Charingworth Court Cotswolds Garden

We don’t open the garden this late in the year but it looks good enough this year. We have several varieties of buddleia and they are covered in butterflies today.

Red gooseberries, a huge plate of red cherries and potatoes and courgettes.

The garden was a great backdrop for the wedding party of Gemma and Joshua

Early this morning we had a professional photographer arrive to take some shots for a magazine article next year. That meant a couple of hours of weeding, grass cutting and general tidying on Sunday evening. It was good to see how little work there is at the moment in this area of the garden especially as the vegetable garden is growing weeds at a rate of knots. I wondered how the garden would look so early but it was bright and the sun came out so I guess it was fine. Before I rushed off to an early meeting, I took these shots from my bedroom window.

This morning the weather forecaster talked about high pressure. I’m sure he did and it definitely wasn’t a dream! And today the sun is shining and there is real warmth in the air and the garden has a feeling of summer. There are roses in full bloom, lavender now beyond a blue haze, kolkwitzia and buddleia alternifolia, iris and geraniums, peonies and astrantia. Sprinkled everywhere are nigella from white through pale blue to navy making a carpet of colour in the beds. And best of all I have dug the first potatoes, there are broad beans ready and the first mange tout have set. Hurrah for summer!

Today the pond was covered in mayflies (red, blue and green) and literally writhing with tadpoles. The blackbirds are in a frenzy of tadpole eating as there are so many of them and soon we will be knee deep in mini frogs. Looking at all the bright pink flowers around, you can see what I love. The Bellini dahlias are amazing and the dancing butterfly peony won’t be in flower for long but it’s worth it!

The montana and wisteria are almost over but the philadelphus, viburnum mariesii, deutzia and roses are in full flower and scent! The geraniums and erodiums are flowering in every part of the garden – dozens of varieties and colours. This is Kashmir white though it is really pale pink.

The sun shone occasionally and the rain held off apart from a couple of showers so we were relatively lucky. The umbrella really wasn’t needed at this point! The lavender has a purple haze and the roses are just coming out but everything in the garden (including the gardeners!) desperately needs some sun.

The iris are late but tall and stately this year. With the sun shining through them they looked beautiful this evening. The waterlilies are out at last and the tadpoles are growing. There are at least 6 blackbirds chasing each other round the pond with the odd skirmish as they head for a tadpole snack!

We’ve been bust buying and planting up pots today. Some of our pots had cracked or lost their tops and were sharp and so dangerous. Toddington garden centre has some nice clay ones that are pale rather than orange so we bought a mixture of sizes. Of course then we needed more plants to fill them! Mrs Morris served and us and wondered if the garden centre will survive once our garden opening and wedding are over!
The dahlia is called Bellini and the Osteospernum are Summertime Cardinal. The geranium is Designer Pink Splash and then there is white lobelia and various verbena dotted around. And Richard has been busy making wooden supports for the fruit. He is looking very brown after several days in the garden.

Today we have been working on the walled garden where the weather has meant that the vegetables are well behind schedule. We have weeded beds and planted courgettes and beans. The sweetcorn and tomatoes have struggled with the weather but it seems to have suited the clematis montanas. The top one is Marjorie, detail in the second picture, and the next is Broughton Star. The bottom one is Odorata. If only you could smell it – it is exquisite!

As it is almost June, Richard planted out the dahlias in the walled garden. The report on this spring says it has been one of the coldest on record and the plants certainly seem to have noticed!

A great day in the garden with loads of visitors on the art trail to see sculpture and textiles. Selling well!

The sun has shone and everyone has enjoyed the garden much more even though it was cold! I had my boots and winter coat on….

Just a taste of what you will see in the garden.

I’ve been trying to garden today but it has rained and hailed so much that several times I have had to run for cover! The tulips aren’t quite sure what is happening but these rather elegant dark Paul Scherer seem to be standing tall despite everything the weather can throw at them. The honeysuckle has enjoyed the drink and the good news is that I don’t need to do any watering !

The Adirondack chairs look good – if only we had time to sit down in them! Still it’s been a beautiful weekend so far with the sun really encoraging the trees to open as you can see with the copper beeches. And the clouds look great reflected in the pond as the water lilies start to spread their leaves across the centre. I hadn’t seen any frogspawn but today there are lots of tiny tadpoles swimming around so there must have been some somewhere!

The Mount Fuji is almost in blossom and the pheasant eye narcissi have opened all at once. The cornus controversa (wedding cake tree) is looking amazingly bright and the pond is full of newts but no frogspawn this year.

I have spent a few hours this afternoon in warm sunshine weeding the beds by the woodland path. Now that most of the leylandii are out there is a lot more light getting through and we should be able to plant a wider range of plants. There are a few wood anemones out and the first blossom is out at last (a pissardii cherry). As ever the pond looks great, this time with the wind rippling the surface of the water. There are lots of newts and the iris are growing at last but no frog spawn. And I saw a bumble bee visit a hellebore – the first I’ve seen this year.

There is still snow on the hill in the distance and huge snow drifts on some roads in the Cotswolds but here in the garden it has warmed up today. You can sense that all the buds are swelling, getting ready to burst out but the hard frosts and biting wind has hit some plants and only the daffodils look really good at present. We are open 6 weeks today which is scarily soon but at least we will have sculpture to look at!

The last owner of this garden who was somewhat eccentric, planted leylandi to hide every house around the property. Over the years we have removed dozens and today we removed most of the ones that remain. Light is now flooding into this part of the garden and should mean we can grow more here and plant new trees.

I can’t keep posting “another dull/snowy/wet/miserable” day. Delete as appropriate! But that is how it is and until it improves there is little work being done and little to show. So here is the garden with snow but at least you can see the hundreds of tete a tete daffodils making a brave show through the cold.

These crocus looked brilliant in the sun this morning and the bee was obviously attracted to them.  

I like to grow a variety of potatoes and I usually buy them from Tuckers in Devon as they have a great range.  This means that I always buy too many and we don’t usually manage to eat all of our crop!  This year we have BF15, Cherie, Charlotte and Pink Fir Apple.  I have also bought Vanessa which is new to me and a first early new red skinned potato.  The rest are salad potatoes that I boil or roast with olive oil and rosemary.  My mouth is watering already and I guess  what you can see here is potential again though it’s food rather than flowers!  And I love the magic of planting one potato and digging up a dozen…