EVINGTON GARDEN CLUB

Evington Garden Club has a programme of speakers and outings during the summer.

Recently G. Sinclair spoke on Discovering Day Lilies – the Hemerocallis. He has the National Collection. In the past records were not kept, he said, and plants which were developed were lost as growers passed on. When he finished teaching history to start a nursery he was fascinated by hemerocallis and set off on a trail to find the lost ones. We were treated to a history lesson and a detective story. The trail led to the continent; finds were made just before nurseries were closing or through chance meetings with someone who knew somebody. Some had even been rescued from a compost heap. A book on the subject is shortly to be published.

In June the club visited the RHS Hyde Hall Garden in Essex, the driest part of the country. A hot, dry day is good time to visit a drought garden when most other plants are wilting. The sun loving Rose Garden was also at its peak just after their Rose Days. A tiny quibble – there were no rose arches or covered walkways to provide shade, but the roses were perfection. And another – water sprinklers were on during the hottest part of the day, although supplied by their own lake. A vegetable garden was being developed along with examples of raised beds gardens in the RHS Campaign for School Gardening (supported by Waitrose).

There was a delightful sunken garden in the shade with tree ferns, and the drought garden was very well worth the tiring journey. As well as the usual grasses, there were massed tall yellow verbascums, santolina and phlomis, multi-coloured Californian poppy, blue veronicas and salvias, stachis, verbena, lichnis, allium, love in a mist, white cistus and red hot pokers. Because it is so dry it is unlike a Mediterranean garden except for the eucalyptus, yuccas and palms. Even on a hot day it was sheer joy to walk through it several times brushing against the soft planting in its harsh, very different landscape. Definitely a must see.