Roses and wildflowers

Visitors will know that we have a beautiful garden here already; a garden filled with rambling roses, billowing borders and wildflowers that intermingle with formal hedges and lawns.

The romantic garden my mum, Jill Cunningham has created is a timeless and seemingly effortless creation. It has all (apart from the bones of the garden, the trees and hedges) been created in the last 30 years and her approach to gardening and her allowance of wildflowers such as cow parsley, ox eye daisies, lords and ladies, wood sanicle and wood ruff amongst hundreds of other natives to self-seed amongst her borders seemed years ahead of its time, it’s the sort of garden those thoughtful about wildlife would choose.

She has beds that are thick, between the perennials with dead nettle and ivy, giving evergreen shelter for countless beasties and a beautiful backdrop to the bulbs that push through amongst the ebb and flow of herbaceous plantings.

Above left, A huge horsechestnut stump that fell in 2012 was left as a support for a self seeded single rambling rose that apeared at its base, the stump always covered in fungi and wildlife

Above right, part of our gorgeous field maple fell last year and for the time being we will leave the main trunk in situ as it happens to look great from the other side.

Dead and decaying ancient apple trees that support huge rambling roses, until the trees collapse, having fed and created havens for thousands of creatures, from wood boring grubs to the woodpeckers that feed on them. The wildflower meadow has been carefully managed for thirty years. My mum and her helper Ricarda have weeded out the undesirables leaving just the cow parsley; birds foot trefoil, ox-eye daisies and orchids. Into this she has added bulbs; fritillaries, daffodils and crocus and planted pastel coloured primroses which self-seed and intermingle with the cowslips and native primroses (sometimes she has regretted the adding of plants such as the vigorous geranium oxonianum and Spanish bluebells and spent days removing them again years later, but the patchwork of primroses is so pretty its hard to regret. The garden has formal elements but it’s the allowance of nature to drift in and out of the beds and her delicate touch and eye gives this garden such a very special feel and the tranquil atmosphere so many guest comment on.

Above left, the wildflower meadow through the apple trees with rose 'trunks' twining up them

Above right, The flower meadow with grasses, cow parsley and oxeye daisies

Its not a garden for everyone, when a plant you want to self-seed has finished its display and leaving it to decay in a patch of ivy can look messy to some, but to others who like to notice the ants marching off with the seeds and the beetle hiding below the ivy feeding on them, and the blackbird turning the leaves to look for the beetle. To me it’s a patch of heaven and worth more than a pristine bed of dahlias in weed free soil. Not that I don’t love dahlias, it’s the soil I don’t particularly want to see, not when it can be supporting something growing, anything, because that ‘thing’ will die and rot down feeding the soil for the future.

Above left, what was a wide york stone paved path has been soften by invading perrenials from the border mixed with native wildflowers.

Above right, the mown path through the meadow, its lkushness a sign of that clay underfoot.

One day the garden and the nursery may well become parted and with this in mind I want to create a space of the nurseries own. Daunted, it will be a case of slowly, slowly as I am but one person with plants to grow and coffee to serve amongst other things.