Summer Round-up

It was a really busy year, and we decided to take the summer off from blogging to allow us to get some other projects underway (details of those to follow). But now we’ll be back to regular updates here on the blog. You may also like to check out our Facebook Page.

Garden Borders

This year has seen the redevelopment of a further set of borders as we continue our four year project to bring the softer, floral elements of Harold Peto’s garden up to the quality which his buildings now deserve.

Working with garden designer Alison Jenkins, the annual border from last year (which was an emergency measure owing to a late winter!) has been replaced by the planned perennial border. And following a prolonged summer, it came into its own bringing colour right through to the end of October.

Next year it should be even better as the hardier, slower growing plants will have established themselves properly.

Iford Arts - Cloister Centenary Season

This year was the 100th Anniversary of Harold Peto’s Cloister, a remarkable building from 1914 in the 12th Century style, which today houses our performances of opera, jazz and other events.

This year the season was entirely Italian in style. Productions included the charming love story of Puccini’s La Rondine, Donizetti’s comedy La Fille du Regiment (reworked brilliantly by Jeff Clarke to be set in a troop of Californian bikers) and an emotionally intense production of Monteverdi’s Ulysses. Keep an eye out for next year’s programme or sign up to the mailing list on the Iford Arts Website.

Wisteria Season - all year!

A most unusually dry, warm summer, ensured that the wisteria flowered not once or twice, but sporadically all through the summer, only losing its last flowers on the First of October.  Who knows whether this will be repeated next year, but we can only hope!

Hydro Plant Update

The downside of a great summer is that there's no water in the river from which to make electricity - so the Hydro Plant has been almost completely dormant for 5 months.  In recent weeks we have got it turning again and now we are back, thankfully, to generating some meaningful power.  We will still probably manage to make this an average year (the first quarter was jolly wet, after all), but it's a relief to have it running nevertheless.

Visitor Numbers

We found ourselves on television earlier in the year, as the garden designer Paul Hervey-Brookes asked the BBC to film his Chelsea Flower Show introduction here, which was very kind of him!  As a result we saw more visitors to the garden in June than in recent years, and a much larger number of 'pilgrims' who had travelled from across the country specifically to visit the garden.  

It is always humbling to be reminded of the meaning and value which people place in the gardens here which we seek to maintain true to Mr Peto's ethos.

Tea Room Success

Iford's Housekeeper, Sarah (The Crafty Housekeeper), made a great impression this year in the tearoom with a new range of cakes and tasty bites.  The Rocky Road was a particular favourite and one member of the family (yours truly) had to start exercising more as a result.

Other Events

Butterfly Day 2014 was a roaring success; various charity walks and sponsored events came through; our tiny caravan site has welcomed a small number of rallies and casual visitors; we hosted three motocross events; it was a busy year on the farm dealing with new cattle housing; we removed our crop of Miscanthus which was under-performing for various reasons; repairs to the cloister became urgent as was suffering some ground instability under one corner; and this morning the 350 runners on the annual "Over the Hills Race" forded the river and ran the half mile up the drive on their 8 mile cross country run.

Roll on the winter!  I wonder what it will bring.

Spring: sprung.

Following months of rain, the grey warmth of the March sun has awakened not only the songbirds and pheasant, but also the early blossoms.  In particular the camellia by the loggia is on fiery form.

  The old, venerable rosemaries...

 and the cherry blossoms are early:

and the beautiful pink one on the lawn will be out in force in a couple of weeks.

 The optimistic shoots are coming through on the great terrace...

 Although the weather has meant that the borders are only being planted out in the coming fortnight, as we continue with Alison Jenkins' exciting planting scheme:

Iford opens for the year on April 1st - we look forward to seeing you!

Historic Replant update - filling out...

 Phase 1 of the replant is now filling out with the warmer weather.

Historic Replant Update

Today was a very important day for the gardens at Iford.  After much planning, deliberating, preparation and waiting (for the weather, mainly), the historic corrective replant has begun.

It is 45 years since Lanning Roper was asked to bring his experience to bear on Iford's gardens which were in need of significant work.  The brief was to produce a long-lasting planting scheme which could be easily maintained whilst providing colour through the summer months.  The legacy of Roper's successful work could be seen in many of the borders at Iford even in recent years.

But times move on and gardens change, as any living thing does.  What remain of Peto's earliest plants are now well over 100 years old.  The garden has evolved, as has the management, as these old forms (cherries in particular) succumb to old age and the planting schemes in the borders are therefore in need of a rethink.

New arrivals in the borders 

We approached Alison Jenkins with a view to redesigning the borders along the main terraces, and she has produced an exciting scheme which we will be implementing over the coming three years.  The key is to use plants which Peto would have had access to during his time here, or any modern form which is the equivalent thereof.  Where this isn't possible, the planting must be in keeping with Peto's critical ethos of balance.  What would he himself have chosen, were he in our shoes today?

