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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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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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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…
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May 2022
The last month of Autumn was a stunner. Crisp but full of golden sunshine. In a dream world it is the time to sit, bask in the light and have a cup of tea (or mulled wine). Reality is very different. The weeds keep growing, there is always something to clean up, trim, prune, wood needs to be cut in the bushland and all needs to be done by at least 4pm because it gets too cold and too dark to be out beyond then. The shining light within all these ‘chores’ is that magical word ‘propagation’. Autumn is the perfect time to take hardwood cuttings and sow seeds. Jenny…
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March 2022
March rolls in with cool mornings and evenings, which means the watering frenzy is slowing down, thank heavens. Despite this, the garden is not really slowing down, the Lasiandras are starting to flower as is the lovely Plectranthus ecklonii. The Crocus and Colchicums are nearly at their best. Even more exciting, the bulb catalogues have started to arrive. There is nothing like buying plants by mail. The impatient waiting, the fear they may be left in some post office somewhere too long, the excitement on their arrival. Bliss. We made some purchases from Tesselaar this time – Cottage Gladioli Mix for cut flowers, Tulip Turkestan because it’s an unusual shape…
