to be drawn to curiosities at the moment, and this is no exception. A native of South Africa, Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ has small, silvery, clove-scented leaves and extraordinary rust-brown flowers that, admittedly, look half dead from some angles. I thought it would look pleasing alongside plum and orange tulips in my bulb theatre this spring. Out of the corner of my eye I could see someone else eyeing up the one and only plant, so I snatched it up and held on firmly whilst continuing to browse the rest of the table.

I managed to steer myself away from the pleione being offered by Binny Plants, but fell promptly at the next hurdle. Alongside a wide variety of bulbous plant, French nursery F. comme Fleurs had brought along a small selection of very choice spring flowering plants, including a solitary pot sheltering Viola chaerophylloides ‘Beni Zuru’. I don’t often fall in love with violas, easy as that is, since they tend to jilt me pretty quickly. However, this one is the prettiest thing you ever did see and I had to have it. Viola ‘Beni Zuru’ is of Japanese origin and produces reddish-pink flowers on long, burgundy stems, hovering over unusual filigree foliage. I even purchased a pricey Whichford Pottery pot to show my viola off to best advantage. Let’s see how long the relationship lasts this time.

Having been to The Salutation the previous week I thought I had seen everything they had to offer, but Steve Edney had kept a few things back for this special event. I purchased a 2″ chunk of Impatiens flanaganae root, sitting exposed ontop of a pot of rich compost. By late summer I am promised stems a metre tall, topped with candy-pink flowers …. and lots more roots to propagate from. To keep the impatiens company I popped in a cutting of Justicia carnea, the Brazilian Plume Flower, which should flower at a similar time.

I’d never come across Iris bucharica before, but several nurseries were offering generous potfuls. Having browsed around I decided to buy my plants from Great Dixter’s own nursery. Back at home I planted them in a low, Whichford Pottery bowl (come on, I couldn’t buy one on its own) in a mixture of potting compost, grit and gravel. Iris bucharica hails from Central Asia and enjoys sun and sharp drainage. Flowering early in the year it’s going to make a great companion for late flowering daffodils and early flowering tulips and has already taken up a front row seat in my bulb theatre.

Although Great Dixter is nearly two hours drive from Broadstairs, it was worth making a day of it. Entry to the gardens was included in the price of admittance to the plant fair. I spent a good three hours milling around, taking photographs, enjoying the sound of birdsong and the perfume of a thousand scented flowers. I’ll be posting a full report shortly. As treats go, this was my favourite kind, and in October I’ll be returning for more.

Great Dixter’s Autumn Plant Fair will be held on Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th October 2017, 11am-4pm.

The Damage in full

Lathyrus vernus – Swallowfields Nursery
Iris bucharica – Great Dixter Nursery
Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ – Cotswold Garden Flowers
Viola ‘Beni Zuru’ – F. comme Fleurs
Salvia ‘Royal Bumble’ – Cotswold Garden Flowers
Bergenia ‘Overture’ – Pelham Plants
Anemone ranunculoides – Swallowfields Nursery
Omphalodes verna ‘Alba’ – Swallowfields Nursery
Impatiens flanaganae – The Salutation Gardens
Justicia carnea – The Salutation Gardens

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It’s rare that I sacrifice commentary for imagery, but as I look back over the photographs I took at Great Dixter last weekend, I can’t help feeling they speak for themselves. And, being without my laptop, I’m also going to publish them as they were taken, with minimal enhancement and just a brief description.

I will save words to convey my thoughts on the gorgeous displays of spring bulbs and blossom in a forthcoming post. For now, please enjoy a dozen of the scenes that most captivated me last Saturday. TFG.

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O THE month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)

May is my favourite month, and I always say that if a garden doesn’t look merry in May, there’s a problem. There should be the last tulips and the first roses, tender foliage and entwining tendrils, sweet birdsong, the heady scent of elderflowers and green, green everywhere.

But May spells hard work for gardeners. There’s spring bedding to come out, summer bedding to go in, climbers to train, plants to be watered (especially this year), pests taking advantage of every opportunity and everything growing before one’s eyes.

When I took this week off, I was determined that Chelsea would not take over, as it usually does. It was a good Chelsea Flower Show, but not a vintage one. The nurserymen in the Great Pavilion excelled, but the gardens were average by Chelsea standards. That’s not to say they were not accomplished, but I don’t think I’ll remember a single one of them come this time next year. One of the most lovely was Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Gosho No Niwa : No Wall, No War which is a garden I could have uplifted in its entirety and enjoyed forever. The Japanese designer never strays far outside his comfort zone, but does what he does with astonishing craftsmanship and precision.

Apart from Gosho No Niwa, our favourite garden in the whole show was Chris Beardshaw’s garden for Morgan Stanley. It comprised a lush woodland garden navigated via a sinuous path, leading to and an area of jewel-coloured perennials. At the heart of the garden a monumental oak and limestone pavilion offered shelter and space for entertaining. There was meant to be a tentative subtext exploring the sponsor’s long-term committment to young people’s education, but all that really mattered was that the garden was both inspiring and accessible. Helen of Oz adored the lupins and swathes of mositure-loving candelabra primulas. Funny how we all hanker after the plants we can’t grow. (More to follow on both of these gardens in due course.)

Wednesday was a rest day and an opportunity to write a couple of posts before the state visit from Helen of Oz. Decoration of the library has come to and end (almost) and the books are slowly moving in. Design-conscious friends have suggested organising them by colour, but that would only mean I could never find the one I wanted, so I have put them on the shelves by subject. I find I have a lot of biographical books, most of which I haven’t read; an abundance of plant monographs and not enough books on trees, shrubs and vegetables. I’ve discovered a good few duplicates too. Thankfully there is enough space for me to keep collecting for several more years, and the shelves look better for not being packed to the gunnels.

The task of getting the house back into order starts now, a full thirteen months after the project began. Everywhere I look there’s a pile of paperwork or a box of ‘useful’ detritus which needs dealing with. I am committing to myself that the library should become a sanctuary away from all of that, so only ‘cleansed’ items may be admitted. The temptation of filling eight new cupboards with junk must be resisted.

I settled on a decorative scheme of greyish-lilac with soft green and saffron highlights. I am extending the palette out into the garden with olives, echiums, yellow marguerites, mauve verbenas, Bulbine frutescens and – I never thought I report this – clipped box balls. Box does not feature in my normal style of planting, but it looks right here – or at least it will when the decorator clears all his rubbish out of the garden.

Thursday took Helen of Oz and I to Sissinghurst via Madrona Nursery near Pluckley in Kent. Madrona is one of my favourite places to buy plants because of the eclectic range. They have everything from shade lovers to drought survivors, and the quality of the stock is always excellent. The nursery’s setting, among the woods and fields of the Kentish Weald, is also dreamy. I came away with Salvia ‘Love and Wishes’, Catalpa × erubescens ‘Purpurea’, Agapanthus ‘Back in Black’ and Persicaria ‘Purple Fantasy’.

Given the sublime weather, and it really was sublime, Sissinghurst was busy, but not unpleasantly so. The garden was brimming with irises and roses and looking very fine indeed. There are lots of changes going on, including the opening up of the cutting garden and replanting of the phlox garden; an extension of the Nuttery which will take it right up to the paddock fence; and a stunning planting of Iris sibirica at the end of the moat walk. The simplicity of this scheme is dazzling and refreshingly contemporary.

Beyond the garden gates wild flowers are being encouraged to return to the meadows in front of the house and next to the cafe. A guided tour around the South Cottage, where Vita and Harold slept, was a special treat, providing a fascinating insight into the couple and their extraordinary relationship.

Our final stop before Helen of Oz had to return to London was Walmer Castle near Deal. Once a home of the Queen Mother, Walmer Castle has wonderful gardens which are rarely busy. We shared a stroll around with a coach party of Danes who were equally enamoured of the kitchen and cutting gardens.

