Garden has raised £94k!
A seaside garden in East Sussex that opens for charity, featuring sculpture and reclaimed objects.
The garden has looked stunning recently. In the front garden, a shrub I bought a couple of years ago, Bupleurum fruticosum, or shrubby hare’s ear, has really looked wonderful for many weeks now. It’s an evergreen shrub that grows up to about 2m (6ft 6in) tall, with simple, blue-green leaves and clusters of tiny, yellow flowers in summer and early autumn – mine’s still going strong.
This year, I’ve had some trial dahlia tubers from Thompson & Morgan that are just referred to by letters of the alphabet. They’ve had some vibrant blooms on them over the last two months. I’m just about to report back to them on their impact in the garden.
I was also given lots of bulbs by Bakker, among them a selection of gladioli. They looked utterly amazing in the garden towards the end of summer, rising majestically in a blaze of colour. All gone over now though, I’m afraid.
I have to say that the summer of 2017 has been extremely difficult to navigate through! Here in Seaford we’ve seen torrential rain, the strongest winds and, without doubt, the hottest days of any of the 13 years we’ve been here! All in all, not a good recipe for maintaining a garden open to the public as much as mine.
I bought myself a brugmansia, or angel’s trumpet, last spring. I’ve recently had some beautiful orange flowers develop on it, which look quite stunning. I’d run out of places to position it so it has probably been in the sun too much. I’ll have to try and find it a partly-shady spot next year.
I also bought two smallish Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ last summer, which have gone mad this year! I’ve kept them both in containers, but placed them in a bed area on the soil and everyone thinks they’re planted in the ground.
The garden openings of 2017 are well behind us now, but what a successful season! We had more than 2,300 visitors from May to early September. They came from all over the world, too – Beijing, Tokyo, Austria, Belgium, India and South America, to name but a few. Quite amazing! We’ve now raised a staggering £94,000 for charity.