Old Swan House Garden in August 2020

 

The summerhouse is the focal point of the garden and at the same time provides one of the best viewpoints. It is also the main spot for tea or an early drink. It took some time to acquire its present colour. For some years it was painted the usual blue/grey, but I grew tired of that 'safe' shade and taking my inspiration from a friend's garden in which he had installed a Chinese bridge, I decided to follow the ancient rule that a garden should always contain a building in red. Getting the right colour was tricky as I wanted the shade used in Japanese temples such as Fushimi Inari, and of course, I wasn't able to find it as it's a closely held secret, but this was the closest I could have mixed. This winter I will have it varnished in marine varnish, both to preserve it - as the colour is now 'settled' - and to bring out a richer and a slightly more orange hue closer the Inari temple red.

The main lawn has come back well after all the rain, and everything's looking lush. The vine has arched over the path to envelop the quince. The Raphael seat though has stubbornly resisted all attempts to get it to age quickly, despite being covered at various times with seaweed manure, pond silt and yoghurt. I'll just have to wait for nature to take its course! 

This bed - the lower drive border - suffered worst during the exceedingly wet winter and took a long time to recover. I had dug out the old euphorbia wulfenii in the autumn and replanted some new ones but they were still small and I had hoped to rely on large plants like the archangelica to provide interest - but it was killed off and its replacement got caught up in the chaos of the closure of the garden centres and the scramble in the nurseries to catch up when they reopened. So the new plant didn't arrive until June and is even now only about the height of the rest when it should be towering above. Fortunately, though, the trusty nepetas and alchemillas, along with, sedum, stachys, rosemary and some euphorbia martini, saved the day. And Penny Burnfield has just given me a lovely plant - Succisella inflexa 'Frosted Pearls' that complements the verbena and the self-seeded dill.

 The box walk after rain - with the armillary sphere presiding. Hydrangea seemanii is doing well on the wall in the corner and the newly planted erigeron is doing predictably well.  

The two sedums in the grass garden are both strong reds and stand out against the pale gravel. Plants that are absolutely no trouble and always look good are a joy!

Another view of the lower drive border showing the mass of verbena (though I would love more) against the rosemary with stachys and sedum at its base

Hydrangea 'Annabelle' has been grown in a pot for several years because it hides and old tree-stump at the back of the wild-flower garden. It's the only version in this garden, though it provides many gardens with a huge display.

Perfectly trimmed box (by the sainted Bruce Williams) in the grass garden backed by one of the dark red sedums, calamagrostis 'Karl Forester' and perovskia 'Blue Spire' 

Allium spherocephalum seedheads in the grass garden 

A moody sky frames my neighbours' catalpa and the magnificent Scots pine. Invisible in the darkness is the spire of St Peter's. 

The first flush of hazelnuts brings out the squirrels who bury those they don't immediately eat and in the lawn

My early morning view down the garden with a cup of coffee from the window in the scullery while checking what's changed in the night. 

Another view of the box, sedum and perovskia, overseen by 'Karl Forester' but also showing the relationship with the rose-covered west wall. 

'Annabelle' gets another look in in this photo of the wildflower garden, with the base of rose 'Wedding Day' (which already reaches the top of my neighbours' yew tree) and a newly planted euphorbia stygiana that will one day dominate. The whole area (except of course the euphorbia and the begonia) will be cleared in September, and partially regrow, before dying down in the winter. 

One of my favourite views taken from the summerhouse at tea-time, though the lavender to the alchemilla, the pheasant grass and the mass of eryngiums and echinops below rose 'Compassion' on the West wall

One of the box balls leads the eye through the brick piers towards the deckchairs where tea is taken on hot days, as the hazel casts a lovely cool shade. The pelargonium is 'Pink Capricorn' originally introduced by Gillian Pugh 

The box from another angle, with the pheasant grass (anemanthele lessonia) 

and a potted euphorbia 'Arctic Blue'. 

The is what the garden is all about. Places to sit and eat, or drink, or just read a book while cocooned by tall hedges to keep out the wind, and given a panorama of plants to look at. Here the table is backed by perovskia and miscanthus 'Prof Richard Hansen', the tallest of he grasses.   