The herbaceous borders, bounded by thick, undulating hedges, were already looking strong, particularly the yellow section in the middle. A preponderance of Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) in the walls surrounding the moat got me thinking about planting some in my own humble garden.

In just a few days it will be June and, before we know it, the longest day. With Helen of Oz on her way back to Melbourne, it’s been back to sorting out the garden, watering and getting the house straight before my not so merry return to work and the imminent arrival of summer.

Wishing you all a very merry May Bank Holiday Monday. TFG.

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When a new garden opens for the National Garden Scheme it’s always exciting, but when that garden has been created by two professional gardeners with a passion for rare and exotic plants it’s sure to thrill. As soon as Steve Edney and his partner Louise Dowle begin to talk, their infectious enthusiasm spreads to all who will listen. Steve’s experience as Head Gardener at The Salutation and Louise’s gardening work for private clients brings the pair into contact with thousands of unusual plants. They have a story to tell about each and every one, but those they have chosen for their own plot are selected for the beauty of their foliage first and foremost.

The handsome house and garden at Sweetbriar have been created in the space of four years. The property has been transformed from a two-up, two-down dwelling into a smart, ochre-coloured cottage on the outskirts of the pretty village of Ash in East Kent. The back garden, once laid to lawn with only conifers, a cherry tree and a gargantuan cordyline, is now a tropical paradise packed with extensive collections of canna, amaranthus, plectranthus, persicaria, miscanthus, coleus, salvia and all manner of exuberant exotica.

Arriving at the front of Sweetbriar, the only clue as to what lays behind is the plant sales bench, which yesterday was brimming with large-leaved giants and swaying cyperus. I made a swift decision to secure a couple of cannas and a several pot-fulls of plectranthus for my own garden at The Watch House. The latter are perfect groundcover plants for dry, shaded areas in summer (alas most are not hardy in this country) as well as being aromatic. My favourite find was Plectranthus amboinicus, otherwise known as Cuban oregano for the simple reason that it’s used as a seasoning herb on that Caribbean island. It’s a neat little plant with soft, felty, cinammon-scented leaves and I’ve planted it in front of Begonia ‘Little Brother Montgomery’ for contrast.

The front garden has been laid out as a traditional potager, the box hedges neatly filled with vegetables and flowers. Along the boundary fence, apples and pears are grown as oblique cordons, each one bearing a heavy crop. Near the front door generous clumps of cosmos, zinnia and tithonia frame the front door, which is guarded on either side by towering Polygonum orientale (brilliantly dubbed kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate) and pots filled with Dahlia ‘Waltzing Matilda’, one of my favourites. What stood out for me is that every variety was planted in a big enough group to avoid looking too wild and wanton.

As we entered the back garden, along an unassuming concrete path bordered by privet, we were cautioned not to stumble into one of two rectangular pools sunk into the paved terrace. These water features create the most attractive of hazards and I confess to a degree of disappointment that I did not witness anyone plunge in. A near miss would have been amusing, but it was not to be. This narrow strip of garden, from which paths lead into thickets of luxuriant planting, was a haven for ferns and other small foliage plants. At the end of the long vista was a wood store, doubling as shelter for a handsome pair of colocasias.

I was accompanied by Stephanie, the mother of one my best friends and a local Broadstairs girl. She disappeared into the undergrowth like one of Rousseau’s tigers before I could say ‘Tenko’, oohing and ahhing at the multitudinous textures and colours she had discovered within. One path led to a large timber greenhouse, situated just a few feet from the back of the house and yet almost hidden by fountains of miscanthus and drooping veils of pine.

Within the warm confines of the cedar structure I found the extraordinary Solanum quitoense, a plant with vast, emerald-green leaves covered in purple hairs and vicious spines. The naranjilla (‘little orange’), as it’s known in Ecuador, needs a sheltered, shady position to grow well. It produces fruit which are described as tasting like a combination of rhubarb and lime. An unusual flavour pairing, but then there’s nothing usual about this garden so it’s the perfect plant.

Not far from the greenhouse was the feathery form of Eupatorium capillifolium (dog fennel), a plant I have so often admired at The Salutation. Its delicate form, like a Roman candle exploding from the ground, provided a contrast to the venerable cordyline, so big and dense that it was able to support a small community of bromeliads, each nestled comfortably where the trunk had forked. Little touches such as this added a real sense of other-worldliness to the space.

Definitely out-of-this-world was a spectacular clump of Canna x ehemannii, which made my little scrap of a plant cowering in the corner of the greenhouse seem rather pathetic. Proof, if any were needed, that it’s rarely better to grow a plant in a pot, rather than in the ground. Here one could walk right underneath and look up at the pendant, pink flowers against a clear blue sky.

As in my own garden, several plants had been severely damaged by capsid bugs, insects which cause unsightly holes and distortions in leaves thanks to the toxic saliva they inject when sucking sap from tender new growth. Steve and Louise employ organic methods when tending their garden and so accept that occasional attacks will happen. Thankfully the foliage in the garden is so diverse that one might easily mistake damaged leaves for a desirable new form.

At The Watch House I try to pack in as many plants as I possibly can, but I was staggered by the tiered layers of foliage and flower that Steve and Louise had engineered both horizontally and vertically. Some of the beds were very deep – more like jungly islands – and from one’s feet to way above one’s head there was something intriguing to look at. I had to walk around at least three times to have any hope of taking it all in.

At the back of the garden there is an extensive deck, a very smart garden hideaway and a hot tub. It was here that teas were being served and very excellent they were too. My cherry and almond slice was delicious and much-needed as I had skipped breakfast, which I am guilty of doing most weekends. Alas visitors were not invited to strip down to their briefs and take a dip – if they had been, they would have been hidden from view by more exuberant planting. Louise confided that she had rooted cuttings and germinated seeds by placing pots and trays in under-bed storage boxes ontop of the hot tub’s cover. One fancy propagator!

The path leading back towards to house passes a lovely group of shrubs underplanted with Begonia ‘Dragon Wings’ and Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ (golden creeping Jenny). A brave association but it worked perfectly here. We wended our way back through thickets of Salvia involucrata ‘Bethellii’, just coming into flower, more cannas, stands of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), luxuriant amaranthus (love-lies-bleeding) and a stunning ricinus (castor oil plant) with silver leaves.

By the time I arrived home I had already given myself a stiff ‘must try harder’ lecture and immediately set about rearranging and reappraising my own planting. Steve and Louise’s garden demonstrated to me that there are plants with a tropical appearance that will grow happily in those tricky, shaded, dry spots, and reaffirmed my view that bold scale and height are absolutely acceptable in a small space. In fact, I identified several spots where I think I could go higher next year using grasses, bananas, cannas or trees that can be pollarded, such as catalpa and paulownia.

At Sweetbriar visitors will find a garden that appears mature after only four years. What heights it can achieve in another four, eight or twelve years one can only imagine. As a nation we are fortunate that such a great many garden owners like Steve and Louise are prepared to let the public into their private domains to be inspired, stimulated and excited to garden better, discover new plants and just ‘be’ in a unique and personal environment.

Sweetbriar is open again for the National Garden Scheme on Sunday 10 September and Sunday 8 October (11am – 5pm). Admission is £3.00 and children are admitted free of charge.

The Damage:

Canna musifolia ‘Grande’
Canna indica ‘Orange’
Plectranthus madagascariensis ‘Lothlorien’
Plectranthus ‘Marbled Ruffles’
Plectranthus amboinicus ‘Cuban Oregano’

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Goodness it’s cold. I appreciate my Canadian followers will think I am making a fuss about nothing, and those in Australia will protest that their excessive heat is far more intolerable, but I am not accustomed to prolonged cold, or heat for that matter. Mild suits me fine. Tepid and cool are acceptable alternatives. Warm is good when I can get it, but in England we don’t like to set our expectations too high.

