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Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’, Regent’s Park, 4 May 2021

Epimedium x versicolor ‘Sulphureum’, Regent’s Park, 4 May 2021

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KING’S CROSS KINDERGARTEN // Small detour via King’s Cross after a local errand. The kindergarten on the eastern side of the development tends to be overlooked but it has rather wonderful planting with great textures and tactile foliage - do the kids like it? The Heptacodium and Cotinus have perfect proportions for the site and the underplanting retains the scale. Some patches (public planting) but on the whole looking pretty good. Cast list (not exhaustive): Ballotta (new name: Pseudodictamnus), Stachys byzantina, origanum, Ceratostigma plumbagoides, Eurybia, Indigofera, Baptisia, Perovskia. Cotinus + Perovskia = winning combo.

WOODLAND EDGE // Hesitation on the woodland edge this year. Plants have relished the wet spring. Lots of lush foliage and confident green leaves, but the cool temperatures have delayed flower interest. Daphne ‘Eternal Fragrance’ is already out and filling the air with its slightly heady scent, the tufts of Luzula nivea are like tiny raised hands among the greenery, and the Geranium sanguineum are cavorting with ferns and hellebores. But really, it’s still all about textures. And that’s quite nice.

UPWARDLY MOBILE // Bumble bee making its way up a Digitalis lutea one flower at a time. Lovely near-native foxglove that can grow up to 1.5m, with small, pale yellow tubular flowers and a bright green rosette of basal leaves that often persists through the winter. Unlike D. purpurea, this is a perennial and copes quite well with dry soil in the shade, and it will also self seed if given the chance. Just lovely. Grow it with the usual suspects: ferns, hellebores and epimedium, but also good in sunnier MBWD positions with Agastache, Salvias, and Nepeta.

INSPIRED BY PLANTS // Narrow vessel inspired by the knobbly spines of the Sichuan pepper tree (Zanthoxylum piperitum) in Chelsea Physic Garden. Fleck, thrown, with coarse hand-worked slip for the rough outside, iron oxyde, and smooth white slip inside; reduction firing.

BETH CHATTO GARDENS // Wonderful day, as ever, at the Beth Chatto gardens yesterday, with the equally wonderful Level 3 students. The gravel garden looking exceptionally generous and colourful. Interesting to see how, compared with this time last year, the rain had noticeably lushened (?) a lot of plants around the gardens, how the recent hot and sunny days had hastened flowering for some, and how the earlier cold spells had delayed others. And warmest thanks to head gardener Åsa Gregers-Warg for spending some of the morning with us.

Last of the phlox given an early Chelsea chop in the Sunken Lawn borders, in St John’s Lodge gardens. Everything suddenly looking lush and colourful after a sunny weekend and the rain.

SPEED SKETCHING // Quick watercolour sketch from photo, starting with loose colour forms, paint just daubed around the approximate space occupied by the plants, and then applying texture in pen. The idea is to sketch quickly, capturing the overall forms and texture without getting lost in the detail. Additional challenge: not wearing glasses, so trusting your hands with the colours and lines, and merrily letting go. The only paint added afterwards is Chinese White, which is opaque, dotted with a 00 brush straight from the tube, for the Libertia - which is what caught my eye after a conversation with Level 3 students about what to plant with it.

KITCHEN GARDEN, HAM HOUSE // Restored a few years ago based on a late 17th century plan showing a long rectilinear plot divided into eight rectangles subdivided in quarters. An earlier plan indicates a walled garden on the same spot, arranged in rows. Thoughtful approach using plants listed in historic documents where possible (peaches, vines, apples, cherries, pears, artichokes and even oranges and lemons), and now run on organic principles. And that sky!

INTO THE WILDERNESS - A very tame wilderness, that is, 18th-century style, at Ham House. These informal areas became popular in the early 1700s, partly as a reaction to the previously fashionable formal style, with its symmetrical layouts and orderly parterres. Except that these wilderness gardens are usually anything but wild, designed on a linear framework to create geometric shapes that are overlaid with looser, sinuous paths that intersect with the straight avenues. Contrived? Of course, but what a delightful place.

Another view of the Mediterranean garden in Queen Mary’s Gardens, this time, after a weeding session last week.

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