The view from the Lutyens bench on 'Venky's Terrace', though the orchard towards the summerhouse and the grass garden. The closest tree is an apple - 'James Grieve' - that has a trachelospermum jasmine trained up it. The plum tree on the right has rose 'Felicite et Perpetue' trained onto it. 

I have a love/hate relationship with this echinops, here at its best showing its gorgeous mauve/purple globes, but otherwise too much of a 'thug', pushing everything else out of the lower wall border. 

Earlier in August the allium spherocephalum was still at its dark red best against the grasses, delicate beside the powerful urnin pressed brick. 

Another favourite view - looking towards the wildflower garden with the lower wall border flanking the path with teucrium and echinops competing with the eryngiums. Teazle and wild carrot stand guard at the gate into the wildflowers.In the grass garden, perovskia hasn't yet achieved full wattage and the alchemlla is still fresh.

There are now mnay shades of echinacea - and I have forgotten which this one is....

The black bamboo is doing well against the west wall, and has a tower of reclaimed bricks for company. 

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The 'other' red sedum in the grass garden, not as vibrant as the other but softer against the perovskia 'Lacy Blue'

There are teo kinds of perovskia in the grass garden and this one, 'Blue Spire' is perhaps oo big (and has been somewhat flattened by heavy rain). But it makes up for its size by its incredibly strong colour.  

Another classic view - this one from my 'reading chair' in the shade of the orchard. The grass garden pays homage to the great Scots pine in the background. 

This is not a fake! The perovskias really are as bright as this, and now compete with the helenium 'Moreheim Beauty' and the echinacea

A complete contrast with all the colour at the other end of the garden; a calm green oasis of lawn and clipped box. 

Verbena, angelica, dill and stachys backed by rosemary in the lower wall border

The view under the hazel through the brick piers towards the house. The Portuguese laurel looks like a huge variegated box ball

Another view of the grass garden looking west to the Scots pine. 

Euphorbia 'Arctic Blue' in an urn in the grass garden

The teazel and wild carrot self-seeded and making sure no one gets in our out of the wildflower garden.

The wild carrot ages beautifully

The orchard now has some decent specimens. Greengage in the foreground and Mirabelle on the left.  

The wildflower garden is fenced with out-of-scale estate fencing that is rusting beautifully. The urn contains sage.

This wide-angle view is dominated by the self-seeded wild carrot and the somewhat wild sky.

A favourite view enhanced enormously by the 'borrowed landscape'. 

On Society in an Age of Populism - Edmund Burke

How did Burke get it right about the ultimate course of events in France — and, by extension, so many subsequent revolutions that aimed to establish morally enlightened societies and wound up producing despotism and terror? The question is worth pondering in light of two main ideological currents of today: the tear-it-all-down populism that has swept so much of the right in the past five years and the tear-it-all-down progressivism that threatens to sweep the left.

At the core of Burke’s view of the revolution is a profound understanding of how easily things can be shattered in the name of moral betterment, national purification and radical political transformation. States, societies and personal consciences are not Lego-block constructions to be disassembled and reassembled with ease. They are more like tapestries, passed from one generation to the next, to be carefully mended at one edge, gracefully enlarged on the other and otherwise handled with caution lest a single pulled thread unravel the entire pattern. “The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity,” Burke wrote. “And therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man’s nature, or to the quality of his affairs.

Burke’s objection to the French revolutionaries is that they paid so little attention to this complexity: They were men of theory, not experience. Men of experience tend to be cautious about gambling what they have painstakingly gained. Men of theory tend to be reckless with what they’ve inherited but never earned. “They have wrought underground a mine that will blow up, at one grand explosion, all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have ‘the rights of men.’ Against these there can be no prescriptions.”

“The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us …. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”

Burke’s understanding of the centrality of manners to norms, of norms to morals, of morals to culture and of culture to the health of the political order means that he would have been unimpressed by claims that Trump had scored policy “wins,” like appointing conservative judges or cutting the corporate tax rate. Those would have been baubles floating in befouled waters.