After two months of procrastination I set up my new greenhouse heater this weekend. Just in the nick of time. It was supplied with the wrong gas regulator, either that or I purchased the wrong gas cylinder. Whoever was to blame, and it was probably me, I needed to get a different regulator, or a new gas cylinder, a chore which was delayed until after the festive season. Typical winter weather in the south has the capacity to trick foolish gardeners into taking risks. It starts mild until Christmas with a few frosty moments here and there. Then in January, with the shops full of daffodils and Easter eggs, magazines brimming with images of snowdrops and seed catalogues clogging our letterboxes, we forget to listen for the fat lady singing. Her final aria has not begun. The mornings get lighter and hellebores start to bloom; then, bam, February arrives, bringing with it snow, hail, icy gales and frost. I barely slept a wink at the weekend as a northerly wind pummelled the house, lobbing hail the size of bullets at my window and causing Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’ to thrash the glass like a cat o’ nine tails. I considered moving my bedroom into the basement until it stopped, but living by sea one can never truly escape the weather.

Once I focussed on the task of commissioning the heater it was not as onerous as I had anticipated. I had images of blowing up the greenhouse and landing myself in hospital, so I followed the instruction to the letter, tested the joints for leaks with soapy water, and stood well back after lighting. Easy-peasy. Within minutes it was warmer in the greenhouse than it was indoors, and the following morning I could already see how much perkier my plants were looking. Even on the lowest setting the heater appears to be running 24/7, so it will be interesting to see how long the propane lasts. I can now plant seeds, take cuttings and bring plants out of hibernation earlier than I could have done when it was completely unheated. Of course I’d like a new greenhouse, one that looks pretty and that I can stand up in, but that’s not on the cards any time soon. In the meantime I sate my desire by windowshopping at Chelsea and Hampton Court.

The cold weather is going to continue for at least another week, and snow is forecast in Broadstairs tonight. Over the years I’ve learned that February is not a month to be trifled with. Bide your time; use it to tidy up, explore new ideas, read, dream and plan ahead, but don’t be tricked into thinking spring is here. TFG.

When I first opened The Watch House for the National Garden Scheme in 2015 I felt a little lonely. Compared to the south and west of Kent, the spread of gardens opening in the east of the county was sparse, to say the least. But over the last three years numbers have grown, and I’m delighted to report that 2018 will be a record year. Not only does this mean I won’t feel lonely any more, but I’ll also have more inspiration here on my doorstep. Visiting other people’s gardens is one of the best ways of getting ideas for one’s own. Even if a garden’s style isn’t to your personal taste, appreciating an alternative approach can still affirm what you do and don’t want on your own patch. I guarantee there will always be something to inspire, whether it’s an accidental coming together of two unusual flowers, an ingenious piece of garden ornament, a splendid vista or just a plant you’re unfamiliar with. Seek and ye shall find.

The particular charm of most gardens that open for the National Garden Scheme is that they are private and therefore gloriously individual. They are generally tended by the owners rather than paid staff, and have a more personal, often eccentric feel about them. NGS gardens may not be manicured, but they will certainly be skilfully and lovingly gardened. This is all to the good when it comes to applying any appealing ideas to one’s own plot, as they ought to be replicable with a bit of skill, determination and elbow grease. Stately homes and gardens are also wonderful to visit, but the chances of owning or recreating one of those is slim.

I am always staggered that there are not more gardens open in our part of the county. By ‘our part’, I mean the area to the east of Canterbury, if one were to draw a line between Herne Bay on the north coast and Folkestone on the south. This encompasses the coastal towns of Dover (no gardens to see here – what a pity), Deal, Walmer, Sandwich, Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate, as well as countless ancient villages inland. The climate is mild, it’s not too wet and the number of sunlight hours are among the highest in the UK. We’re surrounded by farms growing cut flowers, salad leaves, asparagus, hops, strawberries, grapes, apples, pears and stone fruit. Yet despite being on the edge of the Garden of England – and a fertile edge at that – we have been all at sea when it comes to gardens open to the public.

Of course it’s all about quality, not quantity. This year there are some exceptional gardens opening in our area, including the private domaines of two Head Gardeners – Steven Edney of The Salutation and Philip Oostenbrink of Canterbury Cathedral. At Sweetbriar Steven and his partner Louise, also a very talented gardener, have created a vibrant, multi-textured jungle packed with colourful, unusual plants at the rear of their cottage. I was blown away by it when I visited last summer and can’t wait to go back. A stone’s throw away is Woods Ley, the home of Philip Oostenbrink. A man after my own heart he’s serving Prosecco at his garden openings rather than tea. Woods Ley is another small garden like my own. I am intrigued to see how Philip has used the space to pack in a host of exotics, including tree ferns, gingers, cannas and part of the National Collection of Hakonechloa macra held at the cathedral.

For those with more conservative tastes, Yoakley House in Margate promises to be a treat. The grounds of these pretty almshouses are given over to manicured green lawns, colourful flower beds, roses and specimen shrubs. Yoakley’s hanging baskets are billed as ‘magnificent’. I am looking forward to being transported back to the heady days of my childhood then this was the norm for public and communal open spaces. Close by is The Garden Gate, a community garden growing a mixture of flowers and produce using organic methods. There’s a wildlife pond, two poly tunnels, a shade house, coppiced woodland and a green roof. Perhaps the best part is that visitors on open day will be able to sample pizzas cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven, complete with toppings plucked from the garden. Let’s hope they get a fine day.

East Kent NGS Coordinator Andrew Montgomery and I have cooked up a plan to visit some of the gardens pre-opening so that I can describe them on this blog. It will be chance to meet the gardeners when they are not the centre of attention, and to suss out what the highlights might be on opening days. With luck I will also be able to capture the gardens when there are none of the inevitable red kagoules in shot! The first gardens we’ll visit will be 34 Cross Road in Walmer and Watergate House in Fordwich, both of which I’m excited to see.

A plantsman’s garden, 34 Cross Road is home to a collection of daphnes and hardy geraniums, as well as unusual trees, shrubs and alpines. On the tranquil River Stour, Watergate House, home of Chelsea Flower Show designer Fiona Cadwallader, has a series of colour-themed garden rooms embraced by ancient stone walls. Finally, I must mention ‘Haven’ in Minster, a garden I am ashamed to say I haven’t visited yet, but which opens regularly for the NGS. 2018 will be the year I hop on the train and pay a long-awaited visit to this village garden, which is composed of a series of glades and full to the gunnels with plants.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get out and start garden visiting again, especially after such a brutal and prolonged winter. With the National Garden Scheme, the more gardens you visit, the more money goes to charity: you might just arrive home with a few plant treats for yourself too. TFG.

For the full schedule of garden openings, I’d recommend checking the NGS website or investing in a copy of the famous and invaluable Yellow Book.

Living and gardening by the coast, I find my senses become attuned to a very specific set of sensations: the sound of seagulls, restless wind and tourists dispossessed of their volume control; the smell of seaweed and fish and chips; the feel of salt in my hair and sun on my cheeks. So when I visit a garden in a different locale I am struck, not by the house, plants or owners, but by how it feels, looks, sounds and smells.

On Sunday, National Garden Scheme coordinator Andrew Montgomery and I headed out on our first day-trip to preview gardens in East Kent, ahead of their official openings. Our mission is to encourage visitors to come and experience the tremendous talent and generosity of those prepared to open their gardens for charity. After a speedy inspection of my own garden (it passed, just), we set off into the cool, misty morning.

The closely planted front garden at 34 Cross Road, Walmer offers little suggestion as to what lies behind. A low, red-brick bungalow has sat in the plot since the 1930s and is now surrounded by established and unusual plants. The first clue that the garden might be a little bit special is a trough containing dainty Trillium rivale (brook wakerobin) close to the front door. The crinkled, white flowers light up the shade cast by a dense thicket of evergreens. Once through the house, a long, tapering garden is revealed, sloping gently away to a neatly chamfered hedge of Lonicera nitida (box honeysuckle). The small patio is a great vantage point from which to admire a fine view toward the villages of Great Mongeham and Little Mongeham.

