A Spring Walk round Burton Manor Gardens with Horticulturist Karen Jones

(March 13th, 2008)

With some Tips for Spring Tasks in your Garden

We’re starting our walk today in the little pond garden facing the main entrance to the Burton Manor house. The pond here is kindly being restored by the Friends of Burton Manor, and it is going to be fantastic when it is finished, probably about June

The back wall is covered in plants, this one is called Phygelius, and there are a few different varieties of this plant. I’m not too sure whether it’s going to be yellow or a beautiful vibrant orange – but we’ll soon see in the summer. They flower usually from June through to August, and you can cut it back in the summer, once the flowers are finished, and it will usually give you a second showing. A lovely shrub to have, a lot of people don’t know if it’s a shrub or herbaceous, this one is definitely a shrub, and don’t be frightened of cutting it back, and even splitting it, because it will give you a spectacular display.

Next to the Phygelius we have a fantastic shrub in the corner, called Viburnum. This one has a very sweet perfume and little trumpet white/pale pink flowers. It is called Viburnum bodnantense and it is probably Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ – I’m not too sure of the particular variety, but I think it’s ‘Dawn’ a fantastic one to have. Don’t be frightened of cutting things back, it keeps them young, keeps them looking good; always top dress as well and feed. The perfume is just, ooh, beautiful! You just know that the oncoming Spring is ready to hit us.

Another shrub, the little shrub next to the Phygelius, is a Hebe. It’s only March but it’s already starting to flower, so really this must be a very sheltered part of the garden, and this one has beautiful plum foliage. Not too sure of the variety, there are so many different varieties of Hebe, so many different colours of foliage, but this one could be ‘Autumn Beauty’.

George is right, this is a Forsythia. There are quite a few forsythia in the garden, with such a gorgeous, vibrant yellow colour at this time of year, so early in the season it makes us start looking forward to all the things to come. The seasons are starting to change rapidly, forsythia usually starts to flower in February, but where I live, the one over the road from me, was starting in November! Odd, but hey ho! Actually the forsythia is a great shrub to hack at, don’t worry about it! We’re all a bit frightened of cutting things back, but just wait until it’s finished flowering, then you can chop it back, cut it into shape instead of letting it romp away. The good thing about forsythia is that it usually flowers on it’s old growth, so if you get any long shoots in the summer you can cut them back by half, or remove them altogether, it’s entirely up to you.

Moving along the borders slightly, it’s taking longer than we thought, we just seem to be stopping at every plant! Anyway, we’re stopping by a sickly looking Skimmia. Skimmia is a fantastic shrub to have, they grow to about 3 foot high, but this one is looking rather poorly! All that it needs is some ericaceous feed, which is also good for rhododendrons, camellias, hydrangeas, and other things as well. You give it once a year, and an ericaceous top dressing too, to help it along the way. The little shrub behind it is a semi-evergreen (the Skimmia is a full evergreen) called Abelia, a pretty little shrub to have. Not too sure at this stage in the season what colour flower it will have, they usually have a pale pink to mid pink flower, very, very pretty, graceful!

There’s just a little Jenny Wren on the wall, & she’s so beautiful, picking through the lichen, she’s just hopping along the wall, so beautiful to see! This is part of the garden that has just been redeveloped, I was so impressed as I walked round the corner to see this lovely little courtyard garden which is just starting off. Part of the Atelier project, it opens in April & is going to be great for local people, walkers, people cycling past, what a fantastic idea! You must come and see it because it’s well, well worth it. I’m just peeping through the window at the coffee shop – what sort of things are you going to be serving? cakes, sandwiches, etc

We’re now down in the gardens near the old tennis courts, and there are so many things just starting to burst out and you just know Spring is on its way. There are some beautiful Prunus trees (cherry) in full flower, not too sure which variety. It’s a semi-double, not a single, a semi-double, with a very, very pale pink tinge to the petals, such a pretty one. I reckon the tree must be about 30 - 40 years old. You can hear the birds singing, and, after all the gales we have had there doesn’t seem to be too much damage down here, which is really, really good. Daffodils are in flower, some in bud and some in flower, lovely to see, and quite a lot of rhododendrons in the grounds here which are going to be at their best in a couple of months time. Underneath one of the big trees, which looks like a Plane tree, but not my favourite knobbly one, there are still a few crocus, this must have been beautiful just a week or two ago. You can still see the odd crocus now, and a few snowdrops, which are just finishing. I’m going to be careful where I tread here, just underneath my foot are some clumps of bluebells, which should flower in April, and, making Dot smile, some more of that darned celendine!