Trump’s real legacy, in Burke’s eyes, would be his relentless debasement of political culture: of personal propriety; of respect for institutions; of care for tradition; of trust between citizens and civil authority; of a society that believes — and has reason to believe — in its own essential decency. “To make us love our country,” he wrote, “ our country ought to be lovely.”

Then again, Burke would have been no less withering in his views of the far left. “You began ill,” he said of the French revolutionaries, “because you began by despising everything that belonged to you.”

For Burke, the materials of successful social change had to be found in what the country already provided — historically, culturally, institutionally — not in what it lacked. Britain became the most liberal society of its day, Burke argued, because it held fast to what he called “our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties,” handed down “as an inheritance from our forefathers.” Inheritance, he added, “furnishes a sure principle of transmission; without at all excluding a principle of improvement.”

Bret Stephen - New York Times August 2020

Stockbridge in the Age of the Coronavirus - July 2020

The story began far away on 4th January 2020 when the WHO tweeted that there was a cluster of pneumonia-like cases of unknown cause in Wuhan. On 9th January the Chinese Authorities determined that the outbreak was caused by a novel coronavirus, named later by the WHO as Covid-19. On 21st January WHO tweeted that there was evidence of human-to-human transmission and the first two cases in the UK were publicised on 31st January. By 9th March, there had been 100.000 confirmed cases globally and the WHO categorised the virus as a pandemic.

In the UK, our inaction has been well documented, but on 23rd March the government, at last, ordered us all to 'stay at home'. The Lockdown, as it became known, lasted until 13 May when some easing was allowed and further on 14th June, when all non-essential shops were allowed to reopen. On 4th July, pubs and restaurants could again welcome customers, though under strict conditions. The Lockdown, therefore, lasted 51 days or almost two months.

The town responded to the Lockdown magnificently. A plan called 'Help for Stockbridge', written by Roger Tym and David Roberts, divided Stockbridge up into 12 sections while Chantal Halle recruited volunteers who were then assigned to each section*, Particularly vulnerable people were identified and leaflets distributed offering help, with a named 'buddy's' email and telephone number and list of what could be given. Listed services provided were shopping, prescription pick-up and drop off, posting letters and friendly chats to help with people feeling too isolated and alone. Counselling services from Ali Deveral were also offered for those who were struggling with Lockdown, together with medical assistance in case of emergencies from Emma Montgomery, a nurse.

Chantal Halle

As the group developed, they were offered the use of the kitchens at Stockbridge Primary School by Emma Jefferies, the head, and free lunches were cooked by the school chef, Shawn, and delivered to vulnerable residents as requested until the children started to return at the beginning of June.  

Emma Jefferies and Shaun

Thereafter, some of the traders stepped in and Prego, Thyme & Tides and Robinson's donated lunches at a very low price (£2.50 per lunch for Thyme & Tides and Prego and cost price from Robinson's for their fresh-frozen meals). Vishnu at the Co-Op also offered free baked goods when he had deliveries available. Chantal Halle prepared Robinson's meals with some vegetables and the buddies picked them up and distributed them.  On Mondays and Fridays, various volunteers cooked, and again the buddies picked up from their houses and distributed them.  There was no charge for the lunches, but donations were welcomed and given. Thanks are also due to Cllr. Andrew Gibson of HCC and  Imogen Colley and David Gleave of TVBC for grants.

And some of us were lucky enough to be on Liz Cox's list for her delicious lemon drizzle cakes that she would normally have sold in the Community Market (which has fortunately now re-opened).

Iain hemmings and Ollie at Thyme & Tides

Mandy at Prego

John Robinson's 

Vishnu at the Co-Op

There have been no deaths in Stockbridge from the virus, although some have fallen ill and and strictly isolated themselves, before recovering.

Stockbridge was strangely quiet throughout Lockdown, and even now has not recovered to its usual busy state. The government guidelines have become beset by mixed messages so that people aren't really sure what they can and can't do, but the wearing masks has become mandatory and the shops have been assiduous in making themselves as secure as they can, with one-way systems and hand sanitizers and in the case of Beccy's the greengrocer, allowing ordering only from outside the shop.

