Period garden opening for charity

[angrybird]

Nigel that is a lovely garden. I can see you have put a lot of love into creating it
Mr P that beautiful plant caught my eye too ....what a stunner!

 

[Nigel Watts]

what's the lovely plant with pink bells in the penultimate picture? Is it a form of campanula?

We knew we would be asked that question by our visitors and in spite of an hour spent flicking through the RHS encyclopaedia and surfing online the night before we couldn't find it. Eventually we were put out of our misery when Karen Fitzsimon, who originally designed the garden, turned up. It's a Jovellana Violacea. The flowers are small, and more pale violet than pink, but almost orchid like. Like most of the plants in our back garden it is evergreen

 

[philpjuk100]

What a great garden! just too far away to visit.

 

[Penners]

It's a Jovellana Violacea.

Well that's a new one on me, but it's gone down in the little book for future reference. As you say, seen close-up the flowers are almost orchid-like.

Many thanks, Nigel.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It looks absolutely gorgeous, lovely to see the pics.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Thank you for the lovely pictures Nigel! The garden is a dream.

 

[Moo]

What an inspirational garden!
Jovellana is gorgeous. What sort of soil does it like? Is it happy in shade, or does it prefer sun?

 

[LadyArowana]

The garden looks beautiful, you did a splendid job getting everything ready and the outside wall repair obviously worked too.

 

[Nigel Watts]

The plant is about 8 years old and has had the occasional prune. The bed is north facing so it gets very little sun. Although we are on heavy London clay, the raised bed it's in is filled with a lighter sandy loam. The plant spreads from the roots. I was pulling quite a bit up a month or so ago and chucking it away. In future I think I will transplant spare bits for giving away/selling given that it seems to have been a hit.

 

[Moo]

That's a splendid idea, Nigel.
You'll be able to give us each a potted-up baby when you host the next PPUK get-together.
X