December 2021

by anne chambers

It has been a good dry month for getting on with the winter work in the garden and no real frosts or snow yet.  The bulbs are nearly all planted and hellebores are appearing.

Christmas is round the corner and I am having another new knee replacement on Tuesday so a low key time for us and for the first time a London Christmas.

However daughter Clare and I had a wonderful morning earlier in the month at the Covent Garden Flower shop in Chipping Campden where we were taught to make Christmas wreaths.  It was a first for both of us and we thoroughly enjoyed the process, and you can see the results below!

It just remains for us to wish everyone a Very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year

October 2021

by anne chambers

We have been in London for a good part of the month with Johnny recovering from his knee operation.  All went well and he is now walking without crutches and doing his exercises.  I managed to plant bulbs for Patrick and Deborah with whom we were staying so hopefully when their first baby appears next Spring so will the bulbs.

Prue Leith who is a neighbour and friend came to do some filming in the summer and it was shown on More Four last week.  Having built their new house, John and she are keen to start work on their garden and they came to look at our wildflower meadow and orchard. Hopefully they went away with some good ideas and tips. I know she has ordered plenty of yellow rattle to suppress the grass in her orchard. Looking forward to seeing the results next year.

Autumn is well and truly here with the clocks changing today and gale force winds and rain.  The leaves are turning but not cold so expect they might be blown off before they have a chance to display all their glory.

Work is progressing at the Front Lodge where we hope to move to in the Spring.  It is an exciting thought that as well as tending to the main garden here we will have a new project there to occupy us.  It is going to be a busy winter with me juggling decisions on the house and getting into the garden to do the winter work, not to mention keeping Johnny doing his exercises!

We are ever hopeful that next year we will have the return of buses and visitors from abroad who we have missed for the past two years.

September 2021

by anne chambers

Tomorrow is our last day of opening this season. We have been lucky with a glorious dry and sunny September, so visitor numbers have been good.  Overall, despite having no buses or overseas tourists we have been pleased with the British holidaymakers who have chosen the Cotswolds for their staycations.

We also managed to get away to Kent for a week’s holiday which we thoroughly enjoyed.  Needless to say, we visited Sissinghurst and Great Dixter but also Perch Hill, home of Sarah Raven and her garden business. We were very impressed as our visit coincided with the dahlias at their best. We also came away from Marchants excellent nursery with a car load of new plants which is always a thrill and now have to find them spaces here.

We are pleased how the garden has held up during the month as it is still full of colour and interest.  Late Season is something we have been concentrating on over the years and has definitely paid off with a lot of good comments from our visitors. We didn’t go to Chelsea last week but watching this on the telly has highlighted the autumn plants that give so much at this time of year and through to the first frosts.

I had a lovely day out with the Garden Museum visiting the private garden at Bowood in Wiltshire that Rosie Abel-Smith has worked on for the past fifteen years.  It was enormous and very impressive, full of interest and beautifully kept.  We also went to Polly Nicholson’s garden and her cut flower and floristry business, Bayntum Flowers, just outside Calne.  She has created, with the help of Arne Maynard, a delightful garden concentrating on her love of cut flowers. She is very artistic and had arrangements throughout the garden.

Johnny is having a knee operation in early October so will be out of action for a while.  However the work will go on and we have already made copious notes of alterations to be made over the winter. At Sissinghurst they have underplanted apple trees with autumn crocuses and we intend to copy this in the orchard.

August 2021

by Anne chambers

It is the Bank Holiday weekend and grey skies persist but at least it is dry for all the staycation families holidaying in the Cotswolds.  We have no plans to venture abroad but will be visiting Kent in September.

Earlier in the month I visited the Ebrington Garden Club annual show which was held in a barn with refreshments outside.  Whilst there I was asked if I would give out the prizes at the end of the day which was a great honour as the exhibits were excellent. 

It is so good to see shows starting again and Moreton in Marsh Show which is one of the largest agricultural shows in the country will be held next Saturday. I have been President of the Gloucestershire Federation of Garden Societies for the past ten years and will be retiring at the AGM in October.  This is an excellent organization promoting village shows and clubs, supporting school gardening initiatives and training judges.

We have had a busy August with visitors but managed to visit Bourton House Garden nearby.  We were very impressed with the packed borders full of exotic and half tender plants including a wonderful white abutilon called Boule de Neige.

 They have very kindly agreed to let Tom our gardener come and take cuttings as I think it would be a wonderful addition to our abutilon collection.