Beccy's

The Parish Magazine of July 2020 included these two pieces, thanking those who had provided help and food to those unable to get out:

The gardens at the east end of the town were to have been open for the Church in July, but had to remain unvisited. I did, however, manage to visit them and a photo of each of the gardens was included in the Parish Magazine. 

The latest development (29th  July) has been the introduction of barriers along the High St to allow better social distancing, particularly outside the main food shops where people tended to gather. 

And, slowly, the churches are reopening with small numbers allowed inside, and no singing. Sadly, however, the bells can't yet be rung. It will be a significant day in the town's history when they can.

*The list of volunteers includes:

Sarah Burnfield

Jesse and Chantal

Sarah Couch'

Robert Eastwood

Jean Farnam

Felicia Green

Richard Guterbock

Bea Halle

Paul Kidd 

Jennifer Kidd

Sarah Madden

Becky Marcantonatos

Emma Montgomery 

Claire McLaughlan

Karen Malim

Tony Molyneux

Miki Nadal

Ollie Payne

Diane Shirley

Deborah Smart

Madeleine Smart

Tallulah Smart

Emma Smythe

Diana Tym

Anno Webley

Dilys Wilde

Catherine Williams

Andrea Zanthi

 See also 'A Brief History of Plagues' 

Thoughts of Others on Social Distancing and Lockdown 

 

 

Favourite Gardens - Little Court, Crawley

Little Court has been home to Patricia Elkington for over 50 years and she has made the garden a must-visit destination, full of interesting plants and vistas

Patricia Elkington. She was for many years the NGS organiser and still opens her garden for the charity both in early spring and in summer. 

 

For more photos, click here 

Old Swan House Garden in June 2020

The grasses are slowly turning from green to gold, and the alchemilla and sedums are adding mounds of colour to the gravel garden

The garden is usually open for two days in June for the National Gardens Scheme, but this year CV has prevented it - though it's possible that it might be open for a day or two in July.  In any event, the roses are at their best in June and the whorls of euphorbia wulfenii have lit up the garden since spring, forming great acid-green buttresses at the ends of the beds - and by July they may be ready for the Chelsea Chop.

 

The orchard is becoming pleasingly shady as the trees grow and the leafy branches give more and more cover

Rose 'Felicite et Perpetue' on the damson

The lower wall border is filling out up with roses Ispahan and Compassion, echinops and teucrium, supported by foxgloves, eryngium and stachys. 

The teazle guarding the gate into the wildflower area

The iris have finished their display round the pond, but the water lilies are coming out instead

Rose American Pillar bright against the summer sky

Favourite Garden Catalogues - Cotswold Garden Flowers (Bob Brown) 2020

I was delighted to receive a catalogue from Cotswold Garden Flowers (Bob Brown) 2020 today. It's a real treat to read, for as well as finding a large choice of garden plants carefully described in the manner of the old Hiller catalogue, there is also some trenchant advice on how to buy plants and the things that can go wrong.

'Plants are propagated here (not bought in) and become available and sell out all year. We are not Tesco's'

'Plants might be less than perfect. Youthful plants from a mass-producer would be fresh, disease-free, shapely and have flower buds just about to burst. But they're not from the real world and not used to life in the garden. Real plants are like organic vegetables used to be, They might look less than perfect but are likely to be better garden plants in the long run'.

'Plants succumb to disease quickly. They are probably not from the real world. They will have been grown soft, sprayed and subjected to a precise watering regime. Gardens are harsh environments. I have the knowledge to avoid buying plants like these, but if I did buy them I would recognise their perfection and harden them off slowly before planting them out. We don't sell these'.

'These are bomb-proof plants, suitable for neglectful gardeners'

'Why do the biggest and most vigorous plants always seem to end up planted by the path?'

