This week has been an important one. The digger men are here, carving out the new garden and shaping the land around the house. A great divide of mud has marooned us. Venture out in any direction and you are met by instability.
There is nothing like the crunch of a decision having to be made to focus the attention on what you really need to keep. I have been taking out roses in full bloom to make way for new paths. After holding on for as long as I could, it was strangely liberating. A running rudbeckia and the bolting boltonia are now on the compost heap. I’ve been curtailing their spread since they came here, despite knowing that they were trouble. The inulas that were grown from seed are sitting in a heavy un-liftable knot that was levered by the digger and covered with damp hessian ready to be divided and potted up this weekend. Their removal has tuned my mind to decide where I eventually want them.
In planning for this moment I planted a sanctuary bed that runs at the front of the house, locked in by the path. Most of the plants here were grown from seed. You care more for seed-raised plants somehow and their volunteer seedlings have shown that they like it in this spot. Today’s posy illustrates something of the transparency in the planting. I want to see through it, for it to be light and for it to shift against the weight of the walls of the house. Yellows and greens and browns are the backbone of the planting. Of the half dozen in the bunch, the greater number are umbellifers. They make wonderful companions in associations that are naturalistically driven and bring the same feeling into a bunch.
Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’
I have grown bronze fennel forever, liking the way it is from the moment its new growth pushes through to the point at which I have to cut away last year’s skeletons to make way for it. It loves our ground here, the sunshine and the free draining soil, so I only leave the plants standing over winter where I know the smoky haze of new seedlings can be managed. Now they are just showing flower, which has pushed free from the net of dark foliage. Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’ looks good with almost anything and I love the horizontality of the gold umbels when they mass more strongly later in the month.
Bupleurum falcatum
Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’
The acid-yellow umbel in the mix is the biennial Bupleurum falcatum. I threw fresh seed into the rubble around the barns and potted some up to plant them where I wanted them. They have just started to flower and will continue to form a bright cage of flower, so small and filamentous that it creates a haze of vibrancy. Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’ is it’s perennial cousin. I shall write more on this later as it is an old favourite that deserves more time.
Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum
Thalictrum flavum ssp. glaucum rises up and above most of its companions on wire thin stems which catch our breezes, but there is no need for staking until they hang heavier with seed. I cut them to the base to avoid the seedlings at this point as the clumps are long-lived and you need just a handful to make an impression. The fluffy flowers are a pure sulphur-yellow and the leaves are the blue green of cabbages but fine, like lace.
Lonicera periclymenum ‘Graham Thomas’
This is a good selection of the wild honeysuckle called ‘Graham Thomas’. I first saw it growing on his house when we were taken to meet him as Wisley students. I had no idea then how influential a plantsman he was, nor how much I would have enjoyed his namesake all these years later. I much prefer it to the brickier, shorter-flowering varieties such as ‘Belgica’ and ‘Serotina’. It also flowers far longer than its native parent and, after its first July flush, continues off and on into September.
Hordeum bulbosum
The bulbous barley, Hordeum bulbosum, was collected on a trip to Greece a few years ago. It has proven to be completely perennial, retreating to a basal cluster of storage organs after flowering. I cut it before it seeds to limit its spread, as it germinates freely. In Greece the storage organs (which give it its species name) would keep it alive during a summer without rain to reactivate growth in the autumn. Here, without a water shortage to speak of, it is happy to return with a second flush in September. The flowers are early, rising in April, to trace every breath of wind outside the windows.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
The third week in June, around the solstice, is when the roses are at their best – first flowers opened and buds yet to come. The week usually coincides with weather and this bunch was picked just before a black sky gave way to thunder, lightning and downpour.
The roses are part of my trial of getting to know good garden plants. There was never room to indulge their showiness in the Peckham garden and, when we arrived here, they were one of the first things that were planted. I felt I could get away with them if they were treated as part of a productive garden. They push against the flow of what we want to do here and couldn’t be more out of place with the landscape backdrop. But a bunch brought in for the house is an opulent indulgence.
They are now in their sixth summer and I am beginning to see which are the good ones and which are the weaklings. There are twenty four varieties in total, all David Austin selections and each was chosen for their perfume, colour, flower shape and general mood. Here are a bunch of a half dozen.
The Alexandra Rose
I like to have singles in the mix as they bring a little of the wild as a contrast to the doubles. The Alexandra Rose is one of my favourites, making a relaxed bush and open sprays of flower that fade as they age.
Jubilee Celebration
Jubilee Celebration is perhaps the weakest plant, but not unhealthy, and it has a strong true rose scent. The colour is a very distinctive old rose which ages to apricot. It is also a wonderful shape with backward curled petals.
From the top; Pat Austin, Lady of Shallott & The Lark Ascending
Pat Austin is a rangy grower, but healthy and consistent. The flowers are a golden peach, slightly pendulous on the bush and smell of Earl Grey tea.
