Occasionally we venture forth to visit friends in other parts of the country and visit gardens or go for walks in different landscapes, and that too is fascinating.


Last summer we visited some of the gardens of Kent and Sussex: Great Dixter, Sissinghurst, and the walled kitchen gardens at West Dean. My notebook was full. But it was the wildly dramatic beachscape of Dungeness that captivated: the big skies; the crashing seagulls; and the heavily armed and armoured plants of the shingle. They were a survival lesson in such extreme conditions. And those seaside gardens nearby that understood that lesson were a master-class in planting.


Those that struggled with more domestic lawns and bedraggled roses can rarely have lived up to their owners’ expectations.


We may be a long way from the seaside here, but if I needed a reminder to ‘go with the flow’ the landscape of Dungeness was the most graphic. Our garden seemed like a feather bed on our return, welcoming us home with lush green arms. And multitudes of opportunistic weeds.


The full-blown roses we had left were just pools of brown petals, their breathtaking display at an end. Most of the roses we grow are those that flower only at mid-summer and then make new growth that will flower next year. And these, it is recommended, can be cut back now in late summer, if it’s necessary.


Mostly it is not. Poppies at their mid-summer best


hundreds of Greek anemones (Anemone blanda) in spring, it would be even more fun and pretty too. The grass could be sprayed off at the end of the summer, the anemone corms planted in autumn, and the flower seed sown after the anemones had finished. The centre could contain a wide-mouthed pot of that glorious grass, Chionchloa conspicua ‘Rubra’ that bronzes in the sun and shimmers in the wind all year long.


In another garden we visited the owner had grown pots of box plants trimmed in the shape of rabbits using metal frames as guides. She had positioned the rabbits around the garden for visiting children to discover, and moved them around the garden from time to time just to confuse. It was a great twist on a treasure hunt.


Henley Mill is located on the south side of the Mendips on the edge of the Somerset Levels. Just a few miles into this unique landscape the scenery is very different.


The fields and pastures are surrounded by water and edged with ancient pollarded willows. On a misty morning they lean over the water like whispering giants with dripping hair. They inspired me to plant and pollard a row of willows all along the river bank. An old friend from 20 years ago, Keith the ‘River Man’ who used to clean the banks with a long scythe like Old Father Time, came along with a bundle of 10-foot willow wands strapped to the roof of his small car, and an auger. This he used to bore holes right down to water-level and insert the ‘cuttings’ so that they were standing in wet soil.


With one or two false starts they all ‘took’ and today they are beginning to take on characters of their own. In early summer they stand waist-high in clouds of ‘Queen Anne’s Lace’ and now in high summer after the seed has blown we strim the banks so that we can see down to the river sparkling between their trunks.


Their role in the garden is taken over by our pretty Hydrangea serrata cultivars that continue to flower in the shady spots from mid-June onwards. Then many of them, the flowers and foliage, transmogrify into a bonfire of scarlet and deep wine red as the garden slips into autumn.


Sally Gregson runs Mill Cottage Plants at Wookey. www.millcottageplants.co.uk


Photographs by Kate Lewis


Sally Gregson’s latest book Ornamental Vegetable Gardening is published by Crowood Press.


Tidying up in the vegetable patch Country Gardener 15


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