We have been at our new home in Presteigne on the Welsh border for a full 12 months.
We have familiarised ourselves with the richly planted garden. It was created largely by former-owner-but-one Susie Arbuthnott, doubtless with plants and advice from her sister-in-law Louisa Arbuthnott, creator of Stone House Cottage Garden, a remarkable couple of plantsman’s acres near Kidderminster.
Outstanding among so many treasures are the peonies – vast clumps in every shade from blush to blood. Sadly, they’re not labelled but I am making enquiries.
Similarly, roses proliferate. Supreme among those I can easily identify are deliciously scented Rosa californica ‘Plena’, bred by Rudolf Geschwind in Bohemia as long ago as 1894.
Ours was head to toe in flower for a full six weeks from late May, towering to a height of ten feet. David Austin lauded its deep pink flowers, which cascade downwards on pendulous stems.
One of my all-time favourites is R ‘Complicata’, perhaps a R canina or R macrantha hybrid, which the late great rosarian Graham Stuart Thomas described as having ‘strong, arching branches reaching up to five feet in height and as much across, well-clothed in large, pointed clear green leaves. The large blooms, as much as five inches wide, are single, of pure brilliant pink, paling to white around the circle of yellow stamens.’
It is, he added, ‘without doubt one of the most strikingly beautiful of single pink roses, and is a good hearty plant.’
Among them are the diminutive Syringa persica and a lofty Cistus x aguilarii, kindly identified for us from my Instagram photograph by Filippo Dimatteo in Majorca.
I can’t identify the garden’s many herbaceous perennial geraniums, but I’m glad they’re there -– despite predominant shades of pink. Because I cut their spent stems after their first flush of flowering, they gave themselves half-generously again to keep the borders looking (reasonably) fresh throughout this past summer’s wretched heatwaves.
To stoke more contrast into the beds, I’m introducing several blue-flowering geraniums – ones that I’ve grown in previous gardens and which are ‘such good doers’.
Best among them – from memory – was ‘Kashmir Blue’, of free-flowering habit (better still when deadheaded). It’s mound-forming, with deeply lobed, mid-green leaves and cup-shaped, pale-blue flowers with deeper-blue veins.
‘Johnson’s Blue’, always (deservedly) popular is, again, a fully hardy cranesbill, featuring lavender-blue, saucer-shaped flowers, deeply divided mid-green leaves and a resilient, clump-forming habit.
‘Spinners’ was presumably named or raised by the late Peter Chappell at his wonderful nursery near Lymington, deep in the New Forest. It’s another clump-former, with green, often red in autumn, deeply-incised, lobed foliage, on stems up to 30 inches high and across.
I’m trying some new-to-me ones as well. ‘Orion’ is said to bear masses of very large, cup-shaped, lavender-blue flowers.
And ‘Azure Rush’, more compact than its well-known parent ‘Rozanne’, with light, lavender-blue flowers, boasts a long flowering period from early summer to, well, now.
And I’m putting in ‘Rozanne’ herself, the celebrated RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Centenary in 2013. She’s almost unstoppable, captivating us by her long blooming period, stunning lavender-blue flowers with a white eye and purple veining.
She thrives in full sun to partial shade and well-drained soil, and, according to the RHS, ‘ties garden designs together with its cohesive flow of colour and form. It softens edges, fills gaps, and adds lasting interest alongside shrubs.’
Have I got the blues? Indeedy.
David’s Instagram account is @hortusjournal