And as we turn the corner, as I look to the right of the tennis courts, there is such a blaze of colour, absolutely beautiful! The forsythia, and I should imagine that’s, what? about 30 foot wide, 20 – 30 foot wide, so full of lovely, fresh Spring colour. And then, beside the forsythia, is a shrub called Ribes, this one I think is ‘King James’, a beautiful, beautiful ribes, which is part of the currant family. The one thing I don’t like about ribes is that it smells of cat urine! It puts me off, when you’ve got a warm day the pungent smell is very, very strong, if you have it by your front door, visitors start looking round for where the cat has been! If you want to plant it, plant it away from the house so that when you open the door the smell doesn’t come in.

This is just an amazing prunus; this is an old one that is dead, but the beautiful fungus that is growing out of the trunk is just amazing to see. Life goes on, one thing may be dead, but something else is clinging on and growing, lovely to see. The veins through the particular fungus here are quite amazing; it’s quite rigid, not as soft as I thought it would be, quite beautiful.

Just behind this array of colour we come to a magnolia, now this magnolia is a fantastic shape. The flowers come before the leaves with a magnolia, this one looks as if it’s going to break open as a Magnolia stellata which is a beautiful flower – it could be, I’m not too sure. Behind it, giving a lovely backdrop, is a taxus, a beautiful yew, which is probably as old as the garden itself. Then, to the left of that, we have a beautiful rhododendron, in full colour at the moment, it’s one of the earlier varieties of rhododendron, and, again, it is possibly as old as the garden. I’m not sure which variety this is, it’s like race horses, they reclassify and rename things over the years – if a plant isn’t doing too well, they rename it – apparently they do the same with race horses! We have to the left of that, another magnolia, again, there are so many of these purple budded varieties, but this time it is one of the tulip magnolias, gorgeous!

Now then, as we just turn back on ourselves, a lot of people may just walk past this plant, this tree, and not even notice the beautiful flower. It’s an Hamamelis, or Witch hazel, and the flowers are so, so pretty. There’s some lichen growing just behind some of the flowers, the flowers are a vibrant ruby claret colour, and the little clusters of lichen are grey, so basically they are complimenting each other. Now be very careful with this lichen, it’s a lichen that has appeared in, I would say the last 8 years. The lichen clings to trees and, with our warmer and wetter weather, the lichen can end up clogging the tree so it can’t breath. Underneath that beautiful hamamelis is a cluster of daffodils, which really set off the shape of the tree beautifully, because it’s quite arching, quite wide, the branches are reaching out, it’s a really stunning tree

Walking back over towards the Dee side of the garden there’s so many other clusters of daffodils. It’s a little bit overgrown, but it has it’s own beauty in that way really because there are certain things you can see, bursting through the undergrowth. This one is beautiful, this is a Mahonia, it looks like Mahonia ‘Charity’, it’s one of the earlier ones to flower it should have a lovely perfume too – yes! beautiful and sweet. Mahonia is a great one, there are quite a few different varieties of it, this one, as I say, I think is ‘Charity’. Growing underneath this Mahonia, through the undergrowth, is something called Nepeta, it has a metallic look to the leaf. It’s a little like Nettle, but this is a ground cover plant, and is called Nepeta. With Nepeta again, there are about 50 different varieties, lovely.

We’re now standing at the top of the steps that go down to the Ice House (now that’s another story!) Just looking round the garden, listening to the birds, watching the sheep in the next field, looking at the daffodils and prunus, and George has just pointed out these lovely primroses and primulas. A lot of people get confused between primroses and primulas: primulas usually have a longer stem, emerging from the base of the leaves. What a fantastic show, what lovely colours!

We’ve walked to the top of the steps, and my favourite plane tree, with the knobbly trunk, is encroaching onto the top garden, the branches are just spilling over. The fruits, or the little seed heads, that you get on the Plane tree are rather spectacular, they almost look like chocolate Easter eggs, aah, yes George, a play on words – quite eggstraudinary!

As we’re looking over the estuary of the Dee some of the trees are starting to show their buds, buds of leaves and buds of flowers. There is one in particular that has been flowering, probably from about the autumn, with a lovely plum foliage, and that is the Prunus Autumnalis with a little, single pale pink flower, it’s so pretty.

