Garden News | August
If July is anything to go by, August promises to be hot and sunny here at Leonardslee. I just hope I haven’t jinxed it by saying that! All being well, there cannot be a better time to sit in or wander around the garden here and enjoy everything it has to offer. From the sights and smells of the floral displays around the Mansion and Rock garden areas, to the stunning views across and out of the estate that we continue to re-open, to the sounds of the bees, busy pollinating, August is a fantastic time to take it all in.
Last month I talked about how some of our delicate plants would need to take on extra water as the temperatures began to rise. Well, humans also need some respite when enjoying the garden, and Leonardslee, as a Woodland Garden, is blessed with plenty of shady spots to escape the heat. You could wander through Camellia Walk near the Mansion with its collection of 100+ year old specimens that were planted by Sir Edmund Loder, or Camellia Grove down near the lakes that was planted in the 1950’s by his Grandson Sir Giles Loder for instance.
There are also plenty of shaded paths running from the upper gardens northwards to the Dell. But if you’re feeling a bit more energetic you might want to check out our newly opened Top Garden on the east side of Clapper Pond, just up from the beehives. Although previously referred to as The Ancient Woodland, the whole garden here is actually designated as “replanted ancient woodland” so this area to the north east of the lakes is no more ancient than the rest of the garden and we are now referring to it as The Top Garden, which is what the Loder family referred to it as. The Top Garden was the original site of the Pinetum, planted by Sir Edmund between 1901 and 1905, but was lost in the 1987 storm. The current Pinetum is the Deer Park was planted exactly 100 years after the original by Robin Loder.
On the flipside, just as humans and animals need to feed more when exerting a lot of energy, plants are no different. Putting on a Summer show of flowers takes a lot of effort, which means that we like to give some of our plants some extra food at this time of year to help them along the way.
An organic feed with a high potassium content will promote better and longer flowering and fruiting on our container bedding displays and hanging baskets. We also have a collection of edible flowers that our chefs pick from to use in the Interlude menu dishes and they will also get this treatment. We recently did some restoration pruning on some of our Camellias that were getting too tall, and they also received a feed afterwards to give them a helping hand through what might have been a stressful process for them.
We’ve been progressing with a couple of interesting projects recently that you might like to hear about. Firstly, we’ve been working with the Tree Registry to verify and re-measure our Champion Trees. A ‘Champion Tree’ is one that is the tallest or has the thickest girth. The final results are still to be processed but it looks like we have around 30 British and Irish champions here at Leonardslee and over 100 County champions!
Once confirmed, we’ll add some identifying plaques to the trees in question and then look to create a Champion Tree Trail that you can explore when you’re next here.
We’ve also been working with some members of the Horsham School of Botanical Artists to create a Floriliegium here at Leonardslee. What is a florilegium, I hear you ask? It’s actually a collection of botanically accurate paintings of plants, done by botanical illustrators from life. Basically, we’ve given a list of some of our important and interesting plants around the garden that the artists will create spectacular, fascinating drawing of. We then hope to display these works here in a variety of ways and have them available to purchase in various forms in our garden shop in time. Watch this space for more details…
So all in all an exciting time to visit Leonardslee and enjoy the sights, sounds and scents in the garden. We look forward to welcoming you during August.
Jamie Harris
Head Gardener