Gerry Quick
Rebecca Goddard for Create Academy
At Ashington, spring-summer begins with the jewel tones of replanted forced hyacinths which revert and improve outside. Also featuring were poets’ narcissi, rainbow tulips and scads of Bluebells in a scented, pastel mist of Hesperis matronalis, the Dame’s Violet, candytuft, Iberis ‘Candida’ and forget-me-nots, one of the first flowers of my childhood memory, along with wall flowers and Canterbury Bells. The sweetest smelling wall flowers are the old-fashioned biannual ones grown from seed, such as Harlequin mix and Persian carpet. Crown imperials give a luxuriant Dutch touch, good in pots, and a strong pong. And everywhere are scattered the home collected seed of opium poppies, Shirley poppies and Eryngium ‘Miss Wilmott’s Ghost’.
Rebecca Goddard for Create Academy
Rebecca Goddard for Create Academy
As spring warms into summer, the smell of irises takes you by surprise – I like the iridescent bearded ones mixed with blobs of colour from Dutch bulb irises ‘Picasso’ and ‘Tiger Mix’. Garlands of roses on thin metal arches begin to sway in the wind, including pink and scented ‘Super Dorothy’ and ‘Minnehaha’. These roses, bred in the 1900s, are often considered unfashionable now but I think they lend a vintage glamour and stature. Lychnis coronaria or rose campion, which I grow from seed, offer a saturated hue and floriferousness, and spread beneath the sweet pea teepees. There is also Lathyrus ‘Matucana’, ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Prince Edward’, which is a good red and sits beautifully alongside flame red flowered runner beans (though bear in mind that on one eats these, so it’s best to dry them like Borlotti). Redcurrants and gooseberries sparkle amongst the perennials, as do coloured salads, rainbow chard, chicory and radicchio. Portuguese cabbage grows like a kale tree (see Kate Coulson’s Instagram) as you pluck what you need from the bottom. Alliums are good too, and the swordlike leaves of leeks add contrast and handsome flower heads.
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