Wish List

Back Patch 

  • plant a climbing rose – fragrant yellow blooming – for one side of the wooden pergola (other side covered by fruiting blackberry)
  • plant a dwarf plum tree and also a crab apple in the back patch.  Crab apples are good pollinators.  Attractive blossom is followed by small, sharp-tasting fruit suitable for making jelly.  Grow in reasonably fertile well-drained soil in full sun or  light shade.
  • plant a small patch of tall bamboo in the back (to provide a constant source of bamboo poles for the allotment) (we planted a small patch of bamboo in the back patch mid-May 2020)
  • get 1 or 2 white / pale pink flowering mallow bushes for the sunny back far corner (we planted a white and purple centred flowering tree mallow early August 2019)
  • build a cold frame

 

Perennial Flower Bed

  • Sanguisorbas (commonly known as burnets) are good for perennial flower beds. Their diversity of foliage, height, flower selection and vigour, coupled with their strength and winter structure, has propelled sanguisorba up the ranks of desirability. Sanguisorba means to soak up blood and was thought to control internal bleeding. Elizabethans, who enjoyed the cucumber scent and favour of its new foliage, favoured its use as a kitchen herb. The plant originates from North America and belongs to the rose family.  As plants they are extremely hardy, and grow best in sun in any fertile, reasonably moist soil where their deep strong roots will enable them to withstand periods of summer dryness.  Once established plants take care of themselves, though some thinner-stemmed selections are said to benefit from twiggy support. Divide large plants in spring; spreading kinds grow easily from division or root selections. Sanguisorbas are relatively trouble-free but can suffer from powdery mildew.
    • Sanguisorba ‘Ivory Towers’ is white flowering.  
    • Sanguisorba menziesli is upright flowering in pale pink. 

 

  • Sweet Rocket – associated with Queen Eleanor of Castile for her introduction of the plant to England.  Sometimes called Dame’s Violet or Summer Lilac.  Arrived during 1200s.  “The plant certainly seems to have arrived here during this period, and it is a native of Castile, so perhaps, as a reminder of her homeland, Viola matronalis flora obsoleto (as Sweet Rocket was then called) travelled with the young bride when she made her home in northern Europe.” (The Origin of Plants, p.95)  For more on Queen Eleanor of Castile as a forward thinking woman, see the same title p.94.