It is mid summer and unusually for England the temperature is over 30c Here is a quick 3 minute look round the garden with only the sounds of birds, water and a small plane that flow over at the wrong time!
I hope you enjoyed that.
Roses
Roses, Roses, Roses
May has been one of the sunniest on record and no rain either. It has been a fight to keep some plants happy. But not roses! The following photographs show the development of some of the roses in Glebe House Garden. There are more to come but they can wait for another blog.
It seems we are always finding gaps for new roses. Here nine arrived on May 14th. They included:
| Rural England 8×6 Rambling Pink |
| Buff Beauty 5X5 Yellow |
| Swan Lake 8×6 White/Cream |
| St Ethelburga 4X3 Light Pink |
| Mme. Pierre Oger 4X4 Light Pink |
| Macmillan Nurse 3X3 White/Cream |
| Horatio Nelson 4X4 Dark Pink |
| Irène Watts 2X2 Light Pink |
These have all been planted and are being watered regularly.
One of the earliest roses is Rosa ‘Madame Gregoire Staechlin’. It does not repeat but puts on a fantastic display which can be seen from the lane by our house so, as a result, we get lots of people wanting to know what rose it is.
Rosa ‘Old Blush China’ another early Rose. Not really a climber but can be trained up a wall. It dates from 1750.
Rosa ‘Alister Stella Grey’ a fantastic rose that keeps flowering for a long period.
As always in gardening things can go wrong. Just as it was looking great we had some strong wind that almost completely blew it off the wall, breaking the horizontal wires. Just another unexpected job that keeps us busy!
Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’ This is a rose of truly rambler-like character, which has the benefit of reliably repeat-flowering.
One of our favorites, Rosa ‘Alchemist’. This rose was in the garden when we bought the house 26 years ago. A robust climber, bearing full, old style, rosette-shaped flowers of golden-yellow flushed with orange and a strong fragrance.
The metal arches in the garden effectively have three roses growing on them. The two that are flowering now are:
Rosa ‘Meg’ a large, almost single, beautifully waved flowers. Delicate pink-apricot colour, with red-gold stamens. This is one of our favorites and works well with some honeysuckle which is growing up one of the brick pillars and is about to flower.
Rosa ‘Lauriol de Barny’ an old rose variety. Very beautiful, silvery-pink flowers with a strongly fragrance.
Below a pleached lime hedge we have a row of about 35 Rosa ‘Alfred de Dalmas’. Introduced in 1855 this little moss rose has clusters of medium sized, creamy-pink, semi-double flowers and a strong perfume. Not fully out yet but will look incredible in a week.
Rosa ‘Mutabilis’ a very unusual china rose with incredible flowering ability and good health. Flowers throughout summer and autumn with pretty, single, scented blooms of honey-yellow to orange, ageing to cerise red. Take no notice of the rose nurseries that say is only grows to 2m. Here it is at the top of the wall at 4m.
Also on the same wall is Rosa ‘Iceberg’ which seems to take its time to get going but I think it is starting to realise that we expect it to cover the whole wall and intermingle with the Mutabilis.
Rosa ‘Shot Silk’ is a star on the wall during all of May but is coming to the end now. We have grown a number of clematis up the rose to extend the interest. You can see Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ coming into flower.
Rosa ‘Crown Princess Margareta’ has quite large, apricot-orange flowers, in the form of neatly arranged, many petalled rosettes. They have a strong, fruity fragrance. It forms a tall, slightly arching shrub with plentiful glossy foliage. Bred by David Austin, 1999.
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’ was deliberately planted here next to the entrance to the garden. It is very fragrant and fills the whole entrance area with its fragrance.
Rosa ‘Louise Odier’, has lovely richly fragrant flowers of a bright pink, shaded with lilac. Introduced in 1851.
These Rosa ‘Irene Watts’ has been in our garden for around 20 years and with loving care they still look good. However, two of the new roses are destined as replacements here for a couple of the roses that had stopped performing.
Rosa ‘Fantan Latour’ a prolific flowering rose that has been trained up a wall. Light pink flowers with a blue tinge in certain lights.
Rosa Sericea Pteracantha an interesting wild rose prized for its red thorns.
So looking across the garden at the end of May it is roses time. There are more that will start flowering in June!
Please keep safe in these difficult times and if you can enjoy your gardens.
Too much sun after Hoby Open Gardens
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:
Rosa ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’
Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’ (front) Rosa ‘Lichfield Angel’ (back)
Rosa Rambling Rector
no name
Rosa ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’
Rosa ‘Meg’
Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’
Rosa ‘Lichfield Angel’
Rosa Felicite Perpetue
Rosa Bobby James
Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’
Rosa ‘Crown Princess Margareta’
Rosa ‘Alfred de Dalmas’
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
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.
Ficus ‘Brown Turkey’
Osteospermums
Rosa ‘’Open Arms’
Potentilla atrosanguinea var. Argyrophylla ‘Scarlet Starlit’
Philadelphus ?
