19th July | The Garden Diary

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View 19th July 1897 – 2020

CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2026 – CHW (images to follow)

2025 – CHW

A day out to visit the forestry operations on the Rowborough Estate with forest contractor Kingsley Hollis. Severe ash deaths in secondary Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland which used to be managed by coppicing but that had stopped decades ago. So 3000 tonnes of ash to be extracted each year in small parcels over 10 years and all the brash going to woodchip.

Two years on from clearing the hazel coppice is recovering and new native trees planted at 3m spacings. The surviving trees are Acer campestre. Some dead ash has to be left for wildlife which seems a bit daft when 40% of the trees in all the surrounding woodland are clearly dead ash.

Thistles and Verbascum have regenerated in the bare patches which may not have seen daylight for a century.

Plenty of ragwort of course.

New pheasant pen installed after clearing the dead timber.

Other views over these chalk and flint valleys in a drought summer.

We observed (from afar) a new planting of nursery grown Woodland Calamint which apparently only grows in this woodland. An extremely rare wild flower to look up on return home.

2024 – CHW
In the Isle of Wight and a trip to Busy Bee Garden Centre.All the white poplar trees have gone in the car park and new tarmac being laid throughout. Despite this major expenditure the plant area was looking very windswept, badly watered, and a big let down in comparison to previous years. I found little to photograph.

Lavandula allardii ‘Meerlo’ – oddly variegated.

Monarda ‘Balmy Pink’ – dwarf growing.

Monarda ‘Balmy Lilac’.

Silene maritima is a plant which I do think Burncoose and the website could usefully stock as a wall or rockery plant for coastal gardens.

Erodium ‘Bishops Form’ is a good groundcover.

Ilex x meserveae ‘Little Rascal’ an interesting dwarf holly.

Skimmia japonica subsp. reevesiana with berries already.

Lobelia ‘Starship Rose’ and ‘Strawberry Blue’ – nice enough but nothing special.

Muehlenbeckia axillaris ‘Golden Girl’ a yellow variant of a plant we know well.

2023 – CHW

Decent garden centres have well signed display beds for the public. Honnor and Jeffery win again.

A wonderful clump of Geranium ‘Russell Prichard’.

And a huge clump of Geranium ‘Rozanne’.

Berries already on Aronia melanocarpa.

Scirpus cernuus a new grass like thing which I had not seen before.

Sorbus commixta ‘Olympic Flame’ with berries turning colour already.

Laburnum ‘Lemon Drops’ with seed heads.

Cotoneaster ‘Hybridus Pendulus’ with berries turning colour already.

2022 – CHW

Heatwave but still at least a breeze. 5 acres of barley on fire at Higher Polmenna last Saturday but half the field saved by fire brigade.

Hydrangea ‘Fireworks’ nearly out on the drive.

Hydrangea

Hydrangea ‘Quadricolour’.

Good large flowers on a clump of Hydrangea ‘Joseph Banks’ cut down 2 years ago.

A new side roof on the side of the Blacksmith’s Shop. Storm Eunice damage to the scantle slate that was there in February.

Erigeron ‘See Breeze’ on Monica’s garden wall.

Alison’s potted display at the Top Lodge as good as ever.

First flowering on the drive of Hydrangea aspera ‘Macrophylla’.

A young Polyspora axillaris making good growth on the drive. This one from Stervenou Nurseries in France and a bit different to our more mature plant from Crug Farm with the same name. The taxonomists have a lot to do to work through Polyspora.

Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’ from below on Hovel Cart Road. Easily the best show in the garden today.

2021 – CHW
I find 30 or so cattle in the garden. TB testing of 250 animals today so chaos in the yard. Do we have a phantom gate opener though as this is the second example of cattle ‘opening’ a tied up gate themselves in the last three weeks.

I am not sure what this yellow flower is amongst this hedgerow clump of tufted vetch (Vicia cracca)? Possibly Genista tinctoria?

Tufted vetch and red campion (Silene dioica).

I think this is hedge bedstraw in full flower – Gallium album growing in profusion at the top of Herreswater.

Deutzia pulchra just going over.

Cornus kousa ‘Milky Way’ by the bonfire with just a few flowers left. This plant is now too shaded.

I am not sure if this is Deutzia prunifolia or not (possibly Deutzia maliflora). Not in Hillier’s and Google search no help. Martin Rix may be able to help later this week.