The Garden House (Devon, England)
The destinations are beginning to blur but looking at the tour guide booklet, I see that we are now in Plymouth. Today, we visited two gardens designed by Keith Wiley. The first is The Garden House , where Wiley worked as Head Gardener for 25 years (from 1978-2003). The 10-acre estate was purchased in the 1940s by former Eton schoolmaster Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine. It was formerly home to the vicars of Buckland Monachronum. The Fortescue's renovated the gardens and ran a market garden business and raised cattle. The remains of some of the original buildings in the vicarage still stand in the garden and serve as a romantic backdrop in the Walled Garden - I loved the way they had massed ferns together. Just stunning! Surrounding the walled garden and venturing out away from the house are more naturalistic plantings - Today, the head gardener is Nick Haworth, who was previously head gardener at Greenway , which we visited earlier. Keith Wiley lef...






Excellent advise. I have rarely transplanted roses, mainly because I usually kill them. I do have three roses now. I have one that is a rambler that is so old I don't know for sure what it is. I have the climber White Dawn. It is a tough plant. I moved it in the heat of the summer but it lived. It was doing great then winter before last the rabbits ate it to the ground. The poor thing has struggled since. Then I have another climber named Golden Showers. It has been doing pretty good. I don't wish to move another though. I hope your rose thrives in it's new location.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, Phillip, my head was nodding "Yes!" right from the start as it all resonated with me. And when you mentioned the best buds facing inward instead of outward, I thought that had clinched the deal. But I don't think I've ever had a root ball stay intact, so I'll give you 10 out of 10 on this post.
ReplyDeleteYou make it look so easy! I know it isn't. You do a good job.
ReplyDeleteDigging out a rose is my very least favorite gardening activity. There always seems to be one root that goes straight down and is impossible to get at. Here, too, the light soil and lack of any winter chill means crown/root gall is a terrible problem--many of mine have succumbed. A rose intended to be moved ends up having to be discarded because of gall.
My 'Golden Celebration' is huge. I love it.