Winter is around the corner and soon the days in the garden will be lost in a sodden haze. This is where berries come to the rescue. Right now Rosa moyesii is at its best with its bottle-shaped orange hips. To get the best from it we have to have a certain amount of untidiness with no deadheading to get the spectacular hips. Other spectacular rose hips that we have here are the rugosas with oval red hips like tomatoes growing near the entrance to our bog garden. Which leads me on to hawthorn – a member of the rose family – with wonderful berries that are fantastic for wildlife. I love hawthorn – not only do they make a glorious tree or hedge but give you blossom, fruit as well as the freshest green spring leaves there are. Another of my absolute favourites is Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’ or beautyberry – and they are – the berries are a vivid metallic purple that shine along bare stems. The shrub itself isn’t up to much really – although it has pleasant autumn colour – the berries is the reason for growing it. It needs full sun to perform best and is ideal for growing in a pot to move in a prominent position when in berry.
Bulb planting is happening in earnest here – we have twelve and a half thousand of them to plant this autumn – with daffodils, camassias, crocus, hyacinths, iris reticulata all going in and now is the ideal month to start tulip planting. A new member has joined the Columbine team – Helen our volunteer who has timed her arrival perfectly to help with all the bulb planting! We’ve also been busy creating a new border on our parterre which we are calling the sundial garden which as the name suggests encircles a sundial in an area we call the bowling green. It will be a romantic frothy border filled with roses, foxgloves, anthriscus, nepeta, bearded irises and other floral treasures and we plan to start planting it up this month. It’s all go!
I love everything about a conker. Nothing has a sheen like a freshly exposed conker and not many seeds are such beautiful objects. They’re like a wonderful polished piece of mahogany. Although conkers are associated with children, it’s one of those grown-up things that anybody in their right mind should celebrate. I went out recently and collected a bowl full for display in our potting shed – although because of the drought and heat this summer they’re smaller, earlier and fewer of them this year. I did some research and apparently the trees were introduced to this country around 1616. The timber of horse chestnuts is soft and very white and ideal for fencing. It was also used for dairy maid’s buckets because if kept wet, it is slow to rot. Who knew? In the Second World War conkers were roasted and ground to make a coffee substitute – according to all accounts it was disgusting. I saw some of our Red Poll cattle eating some conkers the other day – they obviously find them tasty and it doesn’t seem to do them any harm. I’m off now to make some coffee but I think I’ll stick to coffee beans not conkers…
Kate Elliott came to Columbine Hall in 1997 when she was sixteen. She is now head gardener but also helps with managing the property generally and in conducting guided tours.