“Old buildings or fragments of masonry carry one’s mind back to the past in a way that a garden of flowers only cannot do.  Gardens that are too stony are equally unsatisfactory; it is the combination of the two in just proportion which is the most satisfactory”

 X marks the spot
space is kept back for critical feature shrubs and plants

Over the winter the team has been preparing the borders, and whilst the cold weather has helped to sterilise the ground somewhat, it has held back our schedule for planting.  Today we got underway, and as the season progresses we will enjoy watching the borders as they evolve.

The green shoots of recovery

Nope, not an article about the economy, sadly.  However following a second harsh winter in a row, it never ceases to amaze me how nature bounces back with her trademark optimism: spring flowers and green shoots.

Here are some photographs of the garden taken yesterday, in the soft evening light unique to the early spring.  Note the winter housing still covering much of the statuary.  They don't like the cold much.  And as for the bald patches in the borders (it's only March after all), I love seeing the signs of potential as the bedding plants unravel, reaching up to the sun, stretching for the warmth of the months to come.  Lovely.

Before and after: putting the patio garden to bed

In Peto's patio garden at Iford, texture and scent are integral to the planting scheme through the use of pelargoniums and geraniums with their wonderfully textured leaves, which give off a range of smells from the peppery to the minty.  Peto's great maxim was that one should never allow either the structure or the planting to dominate, rather it is the balance between the two which ensures a pleasing balance to the design, and it is with this in mind that we maintain and design the planting in this area.

As winter approaches, it is clearly necessary to prepare the beds before the cold arrives.  With a potential light frost forecast for this week, Tuesday was tidying-up day.  Owing to the fact that it is nearing the end of the growing season and the plants are often somewhat due a haircut in any case, it is always something of a stark contrast in terms of a 'before and after'.

Cuttings are taken for next year's pots and bedding, and the rest goes off to the compost heap to be returned later in the winter as top-dressing.  So here is the before and after comparison.  Can you spot the difference?!  (sorry about the contrast... the sun came out today!)

Before

After

Garden Update 15 April 2010

If the gardens at Iford are anything to go by, there is definitely plenty of evidence of "green shoots"...  here are some of the highlights from my walk around this afternoon.  

Iford is open on Sundays from 2-5pm currently, and at other times for groups by appointment.  From May, full opening commences, with almost daily opening.  See Iford's website for details.

Perhaps most magnificent is the magnolia by the Loggia pond, just entering its prime this coming week.

The semi-shaded white magnolia in the yard has a week or two to go as well

Little ferns in the shade outside the side door of the manor unfurl with the warmer weather

Wild flowers under the mulberry tree, happy to see their chequerboard lawns smartened up this morning 

Japanese Cherry

This Vitis Cognitiae, which lives in a yew tree (and which gives us a glorious display of red leaves towards the end of the summer) is unusually flowering this year.  Could this be as a result of the harsh winter, anyone?

Wisteria-watch: in front of the house, three weeks or so away

But the warmer wisteria on the front face of the house, has two fronds opening.

Cherries on the lawn are in full flow

Wild flowers on the Cloister path provide a merry scene.

And of course, although we have been enjoying them inside the house for a while, the first round of 'public' orchids have appeared in their pots.  Here, pictured in the Loggia window.

Garden report: Easter Sunday (April 4th, 2010)

Thank you to all those who visited us today for our first day of opening this year.  We were all rewarded with sunshine and a brisk breeze.

During the summer season, we quite often get our regular visitors ring us up and ask whether they might know if the x, y or z has come into flower yet.  Usually it's the wisteria, sometimes the magnolia, on occasion the cherry blossom.  Well, we're absolutely delighted that people want to know, so please, don't feel embarrassed or apologetic about asking - we'd much rather you saw what you wanted to see, than that you arrived expecting wisteria and found you'd missed it by a day or two, or whatever.  Instead, be proud to be an Ifordian, part of that select club of people that are 'in the know', and keep in touch!

To make things a bit easier, and very much on the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, as the summer season progresses we're aiming to post (at least fortnightly, if not weekly) a short pictorial report on the current plant-situation in the garden.  This will act as an opportunity to see what you missed if you didn't visit last week, and also to show you what you might expect to see if you were to visit in the next couple of weeks.

And here is the garden report issued from the Iford office at 19.00 hours on Easter Sunday:

Blooming marvellously are:

Clematis armandii on the front of the house

Grape Hyacinth

Fritillary (with a pair of anemonies)

Camellia by the loggia

Iford's native buxus sempervirens (and what a crop of seeds we had!) which grows to 40 feet

And budding up nicely are:

Ornamental cherry on the top lawn

Cotton buds on the ornamental willow

Fig on the South Wall of the Cloister

Clematis montana rubens in the Cloister

Japanese White Iris kaempferi in the Oriental Garden

Magnolia soulangiana by the Loggia

Tree Peony lutaeia (probably not 'ludlowii')

Wisteria sinensis on the Casita

And not forgetting the orchard...