Owners Peter Jacob and Margaret Wilson are enthusiasts after my own heart. They delight in seeking out new and interesting plants, accruing substantial collections of daphne, hardy geranium, anemone, trillium and fritillaria. In 1965, when Margaret moved into the bungalow, the garden was besieged by brambles and inundated by nettles. Slowly but surely a garden was made, and over time it has evolved into a plantsman’s paradise. Margaret enjoys propagating new plants from seed and is especially proud of two soaring Gingko biloba which stand like sentinels against the skyline. (By now, visible through the mist.) Their tall, columnar profile is typical for young gingko, but enhanced by careful pruning. These trees number alongside many raised by Margaret over the years she’s lived at 34 Cross Road.

Closer to the ground, Margaret points out a carpet of self-seeded Eryngium ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’ and a handsome specimen of Euphorbia rigida growing in the lee of a greenhouse. Nearby, another of Margaret’s seed-grown treasures is Arum creticum, a striking aroid producing glossy-green leaves and lemon-yellow spathes in spring. Each way one looks in this garden there is something of interest and every opportunity is taken to squeeze in ‘just one more’. How well I know that inclination!

Peter’s passion for the genus Daphne has driven him to collect over eighty species and hybrids, many of which have matured into beautiful specimens. Where the third-of-an-acre garden finally tapers to a point, one brushes past sparkling-white Daphne acutiloba ‘Fragrant Cloud’ filling the air with perfume. Daphnes flourish in this garden despite there being only a foot or so of soil before hitting solid chalk. Years of cultivation has created an enviable tilth. Forming part of a group of daphnes, the peony-pink flowers of D. ‘Serendipity’ also caught my eye. This is a Mediterranean species, occurring naturally from Italy to Greece on stony, limestone slopes. At least twice I stopped to admire a handsomely branched Edgeworthia chrysantha, still producing fabulous scent despite being well past its peak.

As we retired for tea the mist cleared from the horizon and the garden was bathed in pale sunlight. This immediately prompted the flowers of Anemone nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’ to open, revealing petals flushed with a delicious hint of lavender. The sunshine encouraged several clumps of red and white tulips to ‘pop’ in the main perennial border. I particularly enjoyed the combination of burgundy-leaved euphorbias and heucheras with blood-red tulips. Just the kind of drama a garden needs to get it kick-started in spring.

The layout of Peter and Margaret’s garden is informal and ever-changing, constantly in flux as new plants are added and others rejected. Both gardeners have a keen eye for what makes a strong plant. Like me, they abhor a vacuum, filling every square inch with plants, whilst having several more in reserve. What can I say? Plants are addictive. Visit this garden if you are genuinely interested in plants and in taking time to see what you are looking at. And when you’ve done that, close your eyes, breathe deeply, fill your lungs with the scent of daphne blossom and listen to the birds singing. Your senses will be awakened and your knowledge of plants extended threefold. TFG.

The garden at 34 Cross Road is open from 11am until 5pm this Sunday, April 22nd 2018 and again on Sunday, June 17th at the same times. Entry costs £3.50. No teas, but there are plenty of refreshment opportunities in the nearby towns of Walmer and Deal. Visit the National Garden Scheme website for details and directions.

If you are thinking about opening your own garden for charity, or would like to know more about the National Garden Scheme, do drop me a line at thefrustratedgardener@gmail.com and I will put you in touch with the NGS team.

The town of Fordwich has the distinction of being the smallest in England. Situated on the River Stour, which connects Canterbury with the English Channel, it was to Fordwich that the Normans shipped tonnes of pale Caen stone to build the city’s cathedral. At Watergate House the precious cargo arrived safely on English soil after the long journey from France. In those days Fordwich was a busy town with a lucrative river trade and competing quays. Nowadays it’s a quiet yet desirable backwater, no larger than a village. There’s a town hall, Grade I listed Church of St Mary the Virgin (now redundant) and two excellent public houses known for good food. Fordwich is packed to the gunwales with character homes, but few could rival the style, position and stature of Watergate House. Dating from the 16th Century, it was once the family home of John and Gregory Blaxland, early 19th Century pioneers of Australia. Current custodians Fiona Cadwallader and Patrick Heren have spent the last eight years sensitively restoring the house and creating a new garden. The result, as you may judge for yourself this Saturday, is a characterful property in complete harmony with its unique setting.

Fiona Cadwallader started her career as an interior designer but quickly found that clients wanted her advice on their gardens too. Fiona’s natural style is relaxed, updated classic, a handwriting she’s successfully extended beyond the back door. At Watergate House she’s combined all the elements of an English Country garden in a relatively small space. Pale flagstones echo the chunks of mellow Caen stone that pepper the garden’s ancient walls. Many of these are pieces that didn’t make it as far as Canterbury: they may, quite literally, have fallen off the back of a cart. Constructed in generous widths, Fiona’s paths and terraces fill the garden with light, inviting hardy geraniums, astrantias and alchemilla to spill over and soften the edges.

A handcrafted oak pergola straddles the roughly-square main lawn, floating like a covered causeway, slightly above ground level. Oak supports sit on staddle stones fashioned from concrete but skilfully finished in the likeness of limestone. Fiona wanted each section of the pergola to represent a perfect cube. At first she was horrified by the timber’s monumental scale, but once a second section was completed she could see her instincts were right. The whole thing is as muscular and purposeful as a cathedral cloister.

From late spring the pergola is swathed in roses, becoming a focal point for the garden. Fiona has a passion for roses and knows them well. Through trial and error she’s discovered which varieties flower well on tricky north and east-facing walls. For north-facing situations she advocates Rosa ‘Dortmund’ (single, crimson, hipping), R. ‘Rural England’ (soft-pink, repeat flowering) and R. ‘Leverkusen’ (double, lemon-yellow) grown in combination with Clematis ‘Maidwell Hall’ (double, lilac). For east-facing situations Fiona speaks highly of R. ‘Louise Odier’ (double, pink-shaded-lilac) and R. ‘Aloha’ (rose-pink, repeat flowering). If you appreciate roses, be sure to put Saturday June 16th in your diary as they should be looking splendid for the garden’s second opening of the year.

An enviable Alitex greenhouse is positioned to one side of the main lawn, adjacent to a small kitchen garden. Here, box has been replaced by an edging of blight-resistant teucrium. At this time of year the greenhouse is brimming with tibouchinas, marguerites, osteospermums and pelargoniums, each desperate to get out into the open air. Fiona is rightly cautious about being too hasty and is keeping her tender plants under cover for now, watering diligently every evening. Fiona confesses she’s struggled with seed germination this spring. Even with state-of-the-art heating it’s been a little too chilly for the likes of cleome and cosmos. Thankfully there’s still ample time to begin again.

The planting in Fiona’s capacious borders is dense and carefully ‘layered’. Schemes have been devised to provide colour from the dawn of the year through to its end, beginning with hellebores and snowdrops, followed by daffodils, hyacinths and tulips. In the woodland garden a peppering of Tulip ‘Lasting Love’ cuts a dash among a sea of sulphur-yellow erythroniums and pale-blue forget-me-nots: Fiona dislikes the emergence of pink forget-me-nots so hoiks out any interlopers promptly. Later there will be peonies, delphiniums, Geranium palmatum and roses, followed by a collection of tender salvias perpetuating the display until autumn draws to a close.

My favourite spot in Fiona and Patrick’s garden is a small, undulating patch of lush grass situated between the oak pergola and one of the gates opening directly onto the River Stour. Here the grass is peppered with crocuses, snowdrops, narcissus and fritillarias – F. meleagris, F. persica and F. imperialis. The walls which shield the garden from the river are constructed from a random mix of brick, flint, pudding stone and abandoned Caen stone. Five pollarded limes loom over lively clumps of narcissi like ancient mother spiders protecting their unruly spiderlings.

