Weekly catch up with garden and propagation

It’s been another dry week in the garden, big grey clouds have been teasing us on the horizon but the showers we’ve had have barely been enough to wet the ground. Despite the dry weather the garden is humming with life and changing daily. This time of year the Reservoir garden looks its best with the cercis still covered in pink flowers and irises, eremurus and nepetas putting on a show. Last autumn we had all our interns back for a big reunion and spent a day planting up gaps in the beds - we’re loving watching all of the things they planted popping up everywhere, adding layers of colour and interest throughout.

We’ve been joined by interns Julia from Capel Manor and Chloe @chloeahayes from Wisley this week. They’ve been superstars helping us weed and edge the beds, treading carefully to not step on the abundance of seedling poppies that will flower in a few weeks time.

On Friday we had the team from the Horniman gardens @hornimanmuseumgardens visit us. We went to spend a day with them in April and now we were happy to welcome them back here and show them around Beth’s garden. We had time for tours around the garden and behind the scenes, they helped us deadhead a whole bunch of euphorbias in the bulb bed, but most of all we chatted about all things plants!

The rest of the week we’re working on making the garden look absolutely spick and span for Chelsea week - do come and see us!

Propagation team

with Rob

The big news of the week certainly belongs to the nursery, with a new sand planting display erected! For the next few weeks this stunning creation by Emily, Åsa and Ned will be able to be enjoyed by those visiting the gardens. The installation showcases the possibilities when planting into sand and has been constructed around a great totem, recycled from wood belonging to the old garden kiosk. Nicola and Jim brought their artistic talents to the totem, incorporating a stencil cutout and drill holes for bees to utilise. It is breathtaking!

Elsewhere, propagation has been at a boom! Emily and Kirsten have been working their magic at both the seedlings and cuttings desks. We were very fortunate to welcome Sally from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Julia from Capel Manor College into the department for some propagation focused days. Thank you, both, for sharing your passion and skills with us. We hope we returned the favour!

One plant tackled by the team this week was Dictamnus albus var. albus.

Our head horticulturist Steve has this to say on the treasure:

'An arresting sight when a mature plant it carries many stems topped with spires of white, lily-like flowers, clothed in green divided leaves, smelling delicious, of lemons. Curious, star-shaped seedpods are a bonus for dried flower arrangers.'

Steve took a break from writing gorgeously about our plants to carry out some planting! Two borders beside the shop on the nursery have received some special treatment, where Steve has chosen to celebrate a variety of dry loving plants from genus such as euphorbia, salvia, lavandula and pseudodictamnus, to name a handful.

Richard has been a one man dividing machine this week! One of the several plants Rich has lifted from our stockbeds, split and potted up was Onoclea sensibilis, known commonly as the Sensitive fern. It's a beautiful choice of ground cover for waterside locations. One to add to the list for those lucky enough to have a pond in their garden.

Finally, Emily and Debs pulled on their experience at packing many plants into not so much space, as we waved goodbye to the plants Emily has loved and nurtured, which will be a part of The Bat Conservation Trust's Nocturnal Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.