As you pull up to the heritage cottage with the boulevard billowing with plantings against the stone wall under the majestic fir trees you know you have reached a magic place.
Walk under the arbour with its fragrant evergreen clematis armandii. Start down the shady path through a true jewel box garden with a muted blue-gray natural stone wall. There are the silver leaves of the cyclamen hederifolium and the precious pink and white blooms of cyclamen coum that contributes to the tapestry of beautifully patterned kidney shaped leaves.
This patient gardener from seed has started many of these cyclamens. Just a few short months ago this shady border featured a wonderful snowdrop collection of fifteen different varieties! These start to bloom as early as Halloween with Galanthus reginae-olgae which blooms at Halloween.
In March, this lush carpeting includes the dog's tooth violets (Erythronium) and the blue violet blooms of the native shooting star combining with the blue and white blooms of anemone nermosa. Blue is introduced by ‘Starry Eyes' navelwort (Omphalodes cappadoccica) with its charming azure flowers edged in white as well as lungwort and false forget-me-not. The lungwort (Pulmonaria) and the false forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla) also contribute beautifully patterned foliage that will compliment other plantings after their bloom is finished. There are the elegant white trilliums, the filmy foliage of the fern adiantum venustum and the dainty foliage of corydalis with its violet blooms. There is a sampling of the extensive jewel toned hellebore collection that is featured throughout the garden. The first of the hododendrons, one of soft shell pink has come into bloom and soon clambering up the fir tree will be a clematis Montana .
You pass by a magnificent red flowering current and a magnificent specimen of hellebore sternii (see trends hellebores) to the front of this heritage cottage. The two one hundred year old apple trees that anchor a border featuring a rainbow of hellebores combined with a collection of wonderful foliage plants welcome you.
There are then the chartreuse hits of the collection of euphorbias including Eurphorbia characias ssp. Wulfenii ‘John Tomlinson'. On the adjoining patio are containers of white tulips and narcisses and the stone trough with a collection of sedums. Soon the apple trees will be in bloom the fragrance of which will combine with the sweet scent of lilac Syringa velutina. The colour pallet will shift in summer to pink with rosa New Dawn, blue with the Nigella, hardy geraniums and campanula combining with the red of the astrantia and the white of the fragrant Lilium ‘Casa Blanca'
Sitting on the bench under the old apple tree one wants to stay to see the seasons unfold in this small piece of paradise.