That’s All, Folks

I often look around our series of outdoor rooms and think of the quote from Goethe ‘…architecture is frozen music…’ and wonder if I am being a bit fanciful in wanting to describe our gardens as ‘nature’s orchestra’?

Those huge trees that provide the permanent backdrop to the garden layout are the bass section, the larger shrubs the cello and saxophone, the climbers and creepers the violins, the brightly flowered annuals the bravura brass, and the more delicate plants the flute and viola.

I can hear this lily playing 76 Trombones as I march past.

Percussion is provided by the rustling of the eucalyptus trees, while the fountains represent the tinkllng of the zylophone or a ripple on a keyboard. Lady Edith’s all important fragrance is the melody, starting low in the spring, swelling in the summer months and dying away in the autumn, when crunchy leaves take over the cymbals – we can choose the rhythm with the regularity of our footsteps.

Huge pots represent the tympanies.

Noah raises his arms to conduct the whole ensemble and the creatures of the ark, the herms and topiary figures are a quietly appreciative audience.

But, I’ve indulged my fancy for too long and alas, this year’s concert is over. This is my last blog of the season and I want to say a big thank you for all those ‘likes’, to those who got the jokes, and to Paul, Jonny, Lisa, Louise, Kenny, Barbara, Rachel, and Lesley for their patient help with queries about those pesky plants that kept blooming so fast I couldn’t keep up with them. I’ve loved Neil’s marvellous, inspirational, garden walks – will he ever be finished planning? Don’t think so! And a special thank you to Jill who allowed me to fill in for her (we miss you), thank you for the opportunity to learn lots of wonderful things about flowers, and to do a little extra volunteering!

I’ll sign off with another quote, this one by Ralph Waldo Emerson – ‘The Earth Laughs in Flowers’. Certainly a walk round Edith, Lady Londonderry’s Land of Heart’s Delight cannot fail to lift your spirits and bring a smile to your face.

Job Done.

Ellen

Eclectic Aesthetics

Some seventy or so keen gardening souls were welcomed by Lady Rose in the Central Hall for the start of our brilliant Eclectic Garden Seminar last weekend. Speakers Richard Wheeler, Ken Cox and Diarmuid Gavin kept us enthralled on both days with the history of visiting 18th century houses and gardens, trekking in the Himalayas in search of new plants and planning award winning gardens for Chelsea. Subjects included were certainly diverse and included the difficulties of travelling by post chaise, being arrested as a spy, and finding tasteful alternatives to regimented lobelias. We were urged by Richard to look at our surroundings through, ‘the medium of beauty’. Ken invited us to visit the wonderful gardens of Scotland, and Diarmuid inspired us to consider doing something different and unexpected, especially if we ever considered competing at Chelsea! In between we undertook our own treks round the house with Louise, the garden with Neil, and up to the nursery with Alan, all in lovely weather, no rain until it was time for the group photo!

Beautiful flower arrangements adorned the Central Hall.

Diarmuid sets up his slide show.

Neil explains his plans for the future of the garden.

Alan expounds on the different methods of looking after his tender little seedlings, potting on during the winter, and the new greenhouse under construction.

One of the lovely plants in Alan’s polytunnel, Abutilon pictum.

All in all, a very enjoyable and worthwhile weekend and we look forward to next year. Thanks also to the Tea Room staff who looked after us so well, providing tea, coffee and delicious shortbread, as well as a very tasty Sunday Lunch.

Ellen

Heading for the Fall

When in Rocky Mountain National Park, you are surrounded by conifers, Douglas-Firs, Lodgepole and Limber Pines, all much the same shade of green, and so when I arrived back at Mount Stewart, my eyes picked up immediately our famous Irish Forty Shades of Green. We are so fortunate to have a great variety of trees, all shapes and sizes, and colours.

The lake shores at the moment are wonderfully coloured, and here and there in the gardens there are hints of autumn.

Our Myrtles, with their beautifully coloured bark, are in flower, tiny white blossoms profuse along the branches.

Have you ever seen the Red Hot Pokers such a vibrant orangey red?

And, good news for all schoolchildren, the conkers are nearly ready! Although you should really wait a year to let your conker harden before entering a competition, you can speed the process by soaking the nut in vinegar, baking it, or varnishing with clear nail polish. A coating of hand cream helps to ward off chips and grazes. In North Belfast we collected them from underneath the trees in Alexandra Park and called them cheesers, but apparently this only applies to those with straight edges, caused by twin or triplet nuts. A fat darning needle heated over the gas ring made a hole and a long strong cord was inserted with a good granny knot to hold it fast.

Conkers (from the French Conque when they played with snail shells) was first recorded as a game using Horse Chestnut seeds in the Isle of Wight in 1848, and is still popular. The 2014 World Championships in Southwick, Northants, attracted contestants from 15 countries. An idea for a new annual event at Mount Stewart?

Ellen

Plumbing with Dahlias?