Across the river Fiona and Patrick have aquired two small plots of meadowland which they are improving by planting trees and wildflowers. Fiona has replanted the four plateau-cut lime trees she used in her ‘Poetry Lover’s Garden’ at Chelsea in 2017, a design for which she won a silver medal. Though separated from the main garden, these riverine plots ensure that views out of the garden are both protected and enhanced. Standing on a pontoon, gazing at them through weeping willows, Fiona confides that the only plants she’s succeeded in growing at the water’s edge are yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) and swamp lilies (Crinum powellii). One could do worse. The Stour still being tidal at this point, it’s not unusual for these plants to be inundated for a few days at a time.

As an advertisement for Fiona’s talent, which this garden has invariably become, it’s an appropriate one. The garden at Watergate House is professional enough to impress, yet sufficiently relaxed to feel replicable. The relationship between house and garden is both sympathetic and complementary. There’s attention to detail but no airs and graces. Fiona confesses that many of her clients would like her to create something similarly effortless and romantic for them. After just a single visit, it’s easy to appreciate why. TFG.

Watergate House, King Street, Fordwich is open 28th April and 16th June, 2-6pm, with teas. Visit the National Garden Scheme website for details and directions.

When preparing for our garden opening, I find I end up doing anything but gardening. Over the last two days I have been painting the front gate, unearthing chairs from the cellar, jet-washing the terrace, scrubbing garden furniture, making beds, stapling leaflets and dashing to the shops for this and that instead of tending to my plants. This is why I try to have everything in place at least a fortnight in advance, but in truth the tweaking and preening never ends. Following a day of lifting and carrying, every part of me aches, but on the bright side I have burnt a healthy number of calories.

I caught up on a couple of episodes of Gardener’s World last night, whist tacking a pile of ironing resembling the north face of the Eiger. Monty Don declared that he likes August because the garden is still burgeoning with bloom, offering the promise of more to come. I concur. Our garden is only just getting into its stride and I expect it to get better and better through September. Warm days and warm nights are needed to get many of my plants going, so although daylight hours are shortening, it’s the temperature that really helps produce bright flowers and lush leaves.

After a run of excellent weather it seems our luck may be about to run out. Today’s predicted rain wasn’t enough to wet a baby’s head, so I resorted to the hose to give everything a thorough soaking. I’m more fearful of the havoc tomorrow’s high winds might wreak; hardly conditions for garden visiting, or enjoying tea and cake, and guaranteed to bring down gazillions of leaves. Sunday may be a little more settled; one never really knows.

Whatever the weather, if you are coming to see us we’ll be very glad to welcome you. And if you are too far away to make the journey I’ll endeavour to make a little video to share at some point over the weekend. We are open 12-4 on both Saturday and Sunday, serving teas in the garden at Polegate Cottage. Click here to visit the National Gardens Scheme website for further details.

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I’m taking a short break from my Chelsea reporting to bring you news of a superb new garden opening for the National Garden Scheme here in Kent this weekend.

I visited Denne Manor Farm back in late April on what can politely be described as an unseasonably cold and dreary Sunday. Being partially urbanised I was not correctly attired, but this didn’t prevent me from enjoying a lovely morning chatting with owners Louisa and Andrew Mills and strolling around their marvellous garden. By their own admission the couple are not expert gardeners, but they clearly adore their garden and want to make it as good as it possibly can be. Like many of us they are learning as they go and make no bones about that. Denne Manor is blessed with ample space for future development and bags of character thanks to its rural setting and skillfully restored outbuildings.

Louisa’s personal passion is for cultivating her favourite beetroots and gourds, and Andrew is in the process of planting a small vineyard. They are keen to encourage wildlife into their garden and to have colour all year round. The couple keep a flock of Swiss Valais Blacknose sheep which will hold visitors young and old in their thrall. This rare breed has been dubbed the world’s cutest and it would take a hard-hearted soul to argue with that. I was allowed to get in with the lambs who might also be dubbed the world’s friendliest. As for the ram – I’d recommend keeping a healthy distance!

Denne Manor Farm is situated in the very heart of Kent, not far from the villages of Shottenden and Chilham. This is one of my favourite parts of Kent; quiet, pretty and little known to outsiders. The farm is approached down a narrow lane and through a series of oak gates, one with finials that match those on the newel posts of the manor’s staircase. One notices straight away that the garden is both high and exposed on each side. This is a challenge for Louisa, Andrew and the team at Oakley Manor Garden Services who help the couple to maintain the grounds. Trees and hedges have been planted and are maturing quickly, providing some shelter from the worst of the winds that sweep across Kent. In the main garden there is an especially fine tulip tree, Liriodendron tuilpifera, and a mighty horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum. Both appear to predate the current garden’s layout.

In common with many of Kent’s smarter country houses, Denne Manor Farm had humble beginnings and has enjoyed a chequered history. The oldest parts of the house date from the 15th or 16th Century when the English Bond brick pattern was commonly used for construction. The manor’s frame was made from timber. The house was significantly updated and extended during the early Georgian period: look up and you’ll see Dutch gable-ends, a common feature of the houses of East Kent, an architectural flourish introduced by waves of settlers that arrived from the Low Countries during this period.

In keeping with the agricultural setting the gardens are laid out in an expansive and traditional style – wide mixed borders backed with small trees, mature shrubs and a good mix of summer flowering perennials and bulbs. Such generous space allows for large drifts of planting which can be admired from the well-kept lawns, another of Andrew’s passions. The planting has been carefully thought out to surround and complement the manor, so that it appears to sit on a cushion of foliage and flowers. On my visit the daffodils were starting to fade and tulips were coming to the fore, with the promise of alliums to come. Having had much better weather since then, visitors this weekend can expect to enjoy a very fine wisteria, roses and peonies. As well as lawns and borders there is a rose arbour, a swimming pool garden and a vegetable garden to explore.

Previous owners commissioned an intricate topiary parterre to the side of the house, in a design representing a Kentish apple tree. It feels entirely appropriate for this house, but it’s all Louisa and Andrew can do to keep their handsome pack of Italian Pointers (Bracco Italiano) and Weimaraners from destroying it!

It did not take long to work out that Louisa and Andrew, who have spent much of their careers working abroad, are the most hospitable and down-to-earth of people. Opening your garden for the first time is a daunting prospect and a generous gesture, so do go along and give them plenty of encouragement. Louisa and Andrew are inviting visitors to bring along a picnic, as well as offering refreshments. The gardens will be open on both Saturday May 26th and Sunday May 27th from 12pm-4pm. The entry price of £5 goes to the charities supported by the National Gardens Scheme. Click here for more details. TFG.

N.B. Many of the photographs in this post have been kindly provided by Louisa and Andrew since my own efforts were somewhat marred by the weather!

If you’ve been reading the newspapers or listening to BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme recently, you will already be acquainted with one of Britain’s most interesting but perhaps least well-known plant collectors, Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram (30 October 1880 – 19 May 1981). Following a genteel and somewhat quirky Edwardian upbringing in Westgate-on-Sea, not so far from my home in Broadstairs, he married and moved his family south to the picture-postcard village of Benenden in Kent. Here he turned his attention away from his first passion, ornithology, to horticulture, quickly amassing a vast collection of plants from around the world.

A first visit to Japan in 1902, followed by a honeymoon there in 1907, further piqued his interest in the country’s culture and cherry trees. Cherry blossom, or sakura, had been revered in Japan for over a thousand years, yet the march of industrialisation, modernisation and the popularity of a cloned cherry, known as the ‘Somei-yoshino’, had led to a rapid decline in the diversity of cherry varieties grown in the country. Ingram was saddened by what he saw and determined to save what he could, sending over fifty endangered varieties back to England for safe keeping. Very quickly he amassed one of the most comprehensive collections of cherries in the world, arranging them in his gardens in series of ‘sylvan glades’ protected by pines and rhododendrons. With sufficient wealth to indulge his passion full time, ‘Cherry’ Ingram was in his garden by 6am each morning to inspect each of his trees, developing new grafting techniques that would ultimately reinvigorate weaker varieties and allow them to be reintroduced to Japan.

