Life as we all know, is a mixed bag. Keeping the garden afloat, I sometimes feel, is like sweeping the moon dust off our lives. But my Mistress says a gardener digs his worries away, adding that while the world changes so fast, Cothay remains timeless. The old floorboards still creek as the long dead-owners walk across them, as they have done for 500 years, and the weeds grow and grow.
The Plant of the Week bred in Texas is my favourite clematis, the small- flowered Texensis Etoile Rose. Raised in 1903, a deep cherry pink, which flowers for 3 months. There is nothing quite like this little gem, which I have grown for many years. This enchanting climber is a cross between C. douglasii x C. texensis, crossed with an unnamed variety of viticella.
We have been trimiming the many different standards in the garden. Yews, Eleagnus, Portugese Laurels and others, all giving the garden shape and form. They march through the garden like guardian sentinels.
Dearest Mother says “I am the reincarnation of Reggie Cooper who laid out the garden nearly a hundred years ago!”
Greenham, Nr. Wellington,
Somerset, TA21 OJR
01823 672283