Lady of Shallott
Lady of Shallot’s bowl-shaped blooms are shot pink over apricot. The colour is duller than Pat Austin but no less lovely.
Teasing Georgia
Teasing Georgia is the most yellow of this bunch. It is a really good rose with plenty of vigour, which can be put to a wall and trained as a climber. The flowers are the most quartered of this selection and open flat.
The Lark Ascending
The Lark Ascending is not such a good picker as it drops quickly, but I love it’s loose pale peach flowers which seem to tumble from the bush. It has fewer petals and it is a pretty grower, never stiff and therefore a good candidate for a mixed planting in a border. Not that this will be the case here. The cutting garden is the cutting garden where I can break my own rules and simply enjoy the flowers.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
When my friend Anna gave me a seedling of ‘Bill Wallis’ a few years ago she said, “You may hate me for giving you that !”. I had admired it seeding about in the gravel that wrapped her house and thought it’s willingness to perform would be good in the rubbly ground at the base of the tin barns. In the early summer, we see Geranium pyrenaicum (Hedgerow or Mountain Cranesbill) clambering up into the cow parsley where it smatters the fresh June greenery with pinpricks of the brightest magenta.
Geranium pyrenaicum
Now so common in southern England that it is considered a native, this geranium was not recorded in the wild in Britain until 1762. As the verges grow out we seem to lose sight of it, but not ‘Bill Wallis’.
Bill Wallis was a passionate plantsman who set up The Useful Plant Company after his retirement in 1979. He chanced upon the original seedling (with flowers of a more electric violet than the wildling’s pinker hue) in a neighbour’s garden, and it was named after him by Joe Sharman of Monksilver Nursery, who propagated the cultivar and launched it at the Chelsea Flower Show.
The earliest flowers, which appear in April, are only about the size of a halfpenny but, by the solstice, they have massed in number clambering through their neighbours to pepper them with colour. A low basal rosette is the origin of this energy and, some time late in June, it is wise to cut them to the base and let them start again. The plentiful seed, like that of all cranesbills, is catapulted far and wide, and it is prudent to diminish the number of volunteers if you find that it likes you. Regrowth brings with it fresh foliage and new flower for the latter half of summer and the seedlings that have got a foothold are easily weeded out when they are young.
Geranium p. ‘Bill Wallis’ and Tanacetum niveum
‘Bill Wallis’ seems happy out in bright sunshine, but you get a little more out of it, and the colour is more luminous, when grown in a little shade, as if on a verge or popping out from beneath a hedge. It is not averse to dry ground, so for now I have it growing up into the limbs of white tree lupin and Tanacetum niveum, where it spills out to soften the edges of the path. Competing for the open ground with Papaver rupifragum, Erigeron karvinskianus and Matthiola perennis ‘Alba’ these self-seeding pioneers provide me with chance combinations that I can then call my own. We will see where it ends up next year.
I may find that, in time, I will concur with Anna’s warning, but for now I am prepared to manage its spontaneity. Such is the joy of a plant that has a mind of its own.
Geranium p. ‘Bill Wallis’ growing through white tree lupin
Words: Dan Pearson/Photographs: Huw Morgan
Clockwise from bottom left: Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Meconopsis cambrica, Tragopogon crocifolius, Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’, Amsonia orientalis, Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’, Ranunculus acris & Valeriana pyrenaica
The Chelsea Flower show usually falls in a week that is suspended between spring and summer. That is one of the things that gives the show its charge, the freshness and feeling of anticipation. I was not involved this year other than as a spectator and it was a delight to return home after a busy week of looking to find that we are still in this teetering point and haven’t missed the moment.
Marking it with today’s posy brings the meadows and the garden together. Ranunculus acris, the meadow buttercup, is at it’s zenith. It is one of my favourite components in the grassland, rising up tall above it’s neighbours this early in the season. Where we have over-seeded the old pastures with meadow seed from the neighbouring valley, the buttercup is now in evidence three years on. I like the way it is so light on its feet and that there is so much air amongst the bright pinpricks of yellow.
I have brought it up close on the vegetable garden banks and used it to bring together the clumping Valeriana pyrenaica, which I am trying to naturalise in the grass. This European species has been grown in Britain since at least 1692, and was first recorded in the wild in 1782 as a supposed native, and it could easily be part of our landscape. It has been in flower for a month now and though you wouldn’t think that the brightness of the buttercup would sit well with the lilac pink of the valerian, such colour clashes are commonplace in wild plant communities.
