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The Newt and Hadspen Garden

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  Astrantia Hapsdens Blood Are you wondering what The Newt, who are sponsoring the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show, is?     Hadspen Garden Hadspen has been a noted garden since the 17th century. A superb two hectare south-facing site built upon the original kitchen garden for the house and set against a backdrop of mature deciduous woodland. In the middle years of the 20th century , Penelope Hobhouse, one of our most distinguished garden writers and designers, lived there and made a garden that was the subject of her first book, The Country Garden.  The original nursery was established by Penelope Hobhouse and Eric Smith, (plantsman and breeder). A number of famous varieties including Anemone, Astrantia, Hellebores, Brunnera and Hostas were bred and many still bear the Hadspen name. The garden was opened to visitors in 1970. A couple of decades later, two Canadian horticulturalists, Nori and Sandra Pope, explored and experimented with colour themes in the parabola‑shaped walled garde
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The Herbarium - is it magic or a warehouse of birth certificates for plants?

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As the snow falls today I am reminded that much of the beauty of where we live is created by plants.   Today all is white. The flurry of snowfall covers the Hellebores in my garden so I bring them inside.     There are an estimated 321,000 species of wild plants and hundreds of thousands of cultivated plants, known as cultivars, on our planet.    They bring joy to us all. Here in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria, we have many plants that were imported at the height of the industrial revolution (a period generally spanning from 1760 to 1840).  Wealthy “Northern Industrialists” sent “Plant Hunters” all over the world in search of rare and unusual species for the gardens of their holiday homes in the Lakes. Today botanists and horticulturists have multiple ways to understand such huge diversity but a particularly important tool is the Herbarium. Herbariums are rather like plant libraries, a repository of information, cataloguing where plants come from and by who they were co
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The Best Places to see snowdrops in Cumbria and the Lake District

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  Snowdrop walks in winter are increasingly popular. Cumbria hosts many wonderful places to see swathes of snowdrops.    Grizedale Forest, Tarn Howes, Grasmere, Sizergh Castle, Dalemain, Dalston or Brockhole, the Lake District National Park's Visitor Centre, all of these places you can visit tomorrow that produce breath taking rewards. Take a wander through the snowdrops that carpet the woodland walks at Crowdundle Beck, Acorn Bank, Temple Sowerby.  Snowdrops - the symbol of hope  The soil is sleeping now.    There is a surge of activity to come.   The first snowdrops are poking their tiny buds above the sodden earth as if to enquire whether it is safe to emerge. The white bell shaped flowers, with smooth dull, green narrow leaves, are the first sign that spring is on the way.    The snowdrop does not have petals but instead has six white flower segments, known as tepals.    There are two structures three outer, convex in shape, and three inner, that are shorter, and have a small g
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Lenten Roses, Helleborus x hybridudus for Easter

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With the Easter Holidays fast approaching it seems appropriate to write about the Lenten Rose or to use their proper name Helleborus x hybridus, a plant that looks good from January to May.     Hellebores are easy to grown and undemanding. The foliage is evergreen and bold.    Some of the new hybrids have marbled leaves that look as gorgeous as the flower.    When the seed sets the sepals are beautiful, slowly turning green.         Hellebores tolerate full sun to almost full shade.   The colours of their sepals are varied, apricot, damson, grey, crimson, soft green, black and white.    Most Hellebores have downward facing flowers that protect the pollen from rain sheltering the insects that feed on them.   Bees love hellebores their colours, spots and stripes.    Double or single these pollen rich flowers are the first to attract bumble bees in winter. Hellebores thrive in rich, moisture-retentive soil but are not lovers of boggy conditions.   The plants lend themselves to informal pl
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Narcissus pseudonnarcissus - the native wild daffodil

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  A nymph named Echo fell in love with a young Greek called Narcissus.     According to Greek mythology Narcissus broke Echo’s heart so she lived alone until nothing but the ricochet of her echo remained. Nemesis, the Goddess of divine retribution and revenge, heard of the story and lured Narcissus to a pond.     Handsome and vain, Narcissus saw his mirror image in the pool.     He leaned forward to see himself.    Narcissus fell in the pond, drowned and turned into a flower. The Narcissus flower was brought to England by the Romans who thought the sap from the plant had healing powers. The common name for Narcissus is daffodil.     The flowers have a central trumpet surrounded by six petal like tepals that are usually yellow or white.    The flowers stand on sturdy stems, above slender leaves, reaching from just 8 ins (20 cm) tall up to 20 ins (50 cm) depending on the cultivar. Within the English Lake District National Park the most common perennial flowering plant is Narcissus
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St Valentine and snowdrops

