A YEAR AT HENLEY MILL
‘The gardener in me loves to plan for the next season‘
Sally Gregson's attention in her garden alongside the River Axe switches to the borders where she admits that ‘weeding is one of the most therapeutic occupations I know’
Among the many great pleasures I derive from gardening is that of working with the seasons.
Now in June the candelabras on the Horse Chestnut have faded, the plethora of spring bulbs has been overwhelmed by the emerging summer plants, and the garden has matured from lime green to emerald.
And without time spent weeding, the borders would be emerald with seedlings too: some wanted, others not. Weeding among the flowers is one of the most therapeutic occupations I know. Just a few minutes pottering about pulling up the bittercress calms me faster than Tai Chi, Su-doku, or alcohol. And I relish longer sessions winkling out unwanted dandelions and creeping grass with a two-
Thyme cuttings will root quickly and can be potted up well before autumn, overwintered in a cold frame. In spring give the young plants a haircut and plant them out in a sunny spot with well- drained soil
pronged fork and putting them on the bonfire. I leave to grow what the Americans call ‘volunteers’. That is, the seedlings of some of the more ephemeral plants in the border. These have a habit of putting themselves where I would never have planted them, and often I have to admire their taste.
But this year our cold winter and dry spring have bequeathed very few offspring to the borders. In the formal garden the pink and white Gaura lindheimeri and moon yellow Oenothera stricta ‘Sulphurea’ have come to the end of their family line. Sometimes the children have emigrated lock, stock and bud to the gravel paths where they are truly happy. Sometimes I cold-heartedly weedkill them; sometimes I relent. But if I do the path becomes impassable. It’s a diverting quandary.
“I firmly believe that half an hour’s hoeing in the vegetable garden when rain is not forecast saves hours of hard work later on”
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Some of the volunteers, however, are neither classic weeds, nor welcome offspring. Twenty years ago when we moved to Somerset I brought clumps of Alchemilla mollis with me. (I can hear the sharp intakes of breath and sucking of teeth. But there was a lot of garden to fill and it seemed a good idea at the time). Now, I have all but eradicated it except for the occasional seedling. Twenty years ago I planted lots of Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ next to the Alchemilla, and Geranium x oxonianum among some of my mother’s oriental poppies. Inexorably they took over.
Country Gardener
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