I’ve never been able to grown Dahlias successfully, don’t know why. They take a look at my garden and decide not to thrive, something I have in common with Kew Gardens when presented with seed by the chatelaine of that other Mount Stuart, the Marchioness of Bute. These South American plants come in a variety of extraordinarily vivid colours (except true blue and black) and have an interesting history in Mexico where they have been nominated as the National Flower. The Spanish physician Hernandez described them being used by the Aztecs to treat epilepsy, and we read that the stems of the huge Dahlia imperialis were used as water pipes. The local name variously translated as water cane, water pipe flower or hollow stem flower. Named after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, the tubers are still cultivated as a food source, tasting somewhat like potato.

The awful weather has devastated our crop of Dahlias in the Italian Garden at the moment, but don’t despair, they are quite resilient and will come back soon. As there are very few to take photos of, it is just as well I was a Blue Peter fan in my young day. Here are some I prepared earlier.

Dahlias became very popular with lots of varieties being grown and there are now some 30 species and over 20,000 cultivars. No cottage garden is complete without them. Marie Antoinette was a fan, as was Claude Monet. Dahlia Societies were started, Dahlia Balls were held, and Bedrich Smetana, the Czech composer, wrote the Dahlia Polka. In the mid 1800s a London newspaper offered a prize of £1 to the first person to produce a blue petalled flower. The reward has yet to be claimed.

Ellen

Pretty in Pink

When I wrote the Tuesday Bluesday blog a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t realise that it should have been about pink blooms. Apparently, in Thai and Khmer traditions, days of the week have lucky and unlucky colours, so if you were born on a Saturday, like me, your lucky colour is purple, and in Thailand you may see people wearing a purple tie or scarf in honour of that day (sorry to say I am now old enough to wear purple.) Anyway, the colour for Tuesday (Lady Edith’s birth day) is pink and that has decided me on today’s photos.

Our Calico Bushes, Kalmia latifolia, come in two shades, pink and pinker. They are related to the Rhododendron and from a distance you might mistake them for such, but up close you can see the crimped shape of the buds and close cluster of the smaller flowers. There are several bushes in bloom just now on the west side of the lake.

This tiny Fuchsia megellanica alba, found on the way to reception, is a delicate pink, a change from the more usual red ones, don’t they look like ballerinas? Fuchsias, from Argentina and Chile, are quite hardy and unlike some of our more exotic species will grow almost anywhere in Northern Ireland. Have you seen the fuchsia hedges lining the roads along the Antrim coast? Discovered in Hispaniola in the 17th century and named after the German botanist Leonhart Fuchs.

Couldn’t do a pink theme without one of our glorious pink roses. This one, Silver Jubilee, has huge blooms and is at the bottom of the steps from the terrace down to the Italian Garden. The fragrance is soft and sweet, just like baby powder.

And finally, the water lilies by the jetty have popped out, some a beautiful shade of pink with their green leaves making a perfect foil for the petals. An interesting fact is that the ribbed structure of giant water lily leaves, growing up to 3 metres in diameter, was the inspiration for Sir Joseph Paxton’s plans for the Crystal Palace. He stood his 9 year-old daughter, Annie, on a floating leaf of the Victoria amazonica to demonstrate its strength and went on to replicate the design in iron and glass for the Great Exhibition venue in 1851. While we don’t recommend putting children on any of our leaves, we are happy to see the occasional frog having a sunbathe, or in the case of this week, a shower.

Ellen

The Friday Gang (three quarters of)

If you want to see people who are happy in their work, visit the Spanish Garden on a Friday morning. Here you will find The Friday Gang, ie Joe, Wendy, and Heather here in the photo, minus Joan who is extra smiley at the moment as she is on her hols. The system of giving groups of volunteers specific responsibility for a certain area of the garden means that they can keep an eye on the development of the plants under their care, they feel a sense of ownership, and they get to know the conditions really well. You can see Joe is really keen as he insisted on holding onto his bucket. Favourite shrubs are the wisteria, the Grevillea, and the daisy-like Feverfew.

The Friday Gang have another reason to smile – on a rainy day they have the Pavilion to run to and shelter in, even though they are sharing it at the moment with mummy and daddy house martins who have built their nest under the eaves.

Other new critters to arrive are the Golden Orfes, goldfish to you and me, difficult to photograph under water without a special filter and living up to their name as no sooner did I aim the camera than they scooted orfe to hide under another lily pad! Perhaps they thought I was Henry the Heron coming to look for his lunch.

Ellen

Mistaken Identity

It’s on days like this I wish I had taken botany instead of humanities at Uni, because in the middle of one of the parterres in the Italian Garden is what I confidently decided was a blue thistle, but on further investigation discovered it is actually a sea holly, Eryngium amethystinum. Obviously nothing to do with the red-berried Christmas variety, it is instead a member of the carrot, dill and parsley family. Its shoots and leaves can be eaten as a vegetable and the roots taste like chestnuts. Must put it on the menu for this year’s celebration, wonder if Lisa would notice it missing? I can always blame it on the rabbits.

