The clocks sprang forward last Sunday meaning that Monday was the first after work evening we sat out on the patio and enjoyed a drink, when, as if in honour of this moment, the cuckoo announced his arrival. Monday 27th March- 24 days earlier than he arrived home last year!
Narcissi picked in bud to enjoy over the week ahead in our handblown twisted cane jug.
This weekend I picked the first of my narcissi still in bud, we garden at 1029 feet above sea level and so most things tend to be about 2 weeks behind that which we find off the hill. Its nice to get a heads up on what’s coming next. The Ribes sanguineum (Flowering Currant) is at its best this week, I find it’s scent lovely out in the garden when in full sun, it’s sweet and fruity, just a couple of stems in a bouquet is enough to fill a room with scent, but more than a couple of stems is sickly! The hellebores are now starting to go to seed, which is in fact the perfect time to pick them for best vase life. Grape hyacinths (Muscari) are now at their best too, we only have a little clump of them which I dug from my nans garden a couple of years ago and so I make a mental note to add more to the garden, we are on the look out for the pretty pink variety called pink sunrise. Forget-me-nots are coming into their stride, the first few little flowers have emerged and soon they will grow taller and be perfect for picking, their vase life is brilliant and they grow abundantly here in the garden, self seeding everywhere.
Hellebores in the evening sun.tête-à-tête’s catching the evening light.
In the field next door the first lambs arrived on Sunday morning; twins! Followed by another one in the afternoon, looking too small for their baggy skin but they’ll grow into it so fast! Spring is picking up momentum and there aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with its pace.
Roberts sheep.
We created two more 6 meter no dig beds down at the field, it was great this week to find a good source of wood chip from the local tree surgeon and manure from a local horse keeper. I figured that even if these beds don’t get planted this spring it’s a good step in the right direction just to get the ground prepared for planting when I have the stock. It’s probably even beneficial to allow the cardboard layer time to decompose and the worms to get to work before planting- I might plant some chrysanthemums later in the season if I can decide on varieties!
I’ve also been reading a really great book ‘The cut flower sourcebook’ by Rachel Siegfried. Rachel is a flower farmer florist who uses perennials and woody plants as the backbone for her floristry. Part of the book includes a plant directory which Rachel has put together in such a useful way, a brief description of each plant with tips on spacing, specifically when growing for cutting, on when to harvest, on conditioning, and some potential uses, for example what is flowering at the same time as the specified plant which it would work well with in floristy. And a tip on propagation for each plant too. Really useful and enjoyable to read. In fact the whole of the book is written in such a way that the read is enjoyable and all the information is logically presented and easy to follow- all the pictures are annotated too which I really love. I would 100% recommend this book!
Anyway, that’s all for now. Happy spring! And I hope you have a lovely week.
The Laskett Garden is one of our favourite and most inspiring gardens to visit locally. It is known for being the most well renowned of formal gardens built in the last half a century, inspired by Italian renaissance gardens and Tudor and Stuart traditions. It was created upon a blank canvas beginning in 1974. What I find most striking about it is its use of sculpture, ornamentation and the feeling of drama and theatre. Its lively and emotive, enchanting and full of energy, joyous, humorous and sometimes sombre. The garden is split into ‘Rooms’ each with a story to tell, it’s a story of the life and marriage of its creators Sir Roy Strong and his late wife Julia who moved to Laskett lane after their marriage in 1971. The garden visit includes a wonderful audio guide in which Sir Roy describes the garden as “The visual expression of a very happy marriage” and that’s certainly evident throughout.
View of The Glade. A gravel garden at the front of the house, with lots of spring flowering bulbs and Daphne fragrance filling the air.
