Page 24 - 375457 NLP263064 BB Magazine (April Issue 97)

GARDENS & FLORA ///
BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY IN THE ITALIAN LAKES
Last month Lesley and I had a very happy ten days in the Italian Lakes visiting gardens and enjoying the food, wine and the company of our fellow travellers. It was the first time we had been out of the UK since January 2021. We showed you a picture of Lesley at Balbianello in the January Black Bitch, when we visited in August 2015, here she is again, wrapped up but with blue skies under the arches which have the green tracery of Creeping Fig clinging to them. This garden was used as location in Casino Royale when James Bond was recuperating on the lawn below the huge mushroom shaped topiary Evergreen Oak.
Palm Leaf Mulch
also to feed the soil, Andrea mulches all the ground, even using palm leaves, no vegetation leaves his garden... it’s all composted or shredded and returned to the earth. Lessons for us in our gardens!
Italian statue
Lesley at Balbianello,
It’s lovely revisiting gardens you’ve
Being in Italy we couldn’t avoid those classic marble statues, and as we think of New Hopetoun Gardens as the Scottish home of garden ornaments you won’t be surprised to see us include one of these characters here!
Dougal Philip
and Lesley Watson New Hopetoun Gardens
so much more than just a garden centre
www.newhopetoungardens.co.uk
Camellia
seen before, especially at a different time of year. But we had never seen Camellias and Magnolias flowering in the gardens of Lakes Como and Maggiore but the real treat for us was visiting the Camellia garden of the President of the Italina Camellia Society for the first time. Andrea led us around his garden which is in a steep sided valley and beautifully designed and maintained.
Many of the Williamsii varieties of Camellia were in full flower, two weeks ahead of ours back home, and these are the varieties that perform best for us in Scotland. They have the added advantage of dropping their spent flowers Magnolia
rather than holding onto them looking brown and dead on their branches. What a tapestry we enjoyed with Magnolias and Camellias dropping their spent blooms in generous pools around their feet.
Partly to reduce the maintenance required for weeding, but
IT’S STILL LATE SPRING!
THE GARDEN CENTRE IS BURSTING AT THE SEAMS WITH THE MOST TEMPTING PLANTS, BUT SOME OF THE SUMMER BEDDING NEEDS PROTECTION FROM THE COLD WEATHER UNTIL MAY!
24 BLACK BITCH ISSUE 97 APRIL 2023