By 1926 Collingwood Ingram had established himself as an authority on Japanese cherries and was invited to address the Japanese Cherry Society on their national tree. It was on this visit, a sakura angyo (cherry blossom pilgrimage), that he was shown a painting of a magnificent white cherry tree that had disappeared from cultivation, along with many others. Ingram immediately recognised the blossom as that of a tree he had found growing in a garden in Winchelsea, Sussex:

“Mr Funatsu brought me out one or two old pictures of cherries amongst which was one by his great grandfather probably painted about 120 years ago. (Mr F. is an old man). This kakemono depicted very accurately, if somewhat crudely, the large-flowered single cherry I found at the Freeman’s which I have named Tai Haku. Apparently its correct name is Akatsuki – meaning “daybreak” or “dawn”. The fine shape of the flowers and its pure whiteness contrasting with the pale golden bronze young foliage are clearly depicted. The diameter of the flowers – about 6cm if my memory does not fail – is also about right in the painting.

Mr Funatsu said he had long been searching in vain for this Akatsuki variety! It is a curious thing that it should be found again in a remote Sussex garden.“

From the journal of Collingwood Ingram, 1926.

His Japanese hosts were polite yet incredulous. How was it possible that the only surviving example of such a nationally revered tree grew in England? For the Japanese was unthinkable that an Englishman might hold the answer. Determined to prove his identification accurate, Ingram returned home and succeeded in sending cuttings half way around the globe embedded in a potato. The scion arrived in Japan via the Tran-Siberian Express, thus successfully reintroducing the Great White Cherry, re-named ‘Tai Haku’, to its rightful home. That first cutting, now developed into a full-grown tree, can still be found in a nursery in Kyoto.

Ingram’s book Ornamental Cherries, published in 1948, is a classic text but remains, alas, out of print and missing from my library. (If anyone should have a copy, please let me know.) Thanks to the book’s popularity the cultivation of ornamental cherry trees rapidly became de rigeur, with hundreds of street hurriedly planted up and named in the tree’s honour. In dreary post-war Britain the sight of trees clothed in candy-floss pink blossom each spring was just the tonic people needed. A stiffly upright variety with masses of deep pink flowers became an instant hit. It’s name was ‘Kanzan’, which means mountain border in Japanese. Each blossom has eight to ten times more petals than a single flower, creating an overwhelming sense of profusion. As the new leaves appear they are flushed with coppery -bronze and when they fall they turn orange and red. There is a great deal of snobbery about ‘Kanzan’, but having grown up at the time many of these trees were reaching maturity I have a certain fondness for their unashamedly exuberant spring performance.

A few days ago an English translation of a book on Collingwood Ingram’s contribution to the survival of Japanese cherries was published in the UK, the first edition selling out almost immediately. Naoko Abe’s acclaimed account is a fascinating tale of two contrasting cultures; of war, propaganda, astonishing beauty and one man’s passion for cherry trees that ran so deep that he became known as simply as ‘Cherry’ Ingram. As well as introducing a host of new ornamental cherries to gardeners, including ‘Asano’ which forms an avenue in Kew Gardens, Ingram also gave us Rubus x tridel ‘Benenden’ and Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Benenden Blue’.

Ingram lived a long and full life, passing away in May 1981, just as the last cherry blossoms fell from the trees in his garden at The Grange. Now a residential home, The Grange’s gardens are being opened for one day only, on Sunday April 7th 2019, so that visitors might indulge in a little hanami, the Japanese term for flower viewing. Cherries are not the longest-lived trees, so this is an amazing opportunity to see some of Ingram’s original plantings whilst they are still flourishing. Make a date in your diary and be sure to pick up a copy of Naoko Abe’s excellent book whilst you are there. TFG.

The gardens of The Grange, Benenden, TN17 4DN, will be open from 1-4pm on Sunday 7 April from 1-4pm. Parking is available on The Green. All proceeds go to the Friends of Benenden Grange, who support adults with learning disabilities. More information here.

‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman who saved Japan’s Blossoms is available from all good booksellers and from The Grange on opening day.

To catch up on Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’ programme, click here.

To read the excellent book reviews in the Daily Mail and Guardian, click on the newspaper titles.

Many thanks to Pamela Cross and Felicity White for encouraging me to write this post.

And relax! After several weeks of intensive preparation, another National Gardens Scheme open weekend lies behind us. Rather like Christmas there’s an almighty build-up and then the event itself is over in the blink of an eyelid. In total we welcomed 440 visitors to The Watch House and raised just over £2000 for NGS charities. Our previous record was 300, so this is a fantastic result. Thank you to everyone who took the trouble to come along; we hope you liked what you saw.

There were a number of changes to the garden this year and this didn’t escape the notice of regular visitors. To begin with the famous Santa Cruz Ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus subsp. aspleniifolius) that protected the northern boundary of the Jungle Garden for ten years has been reduced to 8ft tall, revealing the poorly maintained building behind. It was, of course, a great tragedy when a storm felled the tree in March, but the garden has benefited enormously from the additional light. The shaggy red stumps are resprouting, but so far new growth is pale and sickly, so I am not sure it will survive. We have high hopes that a seeding tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) might give that part of the garden a different vibe in time. In the meantime I’ve stopped noticing the half-rendered, scaffolded eyesore behind the fence. I hope its residents enjoy the view.

We are fortunate that around half of our visitors return annually to see how the garden has developed. I am so flattered that people find the garden interesting and varied enough to come back for a second, third, forth or even fifth time, always taking time to share kind comments and make wise observations. Some recall the changes in position or performance of a plant better than I do. Nevertheless I feel honour-bound to ring the changes for visitors’ sake as well as my own. This year’s bit of horticultural theatre is my Tree of Life, an experiment with epiphytes in a maturing Japanese green olive (Phillyrea latifolia).

Naturally there were a lot of questions about hardiness and how to affix plants securely to a tree. In answer, none of the plants used are hardy enough for UK winters (including late autumn and early spring) so they will have to come indoors during the colder, wetter months. Attaching the plants to the tree was easy; they simply needed packing gently into natural clefts in the branches using damp sphagnum moss. So far, so good; they’ve stayed exactly where I put them. An occasional misting with rainwater seems to be enough to keep them happy during a dry spell. If you feel inspired to grow epiphytes outside in your own garden, just keep in mind that most bromeliads, orchids and airplants are accustomed to shelter and a degree of shade. They won’t last long in an exposed position.

The question I’m most frequently asked by visitors to the garden is ‘how long does it take you to water everything?’. The answer is about an hour each day in summer. Many folk blanch at that amount of ‘work’, but for me watering is one of the most relaxing jobs in the garden, permitting me time to switch off, observe plants’ growing habits and make plans for the future. It’s like therapy, only cheaper.

The Gin & Tonic Garden has never looked better and is no longer regarded as secondary to The Jungle Garden, by me at least. This tiny 20ft by 20ft space gives me more joy than I ever imagined it could. It’s absolutely rammed with plants, an intricate tapestry of foliage and flowers that looks even more wonderful from above. If ever anyone wanted to get an idea of the variety that nature has blessed us with, they could find it here. From the huge leaves of Entelea arborescens, Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’ and Zantedeschia ‘Hercules’, to the fine, feathery filaments of Acacia verticillata ‘Riverine Form’ and spiralling rosettes of Aloe polyphylla, a broad spectrum of plants is here to see in a space the size of my living room. Almost everything is growing in pots, including the trees.

The new fence, which we’re in the process of painting, has made the space neater and more private. It’s not solid so as to diffuse, rather than block the wind. Never shy of making last minute adjustments to the garden, I planted a clump of pink echinacea among a froth of fennel on Friday, thereby creating a square metre of prairie and another point of interest. The need for such tweaks comes into focus when the pressure is on to have everything looking its best!