The eucryphias have flowered better than ever with the trees simply covered in white flowers which the bees love.  We have fully grown trees plus one in the White Sunk Garden which we have to prune regularly to be able to see out of our kitchen window!  They are a magnificent sight and it is surprising how little known by our visitors.

 September round the corner and Jack our grandson will be starting primary school, a new uniform and a new beginning, how time flies.

July 2021

by Anne chambers

July seems to have passed so quickly.  Admittedly we did manage to escape to Scotland for a few days at the beginning of the month, which was glorious with warm sunshine, no rain and so no fishing but lovely picnics and walks.  Then we had a large family reunion which had been postponed from last year.  Luckily a boiling hot day so lots of swimming for the children and catching up with all family news swapped by the cousins.  Kiftsgate hosted a wedding last weekend as well so altogether you may wonder if we did any gardening this month!

Everything burst out in the heatwave of the last ten days but luckily the garden didn’t become over dry as the soil still had moisture from the earlier rain.  Flowers did fade slightly more quickly but the dieramas and hydrangeas burst into early life. Some roses were great and remained in flower for longer without heavy showers, in fact the Kiftsgate rose is only just going over now in the third week of the month.

We visited Cotton Manor last week, a favourite of ours and discovered a new (to us) nursery in the next door village. Run by a charming  couple it had excellent plants and as usual we got carried away and bought more than our fair share.  It is always such a joy to discover somewhere different and no doubt we will now be returning in the future.

The salvias and pelargoniums have been excellent this year, loving the sunshine.  We now have quite a collection and they display very well on the terrace in our growing collection of containers.

Everyone has commented on the height of the lilies, particularly the wonderful Formia in the north border.  It must be over two metres and stands rigidly tall despite rain or wind.

August is just round the corner and the garden seems fuller than ever but still lots to look forward to.  Philip has started cutting the hedges and we will not be going away again until September so gardening is high on the agenda.

June 2021

bt anne chambers

We have passed the longest day and the garden is at its peak with a glorious abundance of flowers everywhere you look.  It is a glorious time of year and impossible to reach perfection, but we are nearly there!  The peonies which have flowered in succession since early May are nearly over but one of the stars has been peony Red Charm which has enormous double centred dark red flowers and then fades to pink.  They have not liked the rain but with careful dead heading still look wonderful.

We had the BBC Countryfile team here in early May to film the launch of their Countryfile calendar in aid of Children in Need.  Not perfect weather on the day but they managed to capture the orchard with the camassias in full flower and with the help of a drone got some good shots of the garden. John Craven who has been with the series for many years, led the team and it was fun to see the results on TV on June 13th.

The roses are now blooming in abundance, and we are awaiting the flowering of the Kiftsgate rose in the next few days.  The scent on a summers evening is fantastic and combined with philadelphus, honeysuckles and roses make a real joy to the senses.

We visited a friend’s garden yesterday who has the national collection of rambling roses at Moorwood near Cirencester.  A wonderful sight with trees weighed down with roses and every wall covered in flowers.  Such an unusual selection most of whom I had never even heard of, so it was truly inspiring to see what an enormous family the rose has! No wonder it is our nations favourite flower.

We have been busy with visitors and the first groups of English buses have ventured out. Perhaps a sign things are starting back to a new normal. Keeping fingers crossed for mid-July updates.

May 2021

by anne chambers

What a difference a month makes and such a contrast.  Instead of the dry sunny cold weather we had in April, May has been constant rain, wind and still cold for the time of year. Everything has grown like mad but because of the lack of heat flowers are slow to appear and we are several weeks behind.  The poor tree paeonies have not liked the wind and rain and although they flowered brilliantly only lasted a few days.  Luckily, they do not all flower at once, so we still have some to look forward to.  The herbaceous early paeonies have also been lovely with the rare p. Avante Garde and willmottiana in bloom at the moment, both a very delicate shade and single.

The euphorbias are still performing including a marvellous one we bought several years from Pan Global nursery at Frampton ago called Frampton Phatty, wonderful large flowers which smell of honey and beautiful veined leaves.  They really are a brilliant family of plants in their variety and longevity.

 I visited the sculpture show at Astall Manor several weeks ago with my daughter and son in law, a stunning Mitford house with an extremely attractive wild garden down by the river Windrush.  We particularly liked the sculpture by Dominic Welch of two bronze fish on the edge of the natural swimming pool.  Luckily, they had been sold as were each £18,000!

Another plant which has matured well and is unusual is daphniphyllum macropodum.  This we found a long time ago at the nursery attached to Agatha Christies house at Greenaway in Devon.  It is thriving down in the lower garden where it gets good shelter and has grown to quite a size.

