Have just been away for two weeks following Hoby Open Gardens and it has been hot; very hot for England at 32 centigrade! And we continue to have had no rain of any consequence since the middle of May. 
We left a garden looking quite good but now it is crisp and dry. Our soil is a sandy loam and tends to dry out quickly but in an English climate this is usually not an issue..
The main lawn was the walled kitchen garden for a large house next door and the interesting thing now is that wherever there were paths in the original kitchen garden the lawn drys out fastest as you can see in the above.
The lawn on June 16th before the sun!
So rather than show pictures of dried up plants I thought I would go back to the open garden event.
After a hectic week getting everything ready the weekend arrived and was a great success. Eleven gardens opened, included Glebe House, and in addition we provided lunches, tombolas, an art exhibition, plant stalls,a white elephant stall (ie a junk stall), a Pimms bar and lets not forget the cream teas. Our garden was one of the venues for cream teas and after Diane had made 250 scones we made almost £900 on the teas alone. Overall the money is still being counted but it looks like we have made almost £7500 which, for a village of just 100 houses, is excellent. The money is going to do some improvements in our 13th century village church.
The roses were stunning with Rosa Rambling Rector covering the old apple tree and Rosa Bobby James on the right just coming into flower. Probably one of the best comments was when one of the visitors said she always came into our garden to see the rose ‘Rampant Rector’!
Here are some of the roses in the garden:
The main pond had recovered from when it emptied itself and the water stayed crystal clear.
and there were no snakes to be seen here either.
We only have one hanging basket and luckily it is on automatic watering so it just as good now.
The dahlias were a bit disappointing as the slow spring had held back the flowers. The only flowering dahlias were Dahlia Arabian Night and Dahlia David Howard. Now they are all struggling due to lack of rain.
The Delphinium Black Knight and Rosa ‘Iceberg’ made a great show.
This shrub always provides interest. It is Carpenteria californica with Rosa ‘Irene Watts’ in the foreground. Carpenteria californica is quite a rare plant in English gardens and it needs a sheltered position as it is rather tender.
June is peak season for poppies which self seed throughout the garden.
We do not have a huge vegetable plot. However, for open gardens even the vegetable plot needs to be weed free.
Elsewhere there were plenty of flowers to see.
As you can see the hedges had not been cut. Actually we ran out of time, however, the current thinking is that it is better to cut box hedging a little later to help prevent blight.
| 2018 Gardening Hours | ||
| Week beginning June 30th | Total 2018 to-date | Average per week |
| 0 | 462 | 18 |
Holiday week so no gardening.
Glebe House Garden 
It appears that all went well for the tour. The roses are gorgeous whether they were rampant or rambling. I feel your pain in the garden. We have drought every summer. The bad thing is that this year it began during spring instead of late summer. Such are gardening trials. Odd how the old pathways show themselves during the drought time. It seems ghostly.
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Thanks Lisa. The paths are a bit like the way old archaeological remains often show up in dry summers.
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It seems you event went well. I do have a few questions from across the pond. Are you a private garden opened for a fundraiser? And what are tomboloas and cream tea?
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First our garden is our private garden. In Britain it is very common for a group of gardens to open to the public for a small charge (in our case £5) to raise money . We live in a small village of 100 houses and the whole community pulls together to make this event a success.
A tombola is a way to raise money. Bottles (including alcohol) are donated. These are then allocated a number from a pack of numbers eg cloak room tickets. All the numbers are then put in a box and people pay to select one or more. Usually if the number ends in a 5 or a 0 they win the corresponding bottle. However the rest of the numbers do not win anything!
Lastly cream teas. A very traditional treat to have with a cup of tea. Plain scones are cut in half, strawberry jam applied on the cut surface and then cream, traditionally clotted cream but often whipped cream. They taste great!
I hope that helps.
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Thanks! I did my student (practice) teaching in Durham and had to learn new meanings to words and new words. At the time, I thought English was all the same. A lot got changed in America.
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I would have loved to have visited your garden, it looks stunning. Gorgeous roses. A tribute to all your hard work. (not to mention the cream teas…) 🙂
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Thanks, hard work but worth it!
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Certainly is.
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Your garden looks so amazing, Steve! I am sure visitors were most happy to visit your garden. This year I went on a garden vacation to England for the second time and had the chance to visit some public, but also private gardens. I am always so awed by English gardens. All that passion and love for gardening is just amazing. However, every year I am pondering whether I should go on a garden vacation or not as going on a vacation means leaving my garden for some time. Last year I spent eight days visiting gardens in England in late June and when I came back I was very disappointed as my lawn was, as yours is now, brown and also some plants, such as my sweet peas were dead. Unlike in England, in my hometown, Vienna, hot and dry summers are not unusual at all. I always admire how lush green most English lawns look, something that is hard to accomplish in Vienna, unless watering every day. This year I am happy with my lawn. It is still green, but only because I am watering it every day and also because a lovely friend watered my garden while I was in England for five days. I really hope that your lawn will get green again soon!
Best wishes,
Lisa
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Many thanks Lisa for a lovely comment. I understand the issue but feel that vacations are also important. The lawn will become green again, I can rely on the English weather for that.We do have automatic watering for pots etc but overall the garden is too big to even think about watering it all!
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I always enjoy photos of your gardens, especially your beautiful brick walls. Now I have rose, delphinium AND wall envy!
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Thank you Carolee. Nice that you want to come back. The roses have done well this year but the recent drought have stopped them reflowering.
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