GARDEN OF THE MONTH

The garden of a member in the Isle of Wight

Currently, I live on the Isle of Wight with a 200 foot garden, several hundred registered varieties of daylily and thousands of seedlings. We enjoy generally good weather here. It is too dry for a typical English perennial garden and the soil is too poor, sandy/stoney and about a foot and a half down you either hit clay or usually what feels like concrete but is in fact compacted stoney soil. I have spent all my time improving it and still in parts it is dreadful. The good news is that it is much milder here than most of the UK or more accurately just milder enough usually to leave your tender perennials outside and try things a little more unusual.

A very chocolate boxy picture of the front of the house. The wisteria has finished but rose 'Madame Alfred Carrière' is in bloom - a very vigorous climber that does not need a lot of sun.

This is where you start to enter the main part of the garden. I had to cut down 3 pretty mature trees when I moved here: two sycamores (ghastly weed tree) and a smaller oak (regrettably but there is another just over the hedge). But I have left all the small trees and planted several more Cercis and Cornus kousa. So! the wildlife still flourishes. I had 3 woodpidgeon nests last year alone and a further nest in my front garden.

 

 

 

Here you can see a variegated (non-invasive form) of knotweed, Aralia, on the right and Hemerocallis 'Web Browser' is in bloom.

 

 

 

My garden starts with the reds through orange yellow .... 

 

 

... and then into pinks and purples as you move to the bottom of the garden. No daylilies in flower yet here but there are plenty waiting to do there bit after the unknown penstemon (like 'Sour Grapes' variety) has its main flush, alliums, a couple of blue grasses (Elymus - the native is very invasive) and some Canary Island Echium can be seen. The gate (to the side of the shed) leads to my top daylily seedling patch

 

 

Some old shrub roses and climbers/ramblers form part of a mixed hedge. The foxgloves are near finishing and the grasses (too many mixed to name) and the likes of (weeds) Verbena bonariensis and Linaria take over and provide vertical accent.

 

 

 

I like tall move in the breeze plants. Stipa gigantea (which is the large grass that can be seen above the dwarf pampas) is a grass that flowers early and Pennisetum macrourum and setaceum join in much later. Salvia uliginosa is another stunner that flowers later.

 

 

Because of the rather poor soil and less than average rain the garden looks its most green and perhaps most beautiful in May. After that, it changes and takes on the affect of a dry garden - I have always had Beth Chatto's gravel garden in mind, although it is not that dry and really a mix of dry/cottage/prairie style. Plants have to be tough and daylilies are, although I do have leaky hose throughout a lot of beds and these need water in summer to look good. I try to keep watering to a minimum and the plants (a lot of grasses) are chosen for these conditions.

 

 

This photo was taken in March 2008 and is just the other side of the gate you can see in the photo of the bottom of the garden. You can see the seedling beds have been replanted this year and you can see my greenhouse which is also full of smaller seedlings.

 

 

 

This picture, in contrast, is the same position but actually taken in July 2007. These seedlings have now either been planted out or composted.

 

 

 

 

 

A shot of the bottom of garden again in which you can see rose 'Rhapsody in Blue' in bloom.

 

I have by no means finished the garden - the grass paths left will eventually be replaced by sleepers and gravel. I plan this week to start a pond (weather permitting), not a lush green thing with flags and iris but again with gravel banks and more a dry river bed feel.

Visitors are welcome but I need some advance warning because this annoying thing called work takes up a major part of my time.