We have visited the gardens numerous times over the years in the summer months when Sir Roy still lived there, but this week we took a trip over to see the garden for a February snow drop event and what a beautiful time we had! The last time we visited, in 2021 Sir Roy Strong had just left Laskett lane and handed the gardens over to Perennial; a charity who’s mission is to help people working in horticulture through tough times. We were excited to see what Perennial had done with the garden as Sir Roy’s views on the garden were always that it should change and evolve, his belief was strong that a garden should not be ‘mummified’. In the audio guide he describes the axe as the gardeners best tool, describing cutting down 40 year old conifers which he had previously planted and later felt were making a part of the garden feel claustrophobic. The garden although completely packed with interest on all levels retains a feel of light, space and air, it has rhythm, it can be likened to a dance. He gave a substantial sum of money to Perennial that the garden should not ‘get stuck’…. After visiting today I can say it’s certainly not stuck, Perennials snowdrop event offered fresh and new surprises beginning right in the fountain court, over a hundred hellebore heads carefully gathered and placed bobbing in the fountain creating the most mesmerising display.
Hellebore heads bobbing in The Fountain Court.
I should give you a very brief background about the garden, its creators and their inspirations. Though you can, if you wish, easily find out so much from the many of Sir Roy’s books and online. Sir Roy Strong is a well known author, he also became director of the national portrait gallery at the age of just 31 and at aged 38 moved to direct the V&A. The garden is peppered with artefacts and memorials which pay tribute to this time in his life, a time in which he obviously looks back on fondly. In fact, you will find in the garden a monument to commemorate his service to the arts; the Shakespeare award, an annual award given to a person in the uk considered to have made the biggest contribution to the arts in that year. His wife, Julia Trevelyan Omen who died in 2003 was a most celebrated tv, theatre, ballet and opera set designer. Her ballet design work included Swan lake and The nutcracker. She was the keen gardener of the two in the beginning but Sir Roy soon caught on and the life work of the two of them plays into the drama of the garden in such a rhythmic and poetic way. There is a good video on YouTube (‘The laskett: The influence of Italy in a late 20th century garden’) where Sir Roy talks about the garden and shows images of how the garden has developed over the years. He talks in depth about where the inspiration from the garden comes from. He talks about layouts of Italian gardens, clipping of the evergreens and personal influences such as the garden of film director Derek Jarman, on the shingle shore near Dungeness, Kent, ‘a garden of found objects.’ And the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, ‘Little Sparta’ up in Scotland, ‘a garden of philosophy and ideas.’ You can really see the influences of these gardens at The Laskett yet it is so completely unique. What I love about The Laskett, is that it has been completely built from scratch over a short space of time. You could easily be mistaken in thinking it’s a very old garden, it is encouraging to see what can be achieved in a life time and because of this it makes the garden feel (somewhat) relatable. The garden includes clipped box, beech, pleached limes, clipped yew hedging, topiary avenues, an orchard, a meandering walk through the serpentine garden, grand promenades, elaborate monuments, a large mound, heart felt memorials, water fountains, fancy urns, viewing platforms, obelisks and statues not forgetting the lion from the Houses of Parliament, a nymphaeum nonetheless and oh so much more!
View from Ashton Arbour onto Covent Garden.
It’s scatted with pet memorials and even entire ‘rooms’ dedicated to the memory of beloved pets such as Sir Muffs Parade. The Reverend wenceslas muff so called as he apparently resembled the engravings by artist Wenceslas Holler of the lady’s muff. In Sir Muffs parade, a large mound of earth known runs down one side of the room with Birch trees and spring bulbs on the left of the mound and a lawn and large boarder on the right. You can walk along the mound to view the garden from a different height. In Italian renaissance the mound or upper walk is called the Parnassus. There is a painting by Nicholas Poussin called Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus in which The nine Muses, goddesses of poetic inspiration and the creative arts, surround the god Apollo. If you sit on the bench opposite you can image the Parnassus as a stage and Sir Muff as star of the show entertaining any onlookers of his parade. At the top of this room is a very large clipped yew behind which sits the urn of Sir Muff himself. Again catching you by surprise after the excitement and drama of the Parnassus come the sobriety of this urn and its heartfelt inscriptions. The garden is truly a story of life and in it there is a time for every thing.
Looking back toward Sir Muffs Parade in the shadow of the clipped yew that screens Sir Muffs memorial.