I also have it growing alongside the Symphytum x uplandicum ‘Moorland Heather’ close to the compost heaps. This is a chance seedling of our native comfrey found at Moorland Cottage Plants in South Wales. I first saw it at the Chelsea show and was taken by its darker violet flowers which are alive with bees. It is not allowed to seed as it is a coloniser and the roots grow deep, pulling minerals up into the foliage which, when harvested, make a fine green manure or compost tea. Before the plants set seed, all the growth is cut to the ground and used as a mulch or green manure to turn into the soil. To make an evil smelling brew of compost tea, fill a large plastic bucket to the top with it, trample down and fill with water. Allow it to ferment and then skim off the pungent liquid feed rich in nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium.
I have Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ growing in the grass under the crab apples. They are at their best this week as the crabs are fading, racing up their stems like sparklers almost as fast as you can enjoy them. I like the creaminess of the flowers and this single form the best. I have made the mistake of planting it in open ground amongst perennials and had a million and one seedlings to contend with. The double form is sterile and better in the beds, but I’m hoping that the singles will seed into the grass where it runs thin with yellow rattle.
I might try Centaurea montana ‘Lady Flora Hastings’, Amsonia orientalis and Tragopogon crocifolius together as they are currently disparate in the garden. This is the first time I have thought of doing so and the advantage of throwing things together in a bunch. Amsonia has a short moment of flower, but great longevity of life as a plant and the tragopogon is a delightful self-seeding biennial that adds flux to the mix. ‘Lady Flora Hastings’ is perhaps one of the best centaureas, flowering for weeks and then again if you cut it to the base when it starts to look tired. Like the comfrey its roots run deep and come easily as cuttings. Move the parent plant and it will reappear with the certainty of a perennial that will probably outlive you if you find it a place in sunshine that suits.
The Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica, is at is peak in these first few weeks of the growing season. My plants were strewn as seed on bare earth a couple of years ago and are naturalising happily. They are best when emerging as an incidental in places where other plants might think twice about flourishing. Cracks between paving see them at their happiest and they are unflinching in dry shade. They also thrive in full sun, but I prefer their pure, clean yellow when it sparkles in shadow.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Above from left to right; Lamium orvala, Matthiola incana alba, Dicentra ‘Stuart Boothman’, Lunaria annua ‘Corfu Blue’, Erysimum scoparia, Valeriana pyrenaica & Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’
Although it is still early in the season there are enough flowers in the garden now to start making hand-picked posies for the house. This is a great way to identify new combinations for the garden as you can easily try together several flowers that may be growing in quite different locations.
The lamium, an exotic deadnettle with moody, brownish-pink flowers, came with us from Peckham and has started to self-seed in the shade of the willow trial. The original clump is now a couple of feet across when in full flower, and hums with bees.
The matthiola, a perennial stock which is highly scented of cloves, is seeding around freely in the most inhospitable rubble at the base of the barns. I have seen matthiola growing in similar conditions in Greece, so it is good to find it a home where the going is tough and it is perfectly happy.
The Valeriana pyrenaica, which came highly recommended from Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter, is early to come into leaf and looks like it might be a little too happy here, as it’s seeded about in just a couple of years. However, this needn’t be a problem if it is found the right place, and I have planted a few in grass to see if it can cope with the competition.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
Before we arrived here the land had been grazed up tight to the hedges and to the farmyard, which held the cattle back from the house. That autumn, in a tiny strip of garden sandwiched between the front of the house and the concrete path to the door, blazed a clump of bright pink nerine and, the following spring, a slash of blue muscari marked what we later found to be the dog cemetery. Above the milking barn to the east a vegetable plot measuring four paces wide and double that down the slope was still in evidence. Raymond’s brother, Norman, had kept it cleared with a wonky-wheeled rotavator that coughed and spluttered black smoke and sported an arm held in place with baler twine. He tried to sell it to me with the advice that, to turn it off, it needed a thump with a broken-handled lump hammer. Needless to say I didn’t take him up on the offer.
Raymond’s vegetable garden when we first arrived
When you arrive somewhere new, it is important to take the time to look. So the three loads of plants that I brought from the garden in Peckham were shoe-horned into my ration of cultivated ground. The ground, only tickled over by the rotavator, revealed a hard pan a couple of inches down and soil that had clearly not been improved for some time. But I was grateful, as it was free of weeds and provided me with the time to think.
“When you arrive somewhere new, it is important to take the time to look.”
Although it was clearly going to take time to decide how to make a garden here, I made a move in the first winter so as not to miss the planting season. It felt important to repair and reclaim boundaries so, over the Christmas holidays, we replanted a broken hedge on the west boundary, that was missing more teeth than it retained and removed the rickety barbed wire fences that stopped our eyes from seeing the stream below us sparkling in the low winter sunshine.
