Mariners Garden

The Mariners calendar for 2012 begins with an atmospheric picture of our garden in January 2011 under a thick coating of snow. A second hard winter took its toll. It makes one consider that perhaps it’s best to concentrate on plants that will put up with hard winter conditions but then one feels like a wimp for not being braver and giving less hardy varieties a chance. Even semi-hardy plants can sometimes prove they can adapt to cope with severe winter weather.

The spring garden continues to develop with larger drifts of snowdrops spreading on the banks above our streamside walk and, near the house, around the base of our hybrid Magnolia, Leonard Messell. However the snowdrops planted to colonise the corners of our meadow have proved disappointing. They cannot compete with the grass here and pheasants have vandalised the opening buds. Last year the daffodils gave us a great show down the grass ride to the rose garden. I planted more of Bravoure in 2011 – a truly lovely fresh looking daffodil with its elegant lemon trumpet.

The main gardening season began with a big blow. Ann, my essential gardening help, broke her wrist and so couldn’t garden. And the garden had to be prepared for a number of gardening groups who had booked in for our June to July opening period. I greatly missed Ann for her gardening skill and for her companionship but if I look back, on the positive side, it taught me to manage the borders efficiently without pottering and wasting time over non-essential details. No leaning on a spade for me.

One of the best features of 2011 was the wild flower meadow – admired by none other than Helen Dillon– which produced an even greater diversity of plants and flowers than the previous year. It’s one of the greatest joys of our garden, particularly because it requires little work from us and is simply cut once a year in late summer. It’s best seen from the seat at the top of the meadow with a glass of white wine in hand. 2011 was the year of the apple. We had a bumper crop of fruit in our small orchard. The plums were good but nothing could compete with the abundance of apples. My larder is stocked with jars of apple jelly and chutney; the deep freeze with bags of chopped apple and, until recently, our cellar had boxes of apples all individually wrapped in newspaper. But every plant that produces fruit was resplendent with berries last autumn and combining as it did with a blaze of autumn leaf colour, created a truly wonderful show.

Last year was our first experience of Japanese groups – the NHK film broadcast in 2010 had given us extensive publicity in Japan – and both Anthony and I enjoyed the experience of such enthusiastic visitors. Our NGS open day was a moderate success due to gathering clouds in the afternoon but the Bradfield WI ladies produced a feast of delicious cakes and refreshing teas. We had a number of large and small German and Dutch groups who I find are all such keen and knowledgeable gardeners. But it’s always a bit worrying if you forget any plant names! Many of them had to contend with atrocious weather during their visits but they all still remained stoical and cheerful. Anthony was relieved that a wet summer produced lawns of perfect green grass without the dry patches that develop in dry conditions. But the Dutch Rose Group had a perfect summer’s day and had a group photograph taken sitting on the grass with Bertie, our West Highland terrier, in attendance. Bertie, very sadly, died unexpectedly in the autumn at the age of fourteen and a half- always to be missed by us.

We are looking forward now to 2012 with the usual mixture of optimism and trepidation which I suppose is common to all gardeners awaiting the start of a new season.

Fingers crossed.