December 2023
Hello Everyone
As I start to write, there is loud thunder and heavy rain outside. The good thing about the rain is that our gardens are being watered, as they have been plentifully during the spring in Canterbury.
This is a very busy time of the year for many people and so I'm going to give some snapshots and short captions of things that have happened in the garden recently.
Photo 1: Dating back to 1823, this is Rosa 'Amelia' which has flowered beautifully this year. Once flowering, as with many of the very old roses, ‘Amelia’ is highly fragrant. There is also a modern bush rose called Amelia.
Photo 2: One of my favourite scenes in late spring is the rose ‘Blairii No.2’ flowering gently through the Prunus autumnalis. The flower’s colouring always fascinates me with its deeper pink in the centre and lighter pink on the outside. At some stages of its flowering the colour gradation is quite subtle.
Photo 3: Looking down on a section of the parterre from upstairs. Thuja ‘Smaragd’, the mahogany-barked cherry, Prunus serrula, box hedging and yew provide a restful green scene.
Photo 4: Malfi enjoying her life at Frensham, on a sturdy rock in the hot dry-loving garden. She is surrounded by Cornus pumila, Filipendula rubra, Verbena bonariensis, Artemesia canescens, and the white-flowering Catanache caerulea. I’ll try and remember to have this same scene photographed in a month’s time for the next newsletter, if my model will oblige.
There are still lots of plants in the shade house waiting to be planted out, and with the rains and cooler temperatures that we have been having frequently, there is still time. Our extended woodland area is continuing to develop very well and the plants are all thriving.
Best wishes to you all at the end of my eleventh year of writing newsletters,
Margaret
