May Garden Update
The Festival Of Beltane
Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweþ sed and bloweþ med And springþ þe wde nu
Extract from ‘Sumer is icumen in’, a 13th century English folk song
In Scotland, the 1st of May traditionally marked the festival of Beltane which signified the beginning of the summer season, when cattle were driven out to graze on verdant pastures. Amongst a great many other rituals and feasts, huge bonfires would be raised and the cattle driven in between or even through, to protect against both natural and supernatural harm and ensure a bountiful summer. This week, we performed a fiery ritual of our own by razing the remains of the tulips and planting out all of the bedding we’ve been growing from seed and cuttings. This year, we’ve gone for a blazing colour palette, using only red flowers and foliage plants. Not red with a yellow eye, or accents of white, or silver, or anything else, just flat red. Red to the point you might worry slightly about the person whose idea this was. Not only are all the plants red, but a lot of research has (hopefully) resulted in just the right shade of red. What I wanted was clear, deep carmines and some burgundy – no washed out pink or orangey hues – and happily this meant we could try our hand at growing some traditional bedding pant varieties.
We are a touch early in putting out such tender plants as the nighttime temperatures are still dipping as low as two degrees C, but some things were starting to become pot bound and difficult to keep watered, which can ultimately be more damaging than cold air. Plus, we want everything in full swing for our June open days which will be here before we know it. For anyone interested, the plant list is below:
Setaria italica ‘Red Jewels’
Phlox drummondii grandiflora ‘Coccinea’
Petunia x atkinsiana ‘Tidal Wave Red Velour’
Verbena ‘Showboat Dark Red’
Rudbeckia hirta ‘Cherry Brandy’
Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Black Knight’
Antirrhinum majus ‘Madame Butterfly Dark Red’
Pelargonium ‘Finest’ (NB this is not the actual variety – but a very good nameless red Pelargonium that I bought in Tesco last summer and took lots of cuttings from, and which was the starting point for this reverie).
Pelargonium ‘Lord Bute’
Pelargonium ‘Ardens’
With these things I think you have to aim high and hope for the best, and so with that mindset we moved on to building the courgette, sweet pea, bean, and pea supports which are so high as to be either visionary or deluded, only time will tell. This year we’ve harvested lots of hazel, beech, and sycamore poles from across the estate which have been coaxed into archways that traverse the path through the productive garden, and which, even unclothed, are beautiful in their own right. The twiggy remnants of this job were woven into plant supports in the herbaceous borders to prop up peonies, Delphinium, Sanguisorba, and Knautia. These are so much prettier than the metal hurdles we’ve used previously, and like all good staking is now practically invisible. Since it’s been so dry and calm, they haven’t been fully put to the test, but we are yet still mining this unusually rich seam of optimism that carries us into summer.
Kate