Making the most of what you have, a talk by Benjamin Pope
7th November 2020
We were delighted to welcome Ben who has been Head Gardener in a large private garden in Trotton for the past 14 years, having spent time in London studying planning and design. However, being office based was not Ben's preferred location hence his move locally. He has 3 part-time gardeners assisting him in looking after an eight acre garden.
The house itself dates back to around 1500 and has many original old buildings as well as more modern glass houses. The owners are very aware and considerate of its heritage.
The overall design has a romantic feel about it, with many different borders and walkways, with beautiful topiary and gravel paths broken up by large squares of grass, which are ideal for cleaning the work boots! The garden does have a bore hole which, even with the parched summer we have just experienced, has never dried up. This obviously helps enormously with watering.
A particular border lined with Box had to be re-designed when the it fell prey to Blight. Once the Box was removed the area now features plants such as London Pride, white Foxgloves and Aqualigea.
A stunning feature is the 'Reflective Tree'. A large, grassed area now has an oblong water feature, a rill which has been deliberately set flush with the lawn giving a completely flat mirror image of a nearby tree, which I believe to be an Oak?
Metal edging is used around the estate which keeps borders neat and trim and is very cost effective.
'The surrounding grassed areas are scarified in the Autumn with minimum use of weedkillers, so are far from perfect, but the resident dandelions and other small flowers are a haven for birds and insects.
This fantastic garden features annual borders and cut flower borders which contain a,cosmic mix of plants, for example, white Echinacea, Cornflowers and Sweetpeas.
Ben starts sowing sweetpea seeds in January, with a second in February/March and a third sowing in May after which time the weather becomes too hot. This provides a steady flowering of sweetpeas throughtout the summer. Deadheading is an essential part for the continuation of all flowering annuals and is carried out on a weekly basis.
Ben throughout his talk reminded us of what 'making use of what you have' actually means. Time, Space and Money. Saving money by taking cuttings, looking at the available space for planting schemes and how much time you can actually spend in your garden and embrace the seasons. One particular plant Ben mentioned for Autumn was a Heuchera, Autumn Bride.
The garden has a South Facing Walled Garden with gravel pathways and this has a slightly Mediterranean feel to it, featuring plants such as Dianthus, Sedums, Iris, Giant Fennel and Alliums, Verbascum (white flowers) Escanthus, Napalensis which all subscribe to its organic architecture. However, picking the numerous seedlings out of the gravel can be quite time consuming!
Ben does have a delivery of compost from The Compost Company amounting to some 40 cubic metres which is liberally applied around the garden as a general mulch. The argument in favour of this is the time saved instead of weeding
Finally, Ben recommended that we spend time with plants. and be aware of time.
Not all about size. Watch plants grow, space, buying large specimens costs more money.
Mistakes are great lessons.
Work with people.
Be realistic