After The Beau’s arrival, the house started filling up with plants almost as quickly as the garden. Our bathrooms now rival any of those showcased on the countless Instagram feeds devoted to indoor plants, hence I’ve not bothered to add mine to the melee. Every room at The Watch House is now home to at least one plant, most to several more. For me this isn’t a trend – I’ve always grown house plants – but it is an excuse to buy more. My houseplant habit reaches its zenith in the Garden Room, where I write this blog and occasionally work from home. Here in the cool I am surrounded by begonias, ferns, hoyas and streptocarpus, and by oleanders, pelargoniums and coleus. Foliage reigns supreme, but a peppering of flowers is permitted. There is always room for one more here and it’s the perfect sick-bay for any plant that might be struggling.

Opening one’s garden to this number of visitors over a short period isn’t possible without a considerable amount of help. A huge thank you to Jane B, Kris and The Beau for making a baker’s dozen of delicious cakes. Hat’s off to Sue, Karen and The Beau for brewing over 400 cups of tea, serving the aforementioned cakes and clearing tables. Three cheers for Jane S, Celia, Steve and Heather for selling tickets and explaining how best to enjoy the gardens. Finally, hurrah for the marvellous Scottish Sue who made sure that neither garden became overcrowded and for generally keeping our energy levels up. It was a fantastic team effort, as well as great opportunity to make new friends. As for Max and Millie, our beautiful pups, they are glad to have their garden back.

In order to save paper I did not produce a printed plant list this year. Instead I’ve spent several hours updating my Plant List on this blog so that it’s fully up to date. Should you have visited and spied a plant that you couldn’t identity, please drop me a line at thefrustratedgardener@gmail.com and I’ll endeavour to provide you with a name and a source.

We shall decide in September if and when we’ll open in 2020, so if you missed the opportunity to join us this year, hopefully there will be another chance in 12 months. If you did come along, I’d love to hear what you enjoyed the most and which changes piqued your interest. TFG.

I’d missed one too many plant fairs at Great Dixter, so I was not about to forgo another. We made plans, reorganised others, kept an eagle eye on the weather, confirmed that dogs were welcome and set off for Sussex shortly after breakfast on Saturday. A smooth drive took us through some of the prettiest countryside in Kent, just as autumn’s brush had started to paint it in soft shades of fawn, yellow and orange. In Tenterden our passage was briefly slowed by cheery sides of Morris dancers performing in the town’s folk festival. A more English vision you never did see. In less lovely Ashford I admired a procession of Fraxinus oxycarpa ‘Raywood’ smouldering in their characteristic end-of-year livery – blackish-green suffused with blood-red. This has to be one of my very favourite street trees and I wish it were planted more often.

Our arrival in Northiam was perfectly timed so that we would be parked-up just before the plant fair opened … or at least it would have been had hundreds of people not arrived well before us. By the time we had traipsed across the hay-strewn field, taking care not to slip on the greasy clay mountains thrown up by Dixter’s resident moles, the first comers were already standing sentinel over little clutches of plants, like king penguins protecting their chicks. If plant buying were a competitive sport, Great Dixter’s plant fair would surely be its Wimbledon. All the great and good of gardening and garden design were there, some blending in, others standing out from the crowd. Everyone is hugely amiable, vastly knowledgeable, and on the hunt for an interesting plant or two. The atmosphere is friendly yet rarified. Anything unusual or especially desirable is snapped up fast, but once a few precious treasures have been bagged, everyone settles down for a natter or goes off to enjoy one of the talks provided free by the exhibitors.

It is hard not to go slightly mad and start grabbing everything that takes one’s fancy, however it is often the less immediately appealing plants that are the most exciting. I find that it pays to do a few circuits and make sure nothing has been missed. Those shopping for the moment are conspicuous with their totes crammed full of grasses, asters and echinaceas. A mobile phone is essential for looking up unfamiliar plants and to avoid asking questions which might reveal one’s abject ignorance …. not that anyone would be anything other than willing to share their knowledge if asked.

Great Dixter’s gardens were magical as ever; perhaps not the best I have seen them at this time of year, but brilliant nevertheless. (The weather was dull to the point of being dark, which did not help.) The Jungle Garden was so jungly as to be almost impenetrable, which made me feel heaps better about my own interpretation of this style at The Watch House. Considering this plot was originally an enclosed rose garden, it’s not a surprise that the paths are a little too narrow for all the gregarious giants that have taken the roses’ place. Despite all the wildness, the standard of planting and maintenance was exemplary as usual. I learn more useful lessons from Dixter than from any other garden I visit, especially when it comes to gardening in pots. Turns out marigolds are a ‘thing’ this year, and the love-in with conifers continues unabated.

The main border was still magnificent, an example to us all when it comes to succession planting. So much colour and substance; I’m not sure it ever has a bad day. Some of the other garden rooms had been ‘let go’ in a way that would not be considered acceptable elsewhere, but at Great Dixter this is all part of the charm and atmosphere. If an aster falls this-a-way, or a grass topples that-a-way, then that’s fine. I especially admired a Rudbeckia called ‘Henry Eilers’ (see image further down this post), producing finely-quilled yellow flowers reminiscent of a spider chrysanthemum. One more for the ‘when I have a bigger garden’ list.

Having reacquainted myself with the Great Dixter Plant Fair I am definitely returning for the next one in spring 2020 (dates yet to be revealed). I hope very much that Brexit will not prevent the excellent nurseries that travel from the continent from participating, as this is one of the many reasons why it’s a special occasion. For those of us without the time and means to travel Europe in search of fine plants, Great Dixter is a place of pilgrimage, discovery, and of kinship. Long may it continue to be so. TFG.

The Damage

A highly indulgent list considering the lack of space in my garden and that winter is fast approaching, but these opportunities were too good to miss.

1. Telanthophora grandiflora – the giant groundsel from Mexico. Anything but weedy, this is a magnificent beast, although not frost hardy.
2. Titanotrichum oldhamii – An old-world Gesneriad (i.e. related to gloxinias, streptocarpus and African violets) from Taiwan, Japan or China. Produces yellow, foxglove-like flowers from a rosette of fuzzy basal leaves. Once something of a rarity, several plantspeople are now offering it for sale. Hardy, even in Scotland.
3. Cyperus haspan – a diminutive, jewel-like papyrus producing emerald green stems each topped with a fuzzy brush of filaments. Apparently hardy, but it will be overwintering indoors with me.
4. Dichorisandra thyrsiflora  – otherwise known as blue ginger because of its growth habit and foliage, this beautiful plant is in fact a spiderwort (tradescantia family). I have been lusting after this since I first saw it at the Eden Project in Cornwall.
5. Begonia ‘Burle Marx’ – a new introduction which promises to grow to quite a substantial height before producing clouds of white flowers. I figure any plant worth of the name ‘Burle Marx’ must be worth growing.
6. Globba winitii – I drooled over globbas when I visited Burma seven years ago. Commonly known as dancing girl gingers, they are the prettiest and most delicate of all the gingers. G. winitii has pink bracts and yellow flowers which tremble in the slightest breeze. Whether I can keep them alive or not is yet to be seen!
7. Globba shomburgkii – as above, but all yellow.
8. Dahlia imperialis ‘Alba Plena’ – The Beau could not resist this giant of a dahlia. We already have imperialis, which is unlikely to flower this year, but he loves a species dahlia and so there was no question that this had to be added to his collection.

I may be a composting virgin, but now that I have an allotment I am getting serious about the dark art of decay.

Since the New Year I’ve been swotting up and assimilating all manner of advice about building, filling and maintaining a successful heap. Composting, like brewing and train spotting, attracts a certain degree of ardent geekiness. Whether ‘aerobic’ or ‘anaerobic’ it’s not a subject to be trifled with: you’re either deeply into composting, or not bothered about it in the slightest, there’s no middle ground. Two months into my allotmenteering career I can sense myself morphing from a bin-it bystander into a composting commando faster than you can say ‘microorganism’.

Within a week our first wooden bin was already full to the brim with weeds, vegetable peelings, fallen leaves, prunings and shredded cardboard, layered carefully so that the mix was neither too sludgy nor too dry. I suspect I may not have got it right first time, but in three or four months I will know if I’ve triumphed or embarrassed myself. Either way, this is likely to be the start of a new obsession.