Geranium palmatum with Rosa ‘Empress Josephine’ and Rosa ‘New Dawn’
Clematis ‘Boulevard ‘Angelique’
Clematis ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’
Anemone ‘Wild Swan’
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.
End of the Month View – May 2018
The weather this spring has meant everything is a bit late. Further more once things came out they seem to go over very quickly. This time last month the tulips were bursting out but now they have all gone. However, they looked fantastic for a couple of weeks. Likewise the alliums seem to be going over quickly and now at the end of May the roses are looking great. Interestingly the above average rain we have had has resulted in many of the flowing shrubs putting on great displays and the lawn has never looked greener.To the left of the pond the main rose is Rosa ‘Shot Silk’. It does not repeat well but is usually the first rose in the main part of the garden to flower. 
The rose that normally has the accolade of being first is Rosa ‘Madame Gregoire Staechlin’ which is also out at this moment. Again not a repeat flower but gorgeous never the less.
To the right of the pond is Rosa ‘Alister Stella Grey’ and Rosa ‘Crown Princess Margareta’. Rosa ‘Alister Stella Grey’ is a fantastic rose, flowering through the summer into Autumn Rosa ‘Crown Princess Margareta’ has the most beautiful peach coloured flowers.
Else where next the the big pond is another beauty, Rosa ‘Fantan Latour’.
Not really a climber but no one told it! It had covered the whole of this wall although the flowers tended to be near the top so we cut it back very hard to just above the Choisya ternata and it has returned a great display.
To the right of the main garden behind the urn is another favorite, Rosa ‘Alchemist’. Well named as the flowers start of gold a slowly change to cream.
Another view towards Rosa ‘Alchemist’ with Aruncus dioicus is the middle ground.
Not all the roses are climbers. Until last year we thought these were Rosa ‘Irene Watts’ and as a result of my blog there was an extensive conversation which resulted in us finding out that they are in fact Rosa Pink Gruss an Aachen. Apparently many rose nurseries have been incorrectly supplying Rosa Pink Gruss an Aachen as Rosa ‘Irene Watts’. What ever the name they are great roses.
Near by by the back door we planted Lonicera periclymenum ‘Scentsation’ to give off a scent as we step out of the house. It is great to see it coming into its own.
In two weeks the garden is open to the public. See advert in the side bar. There is still lots to do including getting many dahlias planted.
The wall across the lawn has been looking good and is just about ready. Maybe a final weed is required.
I am sure Allium Christophii are planning to take over this part of the garden!
Two different globe Alliums always put on a good show under the pleached lime hedge. However, you can see the effect of the winter on the lavender where several plants have died! In addition to these losses we have also lost some salvias and a Euphorbia ‘Mellifera’.
The border to the right with the Allium Christophii and some very large Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’.
Looking closer you can see Rosa ‘Mutabilis’ starting to flower.
The Clematis ‘Jackmanii’ looking great climbing into Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
The border to the left of the main lawn was planted up with grasses etc last year and is beginning to develop although we need to do plenty of weeding here.
On the edge of this bed Geranium ‘Patricia’ and Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ provide a great mix of colour.
| 2018 Gardening Hours | ||
| Week beginning May 26th | Total 2018 to-date | Average per week |
| 35 | 324 | 15 |
Do have a look at Helen The Patient Gardener’s blog where you fill find links to other gardens at the end of April. Thank you to Helen for hosting this meme.
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day – October 2017
It is the middle of October, in two weeks we will put the clocks back at the end of summer time. The evening will be dark and we will feel winter is really here.
For this GBBD I decided to walk around taking photos of the various blooms that are still out. If you had asked me before the walk I would have thought maybe a dozen good blooms. How wrong I was! Here are the photos I took (and there could have been more!)
Salvia ‘Cerro Potosi’
Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’
Rosa ‘Alister Stella Grey’
Rosa ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’
Rosa ’Wildeve’
Rosa ‘Lichfield Angel’
Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’
Rosa ‘Bonica’
Rosmarinus officianalis horizontalis
Ricinus communis ‘Impala’
Anemone ‘Honorine Joubert’
Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon’
Cyclamen Self set hardy variety
Clematis ‘Jackmanii’
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
Cosmos ‘Versailles tetra’
Aster ‘Starshine’
Dahlia David Howard
Rosa ‘Queen of Sweden’
Clematis ‘Lady Betty Balfour’
Rudbeckia ‘Rustic Dwarfs Mixed’
Rudbeckia x Hirta Hybrida Cherokee Sunset
Helianthemum ‘Ben Fhada’
Phlox paniculata Uspekh
Verbena bonariensis
Aconitum x cammarum ‘Bicolor’
Achillea ‘Credo’
Rosa ‘Ghislaine de Feligonde’
Osteospermum ‘Tresco Purple’
Rudbeckia ‘Herbstone’
Aster praealtus
Rosa ‘Shot Silk’
Rosa ‘Awakening’
Dahlia ‘Twyning’s After Eight’
Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’
Achillea millefolium ‘Terracotta’
Coreopsis ‘Redshift’
Clematis ‘Chelsea’
Salvia ‘Phyllis Fancy’
Rosa ‘Crown Princess Margareta’
Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’
Salvia involocruta bethellii
Dahlia Bishop of Auckland
Sedum ‘not known’
Cerastostigma willmottianum ‘Forest Blue’
Dahlia Bishop of Llandaff
Geranium riversleaianum ‘Mavis Simpson’
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is hosted on the 15th of each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Visit her blog to see what is blooming in gardens around the world.
