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Private Notes
It is summer and the garden is at its most abundant. The fragrance of lilies fills the air, and glorious colour abounds. To keep the garden at its best, there's deadheading to be done, plants to stake - and looking ahead, Carol begins to take cuttings of her favourite herbaceous perennials. Carol also sets to work in her hot borders to stage the hot tender exotics she has carefully grown on under cover. Cannas, gingers, and dahlias are all carefully planted and placed out to create a sizzling explosion of late summer colour. Summer would not be complete without a trip to the seaside. Carol takes a walk along the dunes of her local beach, Braunton Burrows, to seek out a plant she would dearly love to grow in her own garden, eryngium maritimum, our native sea holly.
Autumn brings a change of mood to the garden, rich smells of wood smoke and ripening fruits pervade the air. It is a busy time for Carol - there are seedlings to be pricked out, tidying up to be done, and harvest time means there is an abundance of seed to collect. Slugs and snails have ravaged the hot borders. Carol cuts back tattered foliage to reduce the damage just in time to open the garden to the public under the National Gardens Scheme. October sees the leaves on the trees turn to gold, russet, amber and scarlet. They will need to be raked when fallen, and there are tulip bulbs yet to plant - the garden is visibly going to sleep - winter is on its way.
Winter has come... harsh frosts have shattered Carol's tulip pots, and her brick paths are ruined. Carol takes shelter in the potting shed and prepares her garlic for spring planting.
On finer days, she begins pruning late-flowering clematis, and when the thaw comes she begins a major re-vamp in the borders.
As the long dark days pass, the first green shoots of the new year appear. First it is snowdrops in ones and twos, and then in drifts, carpeting the woodland floor. These are then followed by jewel-like hellebores.
As winter slides into February, and whilst the trees and shrubs are still in their dormancy, a local woodsman arrives to lay Carol's native hedge.
It is spring and changes are afoot in the garden.
Carol begins the season by clearing away the last of the winter debris. All pruning needs to be done before the end of March and she celebrates the new season by sowing her first seeds. An expert hedge pruner comes to cloud-prune Carol's box hedging but work is interrupted by a nesting hedge sparrow.
Down in the woodland garden, snowdrops have given way to celandines, violets and primroses. In May, there is a surge of new growth. It is a time for cow parsley and blossom. Although the seedlings need pricking out, the frosts are now over and the garden's renewal is underway.