Trivia Alert! Sea Holly is the county flower of Liverpool and grows on the sand dunes of the Wirral. Ours in County Down is a nice little blue wildflower, the Scilla Verna, also a coastal plant.

Ellen

Poppies & Pipers

Edith, Lady Londonderry, agreed wholeheartedly with Gertrude Jekyll’s adage – ‘Paint while you plant, and as you work, design’, and so she set to work and painted with her trowel, especially in the Italian Garden. Her gardening diaries show colour washes of orange, red, magenta, purple, vivid blue, and peach sweeping across from the sunrise on the east to sunset on the west. This week the gardens are surely at their painted and designed best with vigorous growth and colour in every bed. The vivid orange of the poppies, pink senecio, the little daisies on the steps, make for a Kodak moment every time you turn your head.

In the sunshine today with the air buzzing with insects, the scent of the roses, giant gunneras fringing the Dodo Terrace, and red nasturtiums against the dark yew trees, it was hard to decide just which shot through the viewfinder was the absolute best.

Tall white alliums and tinkling of the water spouts and fountains lent a cooling frisson to the whole scene and I thought of the many summer garden parties on the lawns, held for charity in Edith’s time with groups of tables and chairs and delicate china teacups held with extended little fingers, music playing in the background. It must have been enchanting and the perfect excuse to wear that darling muslin tea dress with a Gatsby girl cloche hat in summer straw. One could have one’s fortune told, visit Lady Mairi’s menagerie, watch the holidaying Spanish royal children help with the fashion show, and imagine staying for the weekend in that long, low, grey mansion to be awakened in the morning by Her Ladyship’s Piper on the terrace, and a maidservant with early morning tea. Hmmmmmm….if only.

Ok, one can dream, but the good news is that nowadays tea and cake can be enjoyed in our newly refurbished tea room (you may find the  lemon drizzle rather yummy).

Ellen

Double Meaning

Every so often you come across a new word, useful in completing The Times crossword, on wet days playing Scrabble, or just in our gardens to show off to the visitors. Our Garrya elliptica evergreen shrub offers such a word, dioecious, from the Greek dioecy ‘two households’, meaning that there are separate male and female plants. Although both produce catkins, the male catkins are considered more attractive, a trait this plant shares with peacocks, stalk-eyed flies, and David Beckham. Where is this wondrous plant? Well, otherwise known as the Silk Tassel Bush which should give you a clue, it is the large shrub to the right of the gate leading from the Italian Garden into the Lily Wood. A popular plant with visitors, it was introduced to Britain in 1828 by Scotsman David Douglas from the Pacific North West of America and named after a deputy governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Nicholas Garry.

An edible climbing plant which is also dioecious (and delicious at the same time) is our Kiwi fruit vine, just coming into bud at the moment. It’s a plant with an interesting pedigree. Discovered in 1900 by plant hunter Ernest Wilson in China, hence Chinese Gooseberry, it was taken to New Zealand by Miss Isobel Fraser, headmistress of Wanganui Girls’ School and re-named Kiwi Fruit. Then the fuzzy brown skinned fruit was exported to California after the Second World War and known as Melonette. The largest producer is now Italy where they stick to Kiwifruit. Our vine is quite productive with the fruits ripening in early autumn, and the story goes that Edith, Lady Londonderry, never one to waste produce, harvested it and had the fruits made into jam. It was set on the table every day, but according to Lady Mairi, no-one ever ate it.

Another of our trees which fits the description of dioecious, is the Ginko biloba, a living fossil. It was able to withstand the Hiroshima bomb and six are still growing at the site of the blast, consequently in Japan the tree is now known as the Bearer of Hope. It is the national tree of China and they clearly understand its virtues as a herb. The list of uses is very long, supposedly because individual trees can live for up to three thousand years; using ginko leaf extract for asthma and bronchitis was described in 2600 BC. The leaves are said to be effective in treating freckles. But be warned, the nuts are probably not to be safely consumed, and will interact with some medicines, so don’t try this at home! The leaves are a nice fresh green shade and such a pretty fan shape, find it in the Lily Wood.

Ellen

Tuesday Bluesday

Yesterday I decided to find as many blue things in the garden as I could. So here you are!

First, to set the scene, Pride of Madeira floral spikes in the terrace below the house.

Next, the tiles in the Spanish Garden Summerhouse. Sourced from Jerusalem and showing a porcelain aviary of birds, with lots of blue accents. We believe the maker is still in business and why not? Who wouldn’t love these?

Then a blue gum tree, here’s the label, look for it when you are in the Shamrock Garden.

Into the Lily Wood to see our beautiful Meconopsis, just look at that lovely shade of blue with yellow centres.

Drawing lots of visitors’ attention this week is the most vivid shade of the delphiniums bursting out in the Sunk Garden, just singing against the green lawns, you can spot them immediately you go onto the terrace.

And of course our blue bordered information board telling you where to find what is currently in bloom.

Ellen