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Why are red roses the most popular flower to be gifted on St. Valentine's Day? In Britain we are in mid-winter, the soil is sleeping and roses have a long way to travel before reaching our doorsteps.  The skull that might be of St. Valentine lives in a reliquary in a basilica in Rome            Snowdrops at Lowther Castle Gardens this week On this day, 14th February 2022, in Cumbria the first snowdrops are coming into flower, their tiny buds peep above the sodden earth, as if asking  "is safe to emerge?" The white bell shaped flowers, with smooth dull, green narrow leaves, are the first sign that spring is on the way.   So why not give snowdrops instead of roses? People ask St. Valentine to watch over the lives of lovers but he is also responsible for beekeeping, epilepsy, the plague, fainting and travelling. Snowdrops have medicinal uses.    The plant has been used for treatment of traumatic injuries to the nervous system for hundreds of years.     Extract of snowdrop wa
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Eden Project North

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  T he industrial revolution created massive growth in towns and cities.     People lamented the loss of the rural idyll, the farm and cottage gardens with old fashioned borders of mixed shrubs and herbs.    Pollution, smog and toxic waste contaminated our cities as they grew larger and larger. A new style of English garden was created by Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932).    Nostalgia for the pastoral scene inspired her to reintroduce the herbaceous border, plant hardy flowers in drifts, use restricted colour palates.                                       Gertrude Jekyll by William Nicholson                                         Gertrude Jekyll was an energetic lady, born in London to a wealthy family, a talented artist.    When her eyesight failed she established a partnership with Edwin Lutyens and together they created more than 400 gardens. She drafted her designs with an artist’s eye. Sadly with the effects of the First World War (1914-1918) many gardens were kept going by old
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Dead Hedges

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  The wind is pummelling the gardens.     The 1 st February 2022 three major storms – Arwen, Malik and Corrie.    In the midst of November 2021 we were without electricity for 4 ½ days. Snow has twice covered the soil.     Yet through January 2022 the land has seen little rain. Strange weather patterns, strange times.   Andy Goldsworthy: Woodland Branch Arch I have been experimenting.      Inspired by landscapers and artist, Andy Goldsworthy, I have dragged branches through the garden into the field on a brilliant blue plastic sheet and woven them together to create “dry hedges”.     Shelter belts for insects and animals.   Nigel Dunnet - Woven Branch Circle Pruning has taken priority – roses, deciduous shrubs but not evergreen, I will leave these until May. The cuttings have always been a problem.     In the past I have had massive bonfires but lessons learnt at Newton Rigg College have encouraged me to be more resourceful with the remnants of my pruning. This winter I have
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Penrith in Bloom

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Here is a link to an amazing video.    The community of Penrith, a small town close to my home, have achieved amazing horticultural results and this year won two Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Outstanding Community Awards for "Cultivating your Community" and  "Nourishing your Community". The Garden of Eden-Penrith Community Gardeners led by Joan Robinson also achived an Achievement Award for "Nature Friendly Gardening". Penrith within the District Council of Eden is the only area within the UK to gain two awards.     Penrith in Bloom 2021 Penrith in Bloom 2021
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'rhododendromania'

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Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) is recognised as the most important botanist of the19thand one of the key scientists of his age.    A close friend of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Joseph Hooker was an extraordinary man - a prolific author, the second director of the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew (today a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and he instigated "rhododendromania". Rhododendron arboreum From late 1848 Joseph Hooker spent three and a half exhausting years in India exploring some of the most inaccessible terrain in the world.    He arrived home to rapturous welcome on 26th March 1851. The first expedition arrived back in Darjeeling on 2nd January 1849 with a collection so great that it took him six weeks to arrange a catalogue and pack the "80 coolie loads" of specimens that were to be sent back to Kew. The second exhibition took Hooker to the Chola and Yakia Passes in eastern Sikkim, a wild, mountainous and inhospitable country squeezed between Nepal, Tibet and
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