'Never be sheep-led by a photographer'

In the descriptions too, there are also some wonderfully idiosyncratic asides, such as

Aeonium Goochiae 'Ballerina' - 'Miss Piggy in a tutu'
Allium Spherosephalum AGM - 'Loved by bees, butterflies and me'
Crytanthus Elatus AGM 'Known as the 'Scunthorpe Lily' by the callous'
Lonicera x Purpurii 'Winter Beauty' AGM - 'When it gets too big, raze it to the ground.'
Pachyphragma Macrophyllum - 'Never was such a pretty and welcome shrub damned by its name more'
Paeonia Lactiflora 'Duchesse de Nemours' - 'Classy, unlike the town.'
Penstemon Rubicundus - 'Brashness in November is very welcome'
Rosa Banksiae Lutea AGM - 'Flowers Apr-June that begin to appear when the plant is verbally threatened'
Sambucus Nigra f. Viridis - 'Can be eaten straight from the tree but some people may react to the cyanide by vomiting'
Stipa Tenuissima - 'The 'Andrex' of the grasses'
Viola Mandshurica 'Fuji Dawn' - Dubbed here 'The Scary Violet'
Thalictrum Flavium subsp. Glaucum 'Ruth Lyden-Bell - ' So tough and enduring that it has survived even in my sister-in-law's garden for many years'

....and probably many more that I have missed!






  

Memorial Trees and Roses at Old Swan House

The Orchard at Old Swan House

When I planted up the garden in 2014 my first order was of six fruit trees from Blackmoor Nurseries, Selborne to create an orchard where the vegetable garden had been. The trees were then planted in memory of particularly close friends, and each has a slate label at their base with their name and dates on. They are (with links to their eulogies):

Cherry 'Czar' - Nick Duke

Nick Duke (1945 - 2013) - a Czar cherry in the lower left next to the old Victoria plum.

James Grieve apple (Venky)

S. Venkitsewaran (Venky) (1941 - 2013) - a James Grieve apple on 'Venky's terrace'

Greengage St Julien (Jo Johns)

Jo Johns (1939 - 2014) - a St Julien Reine Claude greengage opposite Venky's terrace'

Mirabelle plum (Lucie Skipwith) 

Lucie Skipwith (1942 - 2014) - a Mirabelle plum close to the drive

Sunburst cherry (Annie May)

Annie May 1944 - 2014) - a Sunburst cherry next to the old damson

A Conference Pear (Nicky Boyle)

Nicky Boyle closest to the garage and drive 

                                     A quince tree commemorating Bill Birch Reynardson (1923 - 2107)

In addition to the fruit trees in the orchard there are two roses:

Sally Wilson-Young / Macpherson (1940 - 2012) - a Mme Alfred Carriere rose planted on the eastern wall

Rose Banksii alba (Kate O'Brian) 

Kate O'Brien 1953 - 2017) - a white Banksian rose planted under the hazel tree on the eastern wall.

Old Swan House Garden in Spring 2020

It's been the finest spring weather that I can remember with almost continuous sunshine since late March. The grasses came down then too and immediately started sending up new green growth The pheasant grass that I had been worried about needed some careful cutting out of dead leaves, but is now growing more strongly. It's the only grass that doesn't get cut down.

We had a couple of very wet days in early April but they were necessary to water everything and refill the pond.

As I write this, on 23rd April, the forecast is for more sunshine, and so I have continued to water the box as well as any new planting - including last year's black bamboos and this year's euphorbia wulfenii. I decided to replace some of the wulfenii as they were getting too leggy.

A few of the box needed attention as some of them had been partially stripped, but all are growing strongly again and producing new growth.

The orchard has done particularly well this year and although there were a couple of frosts, they don't seem to have damaged the blossom, which is now largely set. It would be wonderful to have a good fruit season as last year's was mixed - good for apples and pears and Victoria and Czar plums, but no damsons, greengage, cherries or Mirabelle. Incidentally, Bruce Williams trims the fruit trees (as well as the box) and they are now all perfectly shaped thanks to his ministrations.

Apple blossom in the orchard

Katya has tied the roses in to the wall and left a beautiful tracery of canes that promise abundant flowers this year.

Mme Aldred Carriere - Sally's rose - beautifully tied in. It was surplus to requirements at the Old Rectory until rescued by Katya. 

The lawn (as someone said in another context, 'the silence between the notes' - was scarified in the autumn and hasn't quite recovered. Fortunately, Lawntech have just decided that they can, after all, continue their quarterly treatment and it is already improving with a spring top dressing.

 

Lastly, I took a video of the garden at dusk, turning on the lights as I went round. It's come out quite well