Latest News from the Garden
Hardy perennials can be sown in seed trays, especially if you have lots of seed, the seed should be covered with horticultural grit and left outside in a protected place. They often need a period of cold to germinate and seed bought during the winter can be treated in the same way. Large seeds can be sown direct into pots and I often sow direct into plugs as this saves pricking out the seedlings. Stand the seed trays or pots in water rather than using a watering can. Sowing Hardy Annual Seeds Hardy annuals can also be sown in the same way only just cover the seed with compost rather than grit. If you have a propagator you can sow tropical or non-hardy plants, such as caster oil plants in March but these will need to go into a unheated greenhouse or frame to harden off. A frame is ideal…
We have had a very busy winter in the garden, replanting part of the garden as well as removing trees damaged by last summer’s drought. Several visitors commented that the area where we had planted most of our pulmonarias was boring in the summer! Certainly not so in the spring, but we have taken that on board and moved all the pulmonarias to an area near the stock beds so they are still there for visitors to admire. The Pulmonaria area is now replanted with mainly white and yellow shrubs and herbaceous plants mixed with a sprinkling of bulbs, which we feel will have interest all through the summer. Willow trees The hedge round the meadow has had a severe hair-cut and some willows have had to be removed as they had suffered from lack of water and others cut hard back. Time will tell if they will recover but…
Since 2012, David Baker from the Butterfly Conservation Society has been carrying out regular moth trapping in our gardens By the end of 2018 over 330 different moths have been trapped in our garden – some of them quite rare for the year. This is David’s full report of the 2018 recordings, one of the highlights being this privet hawkmoth. Moth Report 2018 The year started with terrible cold weather and February and March were very poor moths for moths at home. The decision was, therefore, made to delay our start until things began to improve. We set up on the evening of 21 April 2018 and awaited results. Sunday dawned after a slight amount of rainfall during the night and our count commenced 32.031 Agonopterix alstromeriana …
This summer we have been a featured garden on Radio York and have been appearing regularly on Julia Lewis’ Sunday show – my final appearance was on Sunday 9th September, catch up with it here. On the back of that we have had articles written about us in Cuttings Quarterly – you can see the latest issue here National Recognition We have felt very honoured this summer to have been recognised in a number of national publications. We have been named one of the ‘50 Gardens to visit in 2018’ by the English Garden Magazine. Below is an extract of the feature describing the 5 gardens in Yorkshire to be selected. We were also in the Spring Edition of The English Garden, a feature called Hardy Heroes looked at our many varieties of hardy geraniums. Our hardy geraniums also featured in the RHS Magazine and Living magazine…
We are delighted to have Noel Kingsbury coming to Stillingfleet on 20th September to run his gardening Masterclass, “A Rabbits Eye View”. To have such a renowned expert here is a real honour and we are all looking forward to learning from him. Noel takes a naturalistic approach to planting and design, making our Stillingfleet garden a wonderful setting for the event, given the work we do in natural planting and sustainability. The masterclass itself will focus on long-term performance of plants in a border, asking questions such as “how long will they survive?”, “will they spread?” and “what will they look like in 5 years time?”. This is a truly unique and fantastic opportunity for garden enthusiasts to learn from an specialist in the setting of Stillingfleet. To give you a bit of an idea about Noel’s past work, he contributes regularly to Gardens Illustrated (who are one of…
The catalogues have arrived and numerous packets of sweet pea seed have been ordered, I could not live without a small pot of scented flowers on my windowsill. Please do not buy plants, they are very easy to grow from seed, have a wonderful range of colours and as long as you keep the mice away are fool proof and cheap. Seed lists such as Chilterns, Special Plants are on the internet. We grow a couple of climbers each year which I use up shrubs which have flowered earlier, Cobaea and Ipomoea. The Ipomoea I grow is ‘Knola’s Black Knight’ which has deep purple flowers, it is commonly known as Morning Glory and the flowers open only for a day but the colour is magical. Another useful plant I grow is the biennial Lunaria (Honesty) and the variety ‘Chedglow’ which has purple foliage and flowers and the usual transparent seedpods,…
January is a time for planning how your garden can be improved, looking back at mistakes and remembering which parts of the garden need attention. It is also a time to curl up in front of the fire with seed catalogues and an interesting book. This year I was given the RHS Companion to Scented Plants and I am working my way through it trying to make sure I have at least one plant scenting the garden each month. My shrub selection for January is Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’. This grows to about 3 metres and whenever the weather is not frosty, is covered with strongly scented pink flowers, lovely to pick a sprig and place on a windowsill. Snowdrops Gardens in January are full of early snowdrops. I have had varieties of Galanthus nivalis reginae-olgae in flower since November and in January and February my woodland walk is carpeted…
We’re very pleased to be writing gardening news for Radio York – here is our Spring article. “Spring is the most exciting time in the garden and it is all about planning. Each year we grow different annuals to cut for our café, this year we are going to grow more Cosmos, they grew easily and at 90 cm do not need staking, good colour ranges from white to deepest red. Many vegetables can be sown now, if you have not much space you can grow Kale Cavolo Nero which is an excellent foliage plant in the border. Helleborus orientalis are at their best at the moment and are wonderful in the deepest shade, do grow one. Happy gardening”
We’re absolutely delighted to have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Small Attraction of the Year category in the White Rose Awards for the second year running! The prestigious White Rose Awards are organised by Welcome to Yorkshire and they recognise the very best businesses from throughout Yorkshire. The tourism industry brings in more than £7 Billion annually and attracts around 216 million visitors each year across Yorkshire – so to win one of Yorkshire’s annual tourism awards would be no mean feat. The chair of the White Rose Judges, said: “With so many strong entries, shortlisting was very difficult this year. Choosing the eventual winners is going to be really tough.” Sir Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “The quality of this years’ entries has been exceptional and makes me hugely proud of all the brilliant work going on in tourism in the county. It’s an honour to be…
Longer Days and Daffodils – the Garden in March
Plants are bursting through the soil all over the garden, I love walking round the garden in March, ignoring all the jobs, just to see what has developed overnight. As the days become longer and with luck the soil begins to warm up it is amazing how many plants are in flower. We keep bees and it is important to have plants in flower in March when the bees need pollen to build up the colonies. If you have room willows are very useful and are covered with pollen, we grow several and I especially enjoy Salix kinnyangi which has long pink woolly catkins and when the sun shines are covered with bees. We also grow Crocus tomasinianus in parts of our avenue, these are early flowering and again are loved by the bees, the added attraction is that flowering early means you can cut the grass by mid-May if…
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