Plants
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June 2023
If there was a word to describe June at Crofton Garden it would be ‘control’. We are not the most rigorous gardeners here, not by a long shot but even we can reach our limits. The starkness of the Winter garden revealed a mass of branches, climbers, shrubs that had all become a bit out of control. You don’t really notice it when the garden is in full exuberance of Spring but when you can’t get down a certain pathway once all the foliage and growth is gone or can no longer see the shed under a mass of bare limbs, it’s probably time to do some work. Just some…
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May 2023
To be completely honest we spent most of May basking in the glory of last month’s Pond makeover. As the last month of Autumn, its where the garden starts to really look bare, and you can begin to see the structure of the plants within it. We have been lazy over the years, not intentionally, things have a way of being let go if you’re busy or distracted. But not this year. This seems to be the year of strong action. Of being decisive. Limbs have been removed from trees, plants transplanted (but there’s nothing new there), garden features being moved (and moved again) and the resurrection of pathways. I…
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April 2023
When we first moved to Crofton we made a pond. A lovely big pond. With different depths and ledges for plants, and plenty of room for fish. You can see images of it when it was new below: See? A gravel beach with planting all around. 20 years later: Chaos. Crofton Garden has never been an overly maintained garden. Over the years things happen, gardens get neglected, you try to get it back under control, you fail and you keep trying. And to be completely honest I think we just forgot what the pond looked like. We knew it was there. We saw it had become a muddy quagmire and…
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March 2023
This is where we say goodbye to Barbara Hepworth. I had spent a number of years cultivating her but Jenny was never convinced by it. Which is strange as she is usually quite easy to convince about other things. For years she has been trying to coerce me into making Barbara into a horse or an elephant and I have resisted, campaigning for modern sculpture. March is the month I lost the argument. Barbara had been suffering from a middle age spread that was starting to block the pathway, and once you start cutting it becomes quite difficult to stop. There was quite a simple reason for my reluctance to…
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February 2023
The last month of Summer. This is where we feel the Summer drawing out, keeping everything dry and where we have the most plant casualties. The longer Jenny has lived here at Crofton, the more philosophical she has become when it comes to this. “What can I do?” she asks everyone and no one, spreading her arms wide in a helpless motion. We water but it is not enough. We save some plants, we lose some. That is just how it rolls here. The Spring rain has brought a lot of growth to our trees which is one consolation, and it has made a real difference to the garden. Where…
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January 2023
It’s funny when you have grown up looking at European (specifically English) garden magazines where Summer is the pinnacle of the gardening year. Images of full, boisterous garden beds, plants fighting for their time in the sunshine. Foliage and flowers are abundant. And green. So very very green. We were lulled into a false state of confidence last year. We had so much rain and forecasts predicted a wet Summer. But it was lies. All lies. Don’t get me wrong, the rain meant that our trees had a wonderful growth spurt which has increased the shade in the garden, and protected many plants than previous years but once it dries…
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October, November, December 2022
Sometimes things get away from you. Like the last three months. Our Open Garden went ahead on the 30th October, amid wild rainy weather, which, thankfully held off the actual day leaving us with some much needed sunshine. Our preparations for the actual day were constantly thwarted – the ground was sodden leaving us unable to weed and generally inclined to do nothing. Sometimes natures forces your hand and we had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that visitors were going to have to take the garden as it was – warts and all. Pavers were placed on the walkways that had disappeared under water, the entrance to the parking…
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September 2022
Early Spring is wonderful. You walk around the garden staring at the swelling buds and realise that Spring is upon us once again. The Narcissus are blooming, the blossom trees are full of delicate beauty and the Magnolias are putting on their annual show. Everything is waking up again, including Jenny’s desire for a new project. We thought the Middle Bed was enough but it wasn’t. A casual browse around our local nursery Harmony in Lauderdale was the source of this new project. At first she wanted it for someone else but when she was met with resistance, she boldly declared that is “they didn’t want it, she would have…
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August 2022
Rain is the most predominant memory of August. Rain on top of rain that left small lakes (we’re beyond trivial puddles at this stage) and rivers in the garden. Our rule here at Crofton (and for the suburb of Sandford) is that we never complain about rain. We are on tank water and in a dry area, so to complain about rain is to basically whinge about your source of life. Perhaps it is a good excuse to not have to work in the garden. A forced holiday. It is always amusing when Jenny can’t work in the garden. She does not take to stopping and resting well. Even as…
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July 2022
It began with Jenny having one of those moments when she looked at the garden and declared it was getting on her nerves. It coincided with a decision that we needed to downsize the large middle bed garden you have heard us bemoan in the past. Our process involved much arguing about how this was to be achieved, even Martin put in his two cents worth concerning creating large pathways the divide up the bed, which, of course, we duly ignored. After much discussion, and with a good healthy dose of humility, we found ourselves agreeing with Martin. We would divide the bed up into three pathways that converged in…