These are Euonymus, and George is saying that surely they must have a name! Anonymous Euonymus! I think this one’s called ‘Blondie’, this variety could be ‘Blondie’, but, years ago, it probably didn’t have that name when it was planted. I’ve just been told that these stand either side of gate posts overlooking the Dee, towards Hawarden castle, where the father of Neville Chamberlain (the then owner of Burton Manor) lived. That is why Neville Chamberlain bought Burton Manor, to be close to his father. Little did he know he would inherit Hawarden castle, and that is why, in the early 1920s, he sold Burton Manor to take up residence in Hawarden Castle.

We’ve walked through the garden now, we’re looking at the house from the back, the right hand side of the house. We’re just about to go up a lovely walkway, one of my favourites from when I was here in the autumn, when all the hydrangeas were at their best. The hydrangeas are looking a little sad now, but they just need a little cutting back, now would be a good time to do it. Don’t leave it too late, I always say try to do everything by the 17th of March and you’ve cracked it! If you’ve missed that date, try to do it as soon as possible.

As we’re going up the steps, to the left of them is a magnolia, and this one is definitely Magnolia stellata, with star shaped flowers – so, so pretty! Nature, I always look at nature every day and think what a fantastic thing it is! This magnolia has these little furry buds because they start budding in November, and because the buds are furry it keeps the cold out, isn’t it amazing? Another thing about magnolias, they like an ericaceous feed and a top dressing of ericaceous compost as well, and they come on in leaps and bounds. You will not regret giving them that little bit of tender loving care – just once a year, that’s all they need, an ericaceous feed and ericaceous top dressing.

At the top of the steps, just outside the house, I want to talk about a particular plant that has an architectural leaf; can you see that one George? It’s the little one between the euonymus and…, yes, it looks like rhubarb! that is called Acanthus, and is an herbaceous plant. There are quite a lot of them dotted around. I noticed, last time I came, the walkway going up from the car park to the new coffee shop, has Acanthus planted all the way along. Wait until you see it in the summer, I bet everyone has just walked right past and not noticed it, but look at the flower in the summer, really architectural, a bit different!

As we get close to the hydrangeas you can see all the new growth starting to appear, so at least now you can make sure you cut back to where the new growth is. You don’t have to cut it all the way back, you can just cut it back by half if you want, but now is a good time of year to do it. There are certain things that you need to do by the 17th of March; you need to have pruned all your roses, and you need to have cut your hydrangeas back. Before the 14th of February, that’s another little date for your diary, you should have cut/pruned and layered your wisteria. So, 14th of February for your wisteria, and also for putting any liquid slug stuff on plants. But I’m a great believer in putting little slug traps out with beer in them so they have a happy ending, instead of a very, very sad ending; they like to wallow in the beer!

Although the ivy is a nuisance, and causes a lot of damage to the stonework, because it sets it’s roots in it, the ivy is really, really lovely and it does give, I think, a romantic setting. But it has …, yes, a very stern voice says “it’s got to go”! And I do agree, yes, it has to go. The last time I came I didn’t even notice the circular windows in this wall, well there’s no glass in them, the ivy is covering them quite a lot; but of course the ivy has other aspects too, it gives shelter to birds and other creatures. But there you go, hey ho, you have to move on I suppose, Stuff the birds! Did I really say that?!

Now we’re in the sunken garden, that used to be the rose garden, and we have a skimmia and it’s healthy, it’s just so healthy and it’s blooming. Yet up in the garden where the pond is, there is another skimmia that is not happy at all. But the thing is, there must be a vein of a different soil running through, soil levels change, there is one skimmia that is not happy, because it needs it’s ericaceous soil, and this skimmia is happy – amazing how, in such a small area, the soil can change so much.

We’ve just come across this Osmanthus, it’s in bud and doesn’t look much at the moment, but when the little tube like, cream flowers open the perfume is lovely, quite exquisite really.

Here we have a holly, which is growing in the undergrowth, the top of it is a beautiful, variegated Ilex which of course, is the proper name for holly, and it probably had berries on in the winter months, but those hungry birds have eaten them all! However the lower part, which is covered in undergrowth, is quite albino looking – it just hasn’t had enough light to green it up, but it’s quite spectacular really in it’s own right, with the sunlight just filtering through.

Created on ... March 28, 2008