Figs and sticks

Since fostering a garden, with potential adoption close on the horizon, K and I have become obsessive garden visitors. Yesterday we had a good look around The Savill Garden which is part of The Royal Landscape - my, how posh! - and very nice it is too. What a lot of hydrangeas and hostas there are. The Queen must love 'em.

Today, we visited Nymans, so we are really well gardened for the moment.

As a result of our visit, we think we've identified more of our mystery plants. We have spiraea (which is rather like sedums but the leaves are different):

Our spiraea flowers aren't quite like they are in the picture now as they've all died off and left brown petals so it's not as pleasant, but we're looking forward to next summer to see how it does.







For reference, here below is a picture of a sedum, which we also have in our garden, but again it's past its best:

The flower shapes are sort of similar so you can see our confusion ...









Whilst visiting other people's gardens, we also found out that the large pot plant that we are looking after for our dead neighbour is probably a fig tree, whereas the smaller one might well be a hosta. You never know, though we're more confident about the fig. It's massive really and makes our stairwell look like a small forest. It's tricky squeezing past it in the mornings ...

Meanwhile, as a result of my stepfather's expertise, we've discovered that the creeper making its way up our potential summerhouse is definitely a winter flowering jasmine, so that will be fun seeing the flowers come out, I hope:

I'm also pleased to announce that our heuchera appear to be doing well and are making a lovely splash of colour on the furthest flowerbed. The other excitement is that, in the same bed, there have been some dead-looking stick things which we have been merrily stepping through in order to sort out the buddleia (which I am still pruning by the way), and now they actually have a whole lot of new leaves on them, well gosh! We think they must have been eaten by a deer coming through from the wood but, now we've shut the gate, whatever plants they are have taken the chance to fight back. We're wondering if it's not too late for some flowers too, as that will help us sort out what they might be. Here's hoping the deer don't battle their way back in before we find out ...

And we've taken a tip from last week's episode of Gardeners' World and have brought in a handful of mint sprigs which we are now drying out by hanging above my exercise bike so we can add them to things through the winter when they're properly dried. They're making the room smell lovely and giving me new zest in the mornings, hurrah!

Anne Brooke