The long sunny weather of this spring has been glorious for the wonderful display of flowers that has been produced. Right from February, with the Snowdrops, to March, with spectacular magnolias, followed by Daffodils and Bluebells and a wonderful kaleidoscope of colour from our 12 different Wisterias, dripping of racemes of flowers from the arbour. To now, with the emergence of the vast colourful herbaceous plants which fill our herbaceous borders by the walled garden and the borders around the lakes brimming with Candelabra Primulas in a wide range of pastel shades, this is a wonderful time to visit the gardens.
We are now in the process of replanting our Bog Garden. It consists of a large wide area in the middle of the gardens with a stream running through it between two lakes with naturally wet and moist soil ideal for a range of moisture loving plants. Primulas, Iris, Astilbes and Day Lilies dominate the area with Ligularias and Arunchus providing extra height to the scene. We have taken the opportunity to replant this area this year and introduce some new plants to the scene.
One of the most impressive sights now is our Cornus Kousa trees, covered in creamy white or pink flowers. Known commonly as dogwoods they are native of Japan and seemingly get better with age.
They were planted in the 1990s, all as seedlings and as they have grown and matured they have revealed different characteristics as all seedlings do. The better ones we have named them as they are quite distinct. Cornus Kousa ‘Marwood Twilight’ has unique bluish foliage similar to the sky as it nears twilight, ‘Marwood Dawn’ on the other hand has petals of a unique dusky pink just like dawn breaking in the early morning. ‘Marwood Cream’ has striking creamy white petals. All of them flowering for 4 to 5 weeks and making statuesque bushes. The Chinese form of Cornus Kousa makes a much bigger bush and is adorned with white flowers covering the whole tree. A glorious sight planted just below our scree garden. All of these we propagate by grafting them as they will not root from cuttings and seed raised plants take many years before they flower. However grafted plants will flower after 2 to 3 years.
Our other new exciting planting is a new jungle garden located by the side of the bog garden by the path on the way down to the lower lake. It is an area that hasn’t been planted up before and taking advantage of the hotter summers and milder winters, we are planting several banana plants and other tropical plants to give a jungly feel as you walk through the area. Danny who joined us this year has an impressive garden of his own in Braunton and grows nearly 20 different forms of banana plants as well as weird and exotic unusual plants which are great to try and should be hardier now with the change to a warmer climate.
Already our large collection of Astilbes planted between the two top lakes is erupting into a riot of colourful flowers show casing the wide range of colours, shapes and leaf textures of the 100 to 150 different cultivars contained in the 3 beds. Probably the largest collection of Astilbes in the world they are a wow factor in the garden for the next two months.
With long sunny days this is an ideal time for a leisurely stroll around these 20-acre gardens with lots of different plants about. A very popular finish is to the tea-rooms which serve light lunches and the ever-popular Cream teas and cakes including Ginger scones.
Of course, we also have our wide range of home-grown plants in our Plant Sales area in the walled garden. A huge range of attractive plants many very unusual and propagated at the gardens from material growing in the grounds.