I walked the land daily, looking for the best location to plant a new orchard and took the lead from a dead stump in the field beyond the barns where our neighbour Glad said there had once been plums. We planted over thirty fruit trees here – apples, pears and plums – a hazel coppice at the base of the slope below them and, in the top corner of the field above, a blossom wood of natives to provide cover, shelter and food for birds. I also started the process of introducing more oaks, both as hedge trees and gate markers. The land felt in need of a new generation of trees and these were good moves to make straight away. After five years here we already have trees we can stand under, a complete and continuous hedge and the beginnings of a fruit and nut harvest.
Laying out the expanded garden in 2011
The following spring I expanded the little vegetable plot, with a local farmer helping to turn in part of the field and partition the ground with a stock proof fence. I will write more on the balance between farming and gardening another time as it is a huge subject but, suffice to say, in our time here we have learned a great deal about sheep, their appetites and the importance of fences and tree-guards.
“The plot has reminded me of working on the trial beds when I was at Wisley…”
I sub-divided the plot with dirt paths into a series of beds that could be reached easily from either side with a hoe. It was a practical decision that freed me up to grow things in rows where they could be observed and easily tended. It was an easy way not to have to worry about aesthetics at this point, and to focus on identifying the best plants for the site. We were also growing vegetables and soft fruit on this same piece of ground, and so I enjoyed the discipline of the orderly rows, the unconscious reference they made to the former market gardens, and the liberation from the expectation that a garden must be a designed composition. The plot has reminded me of working on the trial beds when I was at Wisley and I have been free to observe and experiment in this laboratory.
In the first year the balance of plants favoured vegetables
Compared with Raymond’s old vegetable patch digging over the new ground was like turning cake mix. Where it has been converted from pasture, the soil is deep, dark and hearty and, that first summer, I understood why there had been market gardens here. Tilted at the perfect angle to receive the south facing light and exposed to it for as long as the sun shone, my garden grew like I’d never seen anything grow before. Sunflowers threw themselves at life, towering to over ten feet by the end of the summer. I grew fifty-six dahlias, because there was the space to absorb their flamboyance, and a collection of two-dozen David Austin roses, each lined out neatly, and easy to tend. I was able to devote a whole bed to peonies, one to lavenders and another to irises. All with the intention of watching and waiting to see which were most gardenworthy.
Some of the 56 varieties in the dahlia trial
That first spring I sowed three separate panels of Nigel Dunnett’s Pictorial Meadows annual mixes. I had grown them in clients’ gardens, but had never had the space to experience growing them at close quarters for myself. It was like starting all over again. One world inside the fence, revealing itself through growing, another beyond revealed through a slow and informed process of looking and steering.
Black opium poppies and a Pictorial Meadows mix in year one
We quickly learned that gardening on a slope was hard work. Every move has to be negotiated with the incline, the push and the pull of manual labour considered very carefully. Knowing how much to fill the barrow and how to place it on the slope to avoid losing a load, which way to dig and which direction to hoe, how to place yourself to make weeding less strenuous, all were a whole new way of gardening for me, having always gardened on the flat. It is a windy site too. My daylilies from the sheltered garden in Peckham grew to half their height in the exposure of this sunlit hillside. The hellebores flagged without shelter, but everything that liked it stood solid and healthy as an athlete.
The functional arrangement of plants has produced some unexpected and exciting combinations
The garden grew, but at a price. Gradually, from nurseries, specialists, friends and plant fairs, I accumulated a collection of special martagon lilies, an assortment of asters, salvias and sanguisorbas and countless other treasures. So, rather predictably, my growing collection of herbaceous, flowering plants rapidly started to crowd out the vegetables, and I soon found myself planning a new vegetable garden with level ground and ease of access. We made a start in the third summer, forming a flat terrace to the west, extending the ridge that the buildings sit upon.
“I knew early on that I didn’t want to be able to see an ornamental garden from the house…”
In doing so, the spine of garden activity was taken out from the house, linking the practicality of vegetable and fruit growing to the barns and the newly planted orchard beyond. I knew early on that I didn’t want to be able to see an ornamental garden from the house, that looking into the complexity of a planting was something I wanted to choose to do, rather than have it demand my attention. So, with the vegetable garden positioned to the west, I am now planning to sweep the landscape up to the front door from the south and develop the gardened garden in a complementary span to the east.
The aster trial
As I write, at the end of our fifth winter here, I am surrounded by the aftermath of building works, which have seen us modernise the house and convert the milking barn into a studio where we can work. From here we look onto the ground that was once Raymond’s vegetable patch and, now that the battleground of construction has settled, and with five years of looking behind me, I am ready to make my move. The winter has seen me rationalising the stock beds of plants and we have just turned in a green manure crop of winter rye, so that soon, when the weather is dry enough to get on the land again, I will be able to start forming the garden. The survivors from those carloads of plants that arrived here from Peckham five years ago are finally ready to be found a home.
Dan and Ian turning in the winter rye
Words: Dan Pearson/Photographs: Huw Morgan
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