Top July Plants
The sun has set fire to the borders and the Kitchen Garden is in full production
Best Garden Room
The Back Terrace bursts into life come summer. Penstemons and monadas in all shades of red and pink, blue veronicas, bright yellow helianthus and day lilies combine in a primary colour punch. Pictured: Geranium Orion with Anthemis Sauce Hollandaise
Ten plants that are surprisingly popular with pollinators – not those you’d usually think of. The small tortoiseshell butterly above tucks into sea holly bourgatii
Wollerton Old Hall is a patchwork gem of intersecting garden rooms. Off the beaten track but filled with ideas that small gardens can borrow.
The sun sends the temperature soaring in the borders with a host of yellows and oranges bursting out to emblazon the summer.
Top July plants
Crocosmia: arching fireworks
We have five varietes of crocosmia. All are fiery and spectacular, arching over their neighbours. George Davison is a soft orange, Lucifer (pictured) is the best known, Star of the East is an orangle sensation, Limpopo comes in a rare salmon orange and our fifth, Citronella, needs some TLC
Top plants – when they flower – what they bring to the garden
| 1. Penstemon Garnet | May-Oct | Cornet in shades of red and pink |
| 2. Monada | June-Aug | Clawed circles of purple, pink and red |
| 3. Daylily Stafford | May-Aug | Carmine stars with yellow hints |
| 4. Sea Holly Mrs Wilmotts | June-July | Pale ghosts in the border |
| 5. White Corn Cockle | June-July | Immaculate white saucers |
| 6. Geranium Palmatum | May-July | Bubble-gum pink sprays |
| 7. Sweet Pea | May-Aug | Colour and scent inside & out |
| 8. Sea Lavender | June-July | Insubstantial cloud of pale mauve |
| 9. Crocosmia | June-Aug | Arching fire |
| 10. Veronica | June-Aug | Columns of mid-blue |
And more...
| Geranium Anne Folkard |
| Agastache |
| Heuchera |
| Water Lilies |
| Lysimachia |
| Maltese Cross |
| Lavender |
| Echinacea Pallida |
| Gypsophila |
| Veronicastrum |
| Anthemis Sauce Hollandaise |
| Smoke bush |
| Heucherella |
| Thalictrum |
The Back Terrace
The Back Terrace is two long borders, punctuated by sentinal irish yews to make mini bays. It starts humming with blues and yellows in March builds and to a fiery crescendo in July and August with many classic border plants.
Two huge cedar trees shade one end so each bay offers a small variation in conditions from its immediate neighbours.
From the back: Nepeta, Maltese Cross, Daylilies, Geranium Magnificum and Stachys Macrantha are caught in this picture.
Garden Rooms in May
Wollerton Old Hall
Hidden away in the north-east corner of Shropshire, Wollerton is a private garden designed and maintained to the standard of an RHS one. Laid out in imaginative and varied rooms around a 16th century hall it is everyone’s idea of the classic English garden.
So classic, David Austen even named a creamy buff old fashioned rose after it.
Its thickly-planted borders, garden structures to sit in, topiary, and ponds all connected by a latice work of paths make it a delight to wander through.
How well-maintained is it? We couldn’t find any bind-weed!
Wild spectacle: Harebells
These are much more of a rarity than some of the other wild spectacles but worth seeking out. They come in low clusters of pale baby-blue and look too delicate to survive the rigours of the hedgerow.
