Another week in Lockdown

Betley Court daffodils, up by the barbeque area

It’s curious how we’re all adjusting to lockdown in the UK. We’re finding ways to carry on working around Betley Court Gardens whilst adapting to the new rules. Meetings Nigel might otherwise have had face-to-face are conducted through conference calls. An essential meeting with a contractor was conducted with both parties on opposite side of the carpark, projecting their voices to be heard; as absurd as it sounds! Melvyn and Shane are managing a way of socially distancing themselves as they work on landscaping around the visitors’ hub. There are always plenty of jobs to do, and in a ten-acre garden, everyone is finding their own safe space.

Planting irises in the borders

I’ve been weeding the flower borders at the front of the house, and trying to get on top of some of our peskiest colonizing species. This side of the house faces south, and April has been very warm indeed, making the work very pleasant. Plants, like the lilies I planted last year, have re-emerged and it is lovely when something new pops up as if to say, ‘hello!’.

Daffs in the borders

Sadly, some plants haven’t made it through the winter, which is always upsetting, but never mind. It makes room for a different plant to be tried.  Despite their southern aspect, the borders are desiccated by sharp winds that whistles in from Shropshire, and the Welsh hills in the colder months. This is no place for the delicate specimen, and rugged tried-and-tested favourites tend to do best here. Another issue is that William Barron lowered the lawn when he re-modelled the gardens in 1865, and in doing so, created what we gardeners call a ‘frost pocket’. As the name suggests, cold air rolls down and collects on the lowered lawn. This can be enough to kill unestablished or tender plants and it is a challenging micro-climate to deal with.

The daffodils I mentioned last week are still looking wonderful. In sunnier patches, the English bluebells (Hyacinthiodes non-scripta) have come into flower already.

English bluebells (Hyacythoides non-scripta)

I’ve been looking for someone to identify the daffodils properly and by coincidence, my sister and her husband mentioned that they had enjoyed a glamping holiday at a heritage daffodil nursery. The nursery is Croft 16 Daffodils all the way up in Inverasdale, in northwest Scotland, and their website is a mine of narcissus-based information. I have a lot to learn about daffodils, that’s for sure. I’ve also been finding out about daffodil divisions, the groupings that daffodils are placed in by horticulturalists, from another website, aptly named The Daffodil Site. The site’s aim is to help you identify daffodil cultivars. I’ll need to get a move on if I want to put names to these daffs before the flowers fade!

The COVID19 pandemic has brought a lot of challenges, but it has also brought some unexpected delights. Whilst I can’t travel to visit gardens, I have been revisiting some favourite gardens through books written about them. I am currently reading Derek Jarmon’s Modern Nature, based on diary entries he made from Prospect Cottage, the little fishing cottage he bought on Dungeness beach. It is famous for its ‘found’ garden, with flower beds made from large pebbles, and ornamentation made from flotsam and jetsam collected from the beach. It a record of a truly visionary man’s working process and I think, so revolutionary in that he re-imagined what a garden could be in the most challenging of growing conditions.

I plan to revisit the Lost Gardens of Heligan next, through the pages of Tim Smit’s book about the restoration of this Cornish garden. This has a special place in my heart, as it was given to me by Nigel when our youngest was in intensive care following a difficult birth. There were many trying hours to get through, and the only time I was able to escape the hospital was by visiting Heligan via Smit’s stories. Some eight years later, I finally managed to visit the Lost Gardens of Heligan while we were on holiday, and it was amazing how similar the gardens I’d pictured were to the reality. The gift of a good garden writer at work, I think!

Take care out there,

All best wishes

Ladybird Su