I can’t possibly begin to talk about all the rooms in the garden, and I definitely recommend you go. There are many rooms each with a different character. There is The Rose Garden, The Topiary Garden, an orchard with a Belvedere and a stately walk with pleached limes apparently twice the length of the long walk at Sittinghurst! Running alongside the long walk- named the Elizabeth Tudor avenue you catch glimpses through clipped hedging of a series of mature Witch Hazel trees in yellow. As you find your way over to them they are under planted with lilac and yellow crocuses and snowdrops, the yellow of the trees singing in perfect harmony with the lilac crocuses and snow drops densely planted under them.
Witch Hazel underplanted with Crocuses and Snowdrops.
But we really did save the best till last on this visit. As we approached The Colonnade I was almost moved to tears. Perennial had really made The Colonnade Court shine on this wonderful February day. The entablature of the Colonnade festooned with little glass vases very carefully strung up with three Snowdrops in each little vase all lovingly curated with individual species all labelled with handwritten parcel tags tied around the necks of the vases. It was a joy to be able to walk between them and enjoy the intricacies of the blooms from this new perspective. As if that wasn’t enough the bases of The Colonnade had been skilfully adorned with displays of hellebores. If there was a wedding to be held there it would have been picture perfect. What a testament to what can be achieved with British flowers in February!
The Colonnade adorned with Hellebores and Snowdrops for the February Snowdrop day.
Hello, thank you for checking back for my 3rd blog post! I love February, the sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular and you don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn to see them either which is rather lovely. We have also had some milder weather here the past week, it’s tempting to go in all guns blazing with the seed sowing when the weathers nice but it’s still early so I have just made a little start and I’ll keep inside on the windowsill until they’ve germinated and then kick them out into the green house in a few weeks time. My first batch of Cerinthe, Celosia, Helichrysum and Limonium.
We have been adding to our stock of hellebores so that we can build a good supply of hellebores for years to come. I’ve underplanted the roses with them this week it seemed like a good use of space that while the roses are bare there will be something in their place. I purchased a good haul of them from Twelve Nuns nurseries who do online orders and I was really impressed with them. They looked great quality and came perfectly packed with no plastic packaging either. What a joy! They do take a little while to get established and I chose to go for smaller 9cm pot plants in the end because I’m in no rush and the price difference was significant compared to the larger plants elsewhere, so it’s worth while checking them out if you want to get some winter colour into the garden and if your not in a rush either it may be a good option for you too! To plant them, I dug in plenty of good quality well rotted horse manure compost into the hole and sprinkled some mycorrhizal fungi onto the roots which helps get the root system established quicker. Don’t forget to give them a good water in too.
Hellebores from Twelve Nuns Nurseries and Mycorrhizal Fungi.
We thought it would be a lovely idea to be able to offer ‘Floating Hellebores’ next year in February and April! And hopefully some small bunches of hellebores too. They will mark the start of the cut flower season for us here on Clee Hill. Simon has been busy in the Hot glass workshop producing samples for a range of hand blown Hellebore bowls. Inspired by the colour palette of hellebores at Ashwood nurseries that we saw last week. We have chosen 3 shades which we think are most beautiful and we hope you love them too!
floating hellebore hand blown glass bowls.
We are launching this product by doing a giveaway on our Instagram page. 🥳 Please do check out the Instagram page and be in with a chance of winning one of our handmade Hellebore bowls and a bunch of hellebores to float in it!
Floating Hellebores Instagram giveaway.
The other star of the show at the moment has to be the snow drops doesn’t it !? We don’t have many of them here in our garden, they don’t make good cut flowers but it’s always nice to venture out and see them en masse as they herald in the spring! They only last a few fleeting weeks but they are worth stopping to enjoy. If you don’t live too far from Ludlow then you should certainly plan a visit to St Peter’s at Stanton Lacy, don’t forget to take your flask. The whole church yard is carpeted in snowdrops for the first couple of weeks of February it’s truly something special to see!
Stanton Lacy Snowdrops.Stanton Lacy Snowdrops
Thank you for reading my 3rd blog post. Please, as ever do drop me any comments with your thoughts and ideas of what you’d like me to share here. Check out the give away on Instagram and enjoy the week ahead! With Love Rebecca
Floating Hellebores at Ashwood Nurseries. 4th January 2023.
Last week we took a trip out to a specialist nursery called Ashwood Nurseries, it’s in between Kidderminster and Wolverhampton in the Midlands and lucky for us is pretty local!
