May marches on, weeks of blazing sun and lockdown compliance giving way under newly arrived cold winds and political media treacle. A few days of rain bring relief for flowerbeds that were already cracking and splitting, and even though we observe the trees and hedges every day, it appears that suddenly, overnight, the countryside is that extraordinary brilliant green that only occurs in May. The Herefordshire hillsides and verges are also thick with hawthorn, running alongside the pink and white of the venerable apple orchards which still survive in this part of the world. Here, the oak and the lime are already out, while the pair of huge walnut trees are more cautious, the lime green male catkins and delicate copper leaflets emerging slowly.
At ground level, work continues apace, as I continue trying to meld the twin purposes of maintaining plants ultimately destined for the new beds while also creating something akin to presentable for the summer in the long beds which run either side of the house. These sections will be the last of our three phases of landscaping here, and while they look the most established, with a curious selection of roses, shrubs and cottage garden plants from the previous owner, they are also signally unsuited to large numbers of new arrivals.
Never properly prepared, the ground is a thin layer of topsoil covering small, medium and large stones, building debris, innumerable mazes of ivy roots and the iron cables of shrub roots. And regarding the latter, just to say: do not ever, ever plant the spiky shrub berberis next to your house. Keep it as burglar-deterring hedge, or it will be *in* your house in the twinkling of an eye, as we discovered at two points on the south side. Anyway, a metric tonne of mushroom compost later, we now have something that can be a better home both for temporary residents and permanent occupants, and planting has progressed.
Last autumn, and early this year, I undertook my first ever attempts at dividing plants to make multiple new ones. This is one of those subjects that gardeners love: free plants, the bedrock of horticultural generosity when someone presents you with a cutting or some offshoots of a favourite plant, and also source of mirth and malice when stories abound of angelic-looking old ladies craftily whipping shoots and seed heads into their handbags in gardens open to the public. Your established plant stocks can be increased by division of root matter, by taking cuttings, and by allowing self-seeders to proliferate. Here, my preliminary efforts at division have worked, and it does feel astonishingly rewarding. When you have divided a muddy bunch of indeterminate plant fibre on a freezing January day, it is beyond gratifying to have fifteen graceful new plants of the beautiful (and deadly) monkshood (aconitum napellus) shooting up in the garden now. Echinops ritro (globe thistle), acanthus mollis (bear’s breeches), cranesbills such as geranium phaeum, were all subjected to the same treatment in the cold months and are now all coming through or already flowering.
Hostas are another surprise success story. I had never liked these plants so beloved of designers, but then on the few occasions I had possessed some, they had been shredded by slugs and snails within days. Dismissing them as a waste of precious bed space, the mind-blowing discovery that Oaklands has such a thriving (and clearly ravenous) community of mollusc-eaters in the shape of ducks, hedgehogs, frogs and toads that classic slug fodder like lupins, hostas and the like not only survive but thrive has transformed my relationship with these cult foliage plants. And how good-natured are they - I hacked through large clumps last autumn, shoved them in old pots overwinter, and planted them now with no additional care or feeding, and they haven’t missed a beat: beautiful forms, and plenty more varieties to collect.
For even less effort, the self seeders are invaluable. Some people hate these enthusiastic colonisers and their cheerful refusal to abide by painstakingly mapped out planting plans, but I love them, and certainly at this point in these five acres, we are delighted to welcome all flowery arrivals. If they do get a little unruly, it is easy to pull them up and restore order, but in the meantime, the pinnacle of self seeding here must be the froth of cow parsley and forget me nots under the line tree, and it remains one of my favourite garden moments of the year.
Grateful thanks also to the aquilegias mixing up their own colour combinations as they wander around, astrantia spreading across a dry corner, the alchemilla mollis catching dew like diamonds and softening paving edges all around the house, the huge velvet leaves of the verbascum toughing it out in the most inhospitable stony sites, and yet to flower, but popping up all over, the foxgloves.
And while I have done very little in the way of cuttings, one I did manage has a fine history. This little honeysuckle is the great grandchild of a plant originally belonging to my mum’s twin brother. In 1970, when my parents bought Gunnells, the house I grew up in near the Malvern Hills, her brother gave Mum a cutting, which by the time my parents downsized and sold the house in 2005 was a huge plant. Mum gave me a cutting then; it grew at our house in Hale, and when we in turn sold that last year (2019), I tried taking a cutting and brought it here to Oaklands, where it is just now flowering. Not a bad journey for a little sprig of vegetation, and having just finished reading the wonderful “Overstory” by Richard Powers, proof if it were needed that plants can tell many stories.
Comentários