Living by the coast it is hard to escape seaweed. Its slippery fingers poke at our feet when we walk the dogs along the shore, flail limp around our ankles when we paddle and waft salty notes up our nostrils. Seaweed appears on menus in the town’s finer establishments (Wyatt and Jones serve the best miniature sourdough loaves with seaweed-infused butter) and we overhear visitors complaining when it blocks their path to the waves. On summer evenings heaps of decaying seaweed crackle and pop as tiny springtails perform Cirque du Soleil in miniature.

Since starting my composting adventure I have wondered whether I am permitted to collect seaweed and if it would make decent compost. Turns out I can and it does.

Farmers on the Isle of Thanet where I live harvested seaweed from the shore and spread it on their fields for hundreds of years. That much I already knew. Indeed most of the access routes to our beautiful beaches, known as ‘gaps’, have been cut through the chalk for this purpose alone. The marks made by cart wheels can still be picked out in some locations, for example at Botany Bay (see above).

“The sea furnished an inexhaustible supply of manure, which was brought up by the tides to all the borders of the upland, quite round the island, and most probably was liberally and judiciously applied by the monks and their tenants; and their successors to the present time have not neglected to profit by their example. Owing to these circumstances, Thanet always was, and most likely always will be famous for its fertility”

Edward Hasted ‘The island of Thanet: Introduction’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 10 (Canterbury, 1800)

Two hundred years later the fields of Thanet remain hugely productive – those that have not been built over – but the vitality of seaweed wasn’t exclusively harnessed here in East Kent. Known locally as vraic (pronounced ‘vrak’), seaweed in the Channel Islands was ploughed into the earth before planting potatoes in late winter and early spring. (Some farmers credit seaweed with encouraging the development of thin-skinned spuds, whilst others claim it enhances their flavour – why not try for yourself?) Further back in history, seaweed was dried then burned before the ashes were spread on the land. In Scotland ‘lazy beds’ created on otherwise unpromising, rocky ground were enriched by lifting up sods of peat and nesting seed potatoes on desalinated seaweed underneath. Ingenious and effective. Again, potatoes were grown in this manner until the arrival of potato blight. From the Falkland to the Faroe island, seaweed has been used for generations as a mulch, soil improver and fertiliser.

Not only is seaweed free and plentiful, but also incredibly high in potash and nitrogen, making it of high value to gardeners. A recent report in the International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology points to other plant benefits including stimulation of seed germination, enhancement of plant health and growth, improved water and nutrient uptake, enhanced frost, saline and disease resistance and remediation of pollutants in the soil.

As seaweed breaks down in the soil, it promotes microorganisms that unlock unavailable nutrients for plants to use. Seaweed also increases chlorophyll production and contains a wealth of micronutrients important for soil and plant health. Cytokinins, plant growth hormones that work above and below ground, improve root and shoot growth. In general, seaweeds contain ten times the mineral levels of land-based plants and are rich in iodine and calcium. Farmers of yore may not have appreciated the scientific detail, but they knew they had unique access to a precious resource.

Perversely, given all the benefits, modern farmers don’t tend to use seaweed on their fields any more. Some suggest that this is because supermarkets don’t list it as an acceptable fertiliser for their producers to use, but I suspect it’s also because it’s bulky, in erratic supply and neither as ‘controllable’ nor as consistently formulated as more expensive artificial fertilisers. Whatever the case most of the seaweed that’s washed up on Thanet’s beaches these days is either left or gathered up and disposed of by the local council before, and sometimes after, it has started to rot. Unlike terrestrial plants, marine seaweeds start their growth cycle in winter and die in summer, which is why summer storms tend to wash vast quantities onto beaches just as the tourists want to spread their towels on the beach.

According to the Crown Estate, which manages around half of the foreshore (the land between mean high water and mean low water) around the coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, seaweed collection is permitted provided it’s in small quantities for personal use. The same rules apply in Scotland. In designated conservation areas harvesting of seaweed is not allowed and if collection is for commercial gain then a license must be obtained . The Crown Estate stress that would-be collectors should consider the sensitivity of collecting anything from the wild, even if it’s not alive. However, provided you follow a few common sense rules and act responsibly you are more likely to benefit the environment by using seaweed rather than harsh chemical fertilisers.

We did our first shoreline foraging walk tonight and came home with two large carrier bags brimming with assorted seaweeds. Tomorrow our haul will be interred beneath the early potatoes we’ve been chitting upstairs, hopefully giving them a great start in life. Any excess will be added to the top of our compost heap. Here’s my advice if you fancy following our lead:

10 Top Tips for Collecting and Using Seaweed in Compost

1. Do your homework – Check the appropriate local authority’s website before collecting seaweed that’s become detached on any beach – this is also referred to as ‘drift’ or ‘cast’ seaweed. If the beach is private, you will need to ask the landowner’s permission. If the beach is part of the Crown Estate and otherwise unprotected, you do not require further permission
2. Everything in moderation – Take only what you need and a small proportion of what’s been washed up. You’ll tend to find more dead seaweed is washed up on beaches following a storm or rough weather. Avoid old and dehydrated seaweed as salt concentrations may be high. Different seaweed species have different nutrient contents so try to harvest more than one type if you can.
3. Dead not alive – never collect living seaweed – that is seaweed that’s still attached to rocks or the seabed. If you move any rocks in the process, they must be replaced the same way up so as not to damage any attached creatures.
4. Mind your step – avoid trampling on living seaweed or disturbing any other wildlife in the process, especially birds and seals that might be sensitive to humans. Importantly, never put yourself at risk of rising tides or slippery rocks. No amount of seaweed is worth cracking your head open or drowning for! Never drive a vehicle onto a beach unless you have permission from the landowner.
5. Keep it clean – collect your seaweed early in the morning or as the tide is going out to reduce the chances that it may have been tainted with dog mess. Remove any non-compostable flotsam and jetsam before adding to your heap. A mesh bag or sack will allow any residual water and sand to drain out; not that either are an issue for the garden, but they will make your load heavy!
6. No Prewash – there is no benefit to washing salt or sand from seaweed unless you live somewhere extremely dry or plan to apply vast quantities in one go. Farmers have been using seaweed on the same land for centuries without causing a harmful build up of salt. However, avoid collecting seaweed from polluted beaches or close to sewage outlets. If salts bother you, then hose your seaweed down on the drive or a patio before adding to your garden or compost heap.
7. Chop Chop! – cut seaweed up with a sharp spade before composting to speed decomposition. Layer it with drier materials to prevent it from becoming a sludgy, stinky mess as it starts to break down.
8. Dig in – if you don’t have a compost heap, you can still dig seaweed into the ground, use it to line trenches or apply it as a mulch. Slugs and snails do not like dry, crisp surfaces or salt, so used as a mulch seaweed can deter these perennial pests.
9. Lighten up – avoid adding seaweed directly to heavy soils. Seaweeds have little or no cellulose and are rich in water-soluble gels. If worked into heavy soils they may form an impermeable layer and cause waterlogging. On heavy soils like clay it’s better to compost your seaweed first.
10. Wet and dry – If you don’t have ready access to fresh seaweed you can water your compost heap with liquid seaweed or apply it directly to your garden or allotment. Alternatively, a dried seaweed product such as Quickcrop’s Seafeed, improves soil structure at the same time as increasing yields. It’s completely organic too.

There might seem to be a lot of caveats around using seaweed in the garden or on your allotment, but ultimately collecting your own for composting is a sustainable activity and perfectly permissible in most circumstances. Not only will you be returning natural goodness to the earth and helping your plants to thrive, but you’ll be saving yourself a bob or two in the process. TFG.

Sources of Further Advice and Information

• The Crown Estate / Crown Estate Scotland
• The Royal Horticultural Society
• If you’ve enjoyed this post you may also appreciate these informative articles from the Quickcrop blog and Eartheasy.

Photographs by John McKenna, aka The Beau.