Weekly catch up with garden and propagation

This week in the Garden

with gardener Scott

After a short break working at Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland, it was great for me to get back to the gardens at Beth's and to meet our intern Dylan from Inner Temple Gardens. He's been a great help in the garden and propagation.

I've been interested to see first hand how the garden has handled the prolonged period of heat and extreme dry of the last fortnight and as expected, the borders are standing up to the testing conditions. Tough resilient plants thriving in the soil and aspect they demand, without any watering, a true testament to the Beth's ethos of right plant, right place.

We began the week setting out our plant ident for visitors. Malin and Dylan gathered a collection of plants that are looking good in the garden now, before filling out Visitor Centre with the display. It's a great learning opportunity for us and our visitors.

Next, we moved through the borders of the outer Reservoir Garden and on to the big central Bulb Bed, weeding and removing spent brown material, and cutting back plants for fresh growth to come through. We found lots of Poke weed seedlings (Phytolacca americana) that needed taking out, but took time to admire the tall flower spikes first.

We then gave Beth's succulent display a tidy, with weeds taking advantage of the cooler, damper spaces between the pots, before moving on to the beds either side of the Scree steps where we removed spent foxgloves and deadheaded both Dahlia merckii and silene. A busy week in the heat.

Enjoy your weekend!

This week in propagation

It's been a super week over in the growing department! Here's what we've been up to...

Kirsten, Pete, Callum and Kiran had the right idea, heading into our shade tunnels, sheltering from the oppressive sun which had made each movement this week a little tougher. The gang have been working their way through an array of pulmonaria, heuchera and tiarella, checking plant health and keeping hygiene tip-top. They've done a brilliant job!

Emily has been working away on the nursery benches, where we display some of our more unusual and striking plants of the moment. One which has proven to be a star with our patrons is the big DDD, also known as Delosperma Desert Dancers 'Purple'. Bred in Japan by Nishikawa Koichiro, this beauty sports groundbreaking dark foliage, colouring deepest, darkest purple in this case, and attended by the most wonderful neon purple flowers.

Elsewhere, Debs, Emily and Dylan have been weaving their magic on the propagation desks, potting up some gorgeous varieties of sempervivum, such as S. 'Allionii' pictured. Dylan also leant his skills to the much-loved Sagina subulata var. glabrata 'Aurea', a vibrant, moss-like mat of a plant, speckled with white flower stars. A real favourite!

Finally, Mattie's packed the van and hit the road, headed for The RHS Sandringham Flower Show! Mattie's design, (I've had a sneak peak and it's absolutely sensational!) brings into focus the importance of gardeners in respect to our changing climate. It's a thing of incredible beauty, so if you're at Sandringham, go take a look and say hello. The hard work and dedication Mattie has placed into the project is staggering, and we are all immensely proud.

Until next time.

Rob