| 2017 Gardening Hours | ||
| Week beginning October 7th |
Total 2017 to-date | Average per week |
| 33 | 847 | 21 |
Roses, Roses, Roses
This year the roses have been particularly good and this week I have featured some of the roses that were out today.
Rosa ‘Jacques Cartier’
Rosa ‘Bonica’
A Noname but looks like a David Austin rose so some research required
Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’
Rosa Bobby James
Rosa ‘Bonica’ as a standard rose
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
Rosa Iceberg
Rosa ‘Eglantyne’
Rosa ‘Strawberry Hill’
Rosa ‘Empress Josephine’
Rosa ‘Strawberry Hill’
Rosa ‘Strawberry Hill’
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
Rosa ‘Sombreuil’
Rosa ‘Alfred de Dalmas’
Rosa ‘Awakening’
Rosa ‘Anne Boleyn’
Rosa ‘Crocus Rose’
Rosa Felicite Perpetue
Rosa Felicite Perpetue
Rose Ballerina
Rosa ‘Joseph’s Coat’
Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’
Rosa ‘Kent’
Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’
Rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’
A photographic blog as we have been away and time is short.
| 2017 Gardening Hours | ||
| Week beginning June 17th | Total 2017 to-date | Average per week |
| 0 | 558 | 22 |
Looking forward to spring and summer
It has been a cold, wet and windy week so I thought I would share with you some of the delights from spring and summer.
There is lots to look forward to and spring is on its way.
Glebe House Garden
A couple of days in the garden this week. Turned one of the compost bins. An ideal job to keep you warm. The dahlia tubers have been upside down and drying out in the garage. Have potted them up in dry potting compost ready to start them off at the end of February.
| Gardening Hours | ||
| This week | Total since June 19th | Average per week |
| 14 | 512 | 17 |
Creating and maintaining a pleached lime hedge
The pleached lime hedge in full summer splendor and below a week ago. 
The hedge was planted about 17 years ago as we were developing the structure of the garden.
If you get the leaflet from the RHS on pleaching hedges then they suggest putting in metal posts with wires to train the horizontals as they grow. At the time I certainly did not have the time or inclination to set up the wires so I created a frame using bamboo fixed to the trees themselves. 
Each year the hedge was tied in and, as the trees grow, new bamboo layers were fixed in place to train in the new growth.
The lime trees are Tila platyphyllos rubra and are under-planted with Rosa Alfred de Dalmas and Lavandula augustifolia Hidcote together with alliums and lilies. The alliums have been a great success but the lilies are no longer present.
The photograph above is about the third summer after planting.
The hedge above is at the height we have had it for many years. The bamboo frame has more or less rotted away and we think the hedge looks great. .In spring the alliums stand out against the new leaves of the hedge and roses.
And in summer the roses come into their own. In this photograph there are a lot of allium seed heads which I remove as I have found that leaving them results in far too many alliums the following year.
Rosa Alfred de Dalmas is a Mossy Damask shrub rose with creamy pink, semi-double cupped flowers with yellow stamens, and a delicate sweet scent that attracts pollinators. It flowers from mid-June to November and benefits from lush foliage and tidy manageable growth. Its moss is greeny pink, turning to russet red on older shoots.
Hedge maintenance
Once a year there is a significant job to be done to keep the border looking good. 
First the roses are cut back and any dead wood is removed. The vertical bamboo are a relatively new addition. I have planted a range of clematis that are designed to grow into the hedge to give late summer interest. It is early days but it seems to work. The clematis are Clematis Blue Angel, Clematis Perle d’Azur and Clematis Ville de Lyon.
The side of the hedge facing the lawn together with the top is then cut. I find it is best to do this with secateurs either reducing the shoots to a single bud or weaving the shoot into the structure as required.
Almost complete, just the cuttings to shred ready for the compost!
The finished hedge. A once a year job but it is worth it giving a unique pleached lime hedge.
Technically the hedge is not a traditional pleached lime hedge which would have very distinct horizontals. 
However, take a look at the pruned hedge and you can see that it creates an enormous amount of winter interest and makes an effective hedge.
| Gardening Hours | ||
| This week | Total since June 19th | Average per week |
| 15 | 498 | 17 |
Glebe House Garden 