We had booked onto one of their Hellebore tours and had a wonderful talk from Steve whose knowledge about these beautiful winter gems was just wonderful! Thanks Steve! We added a few new varieties to our collection, green and deep purple ones almost black, a beautiful yellow double and very elegant white which was very exciting!
Our selection of Hellebores that came home with us.
What a fascinating plant! Originating in the Eastern Alps, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, they are also known as the Christmas rose or Lenten rose, although they flower a little later than Christmas and they are not related to the rose but are actually in the Ranunculus family! (buttercup)
February to April is the best time to see Hellebores in all their glory! On our tour we got to see inside theHellebore growing tunnels which was honesty like stepping into a sweet shop. Hellebores don’t smell but they certainly make up for it in colour! And their colour palette is unlike that of any other plant! I think using them for inspiration for interiors would make for a very tranquil yet jolly room! They come in Pastels but are made rich with deep velvety pinks and blacks sometimes framing the pastels round the edges of the sepals (the correct name for the petals on a hellebore) or veining through them, as in the sweetly named ‘Picotee’ varieties! The photo at the top of this post is a really good overview of the colours available at Ashwood that we saw on our visit and you can see some of those lovely Picotee ones in the mix too!
We were amazed with the careful and dedicated organisation of the breeding programme at Ashwood nurseries. Steve talked about how they have transitioned from dividing and selling by division to growing from seeds. So the tunnels had busy staff on a mission to make new hellebore varieties by looking for closely packed stamens within the centres of the flowers to be sure that the bees hadn’t got to them first! Bee’s LOVE hellebores, as there isn’t so much nectar available to them at this time of year so they make a great source of food! Steve explained you have to be quicker than the bees to select the parent plants! Hellebores at Ashwood Nurseries go through a 3 year cycle from seed pollination before they are ready to sell, as it’s only by this point they can be sure that it’s a good hellebore and that the true flowers are produced.
If you have a hellebore plant or two then you can make yourself a floating hellebore arrangement like in the picture to enjoy for weeks in your home, they last so well! They even work as an arrangement in the garden where they blow across the surface of the water as they are caught on the breeze. It couldn’t be simpler or more beautiful – Cut an inch or two below the flower head and simply float them in your favourite bowl filled with clean water. Experiment and see what bowl works best, ceramic, glass, patterned or plain will all have have different results. I’d love to see what you create! And I’ll share some in next weeks blog post too!
Aren’t Hellebores just such a wonderful way of kicking off the cut flower season?! And how wonderful as a valentines gift would something like the arrangement in the picture be?!? Stay tuned folks we have an idea brewing to share with you in next weeks post!
To me, they do look like rather magical and mysterious plants, not only their colours but the way they emerge from the soil in the coldest darkest days of the year like strange creatures, you can often already see the flower bud as it emerges from the ground as though the flower is coming straight from the dirt. And then, as they develop, their heads are held on almost elasticated looking pedicel (the top part of the stem which holds the flower), and last for weeks and weeks and weeks bending down with each frost and springing back into action as they thaw out as if revitalised and new. Almost how I imagine those brave souls who cold water swim feel after stepping out from their morning ritual. We have found the very best way to appreciate the Hellebore is to put them in pots by our door or you could place them by a window you look out of often, they are a sure way to tell how cold is it out too!
After a bit of research, unsurprisingly it seems there are a great deal of myths, folklore and magical stories related to them, such as river poisoning stories, healing and purging of animals and humans, treatments for nervousness and mental illnesses, the making of ‘black dust’ a deadly sneezing powder made from the roots it’s even been said that powdered hellebore flowers could be thrown up into the air to give the power of invisibility to the person they land on! Anyway I’ll leave you to find out more before I fall down that rabbit hole! If you read this far then thank you! I hope my writing will get better by bringing you new and exciting posts on a weekly basis and I hope to bring you some ideas and ways to enjoy flowers each week. Please do drop me any comments with ideas and suggestions and don’t forget to share your floating hellebore pictures if you give it a go!
I’m going to be announcing my first give away next week, so please check back next Tuesday for that!
