A good stretch of very fine weather has rescued what had threatened to become a disaster of a growing year – a very late cold spring turning into a blighted summer. Slowly the garden has shrugged off the delayed start and now so much is coming through all at once that the garden has little difficulty in looking great. We even managed to trim the box plants, pretty much to coincide with Derby Day.
Our first garden visit, from the Cornwall Hardy Plant Society, was an evening one on June 5th. We were blessed with beautiful warm sunny weather, and to suit the occasion, for once it seemed that as much chilled wine as tea was drunk.
In the golden evening light everything from Iris sibirica to Valeriana pyrenaica (a plant that attracted everyone’s attention, but one that few of the knowledgable visitors could identify) looked perfect. In the summer garden even the 'Pizzicato' oriental poppy made a timely appearance. We'd seen this in flower last summer, loved the colour and bought it, not realising that the 'Pizzicato' poppies can be any shade of red, pink or orange.
It’s certainly been a good year for buttercups – the field is more yellow than green.
And we were very excited to find that an Early purple orchid had found its way, unaided, into the Barn Garden.
On a cold, wet and windy day last autumn, Trish rather unwillingly went out to sow some Yellow Rattle seed that came from our good friend Bett’s meadow. Remarkably, in spite of their rather unloved start, there’s now a good spread of the rattle flowering in the long grass here, alongside the moon daisies and, we hope, some devil’s bit scabious plugs coming through that we grew from seed and planted out last autumn. With the white form of Geranium pratense going from strength to strength, this area really is turning into a little wild flower meadow.