Now hoping for a warmer and sunnier June but at least unlike last year we are open for business!

April 2021

by anne chambers

The garden is now open and today (28th) is our first wet day in the whole month, which is very welcome as it has been exceptionally dry with lovely sunshine but cold nights. In fact I hear it was the coldest April for sixty years. The garden has rather stood still with the lack of moisture and warmth but having said that the early flowers have lasted much longer than usual.  The exachorda  have been magnificent covered in stunning white flowers and very aptly named ‘The Bride’.  I prune them hard after flowering, but they always put on an excellent early show the following year.

 The azaleas are also another beautiful early display and unlike the soft leaved hydrangeas escaped the frosts . Sadly we had to take out our halesia in the bridge border and have replaced it with an amelanchier which again will provide early flowers and good autumn colour.

We have been busy in the nursery laying out new standing areas for plants as well as potting up cuttings and seedlings.  Also we gave the watering system an overdue upgrade. It has been needed much earlier this season.  The abutilons in the top greenhouse are already in flower and love this sunny situation.  They really cannot survive a cold winter so this is an ideal spot for them and Tom is already taking cuttings .

 We were asked by  George Plumptre, head of the National Garden Scheme to do a zoom talk on Kiftsgate last night.  He has cleverly organised several gardens to be featured once a week to raise funds for the NGS and we were very honoured to be included especially as Frogmore and Sandringham are on the list. An interesting talk next week on the changes taking place at Iford Manor near Bath which we will try to catch.

May is just round the corner so we will be increasing our opening to five days a week but we do not expect buses to return until July when covid restrictions are hopefully lifted.

March 2021

by anne chambers

It is the first day of British Summer Time and that magical time of year when everything is stirring in the garden.  Despite changeable windy and cold weather leaves are appearing and peonies pushing up from the earth.  The magnolias are looking spectacular and so are the daffodils.  Hoping they will last till we open on Easter Day next weekend.

In preparation for our opening, we have been busy pruning the summer ceanothus and penstemons which we leave wrapped up for winter.  Quite a few shrubs have been scorched by the winter winds and cold and we will just have to wait and see if the salvias break into life again.  It was a cold long winter and it will be wonderful to have some warmth and freedoms in the coming months.

The early bulbs like the scillas have lifted our spirits and I noticed the fritillaries are already about to flower.  Every day something new appears which wets our appetite for the future.  The acid yellow of the euphorbias really lifts the banks at this time of year, it is one of my favourite species as there are so many different varieties and shapes and forms.

 We have a perennial problem maintaining the grass paths in the garden. About twenty-five years ago we replaced the grass path in the Rose border with recycled blue bricks from the stable yard. In other parts of the garden we have re-turfed so many times that we even resorted to artificial turf in one area. We have now decided to put down special netting on the yellow border path in the hope that this will solve the problem. Fingers crossed that this works.

 The plant stands are in place and next week we will be bringing down a mass of plants for sale.   I have heard there are shortages of plants available as so many people have taken to gardening over the past year which is wonderful. I am also going to open our tiny shop for one person at a time.  It was closed for the whole of 2020 so unpacking all the boxes was like Christmas as I had forgotten what I had ordered so long ago!

We are looking forward to our coming season and just hoping everyone will be able to come and visit and enjoy the garden as much as we do.

February 2021

by Anne chambers

I am afraid the January diary never happened for various reasons.  I was lucky enough to have my long awaited operation for a new knee. Just the right time of year for an operation and I am now recovering with a long list of exercises and physio taking place. Three months for full recovery so I hope to be back in the garden by spring. Somehow the month seemed to rush past and to our great delight we have daughter Clare and family staying here until they move into a cottage nearby in March.

We have just experienced the coldest week of the year, in fact for many years. Not much snow but deep frosts and icy east winds, the poor hellebores look very sad but hoping they will recover now it is getting warmer again. Even the snowdrops looked rather shrivelled.

Lockdown is still in place so everywhere quiet and still. Instead a lovely open fire and much cooking and baby sitting in anticipation of being in the garden again.  Seed planting has already begun and I have ordered some new dahlias and lilies which have arrived, sweet peas on their way.

I am attaching some excellent drone photos which my son in law David took in the snow, very artistic and dramatic.

Keeping fingers crossed that we will be opening again in April but all uncertain at the moment and not expecting many foreign visitors again this season. It is hard to believe that it is nearly a year since the first lockdown which was just when we returned from our magical holiday in India. We have both had our first jabs so are looking forward to the new normal, whatever that will be. What strange times we are living in.