My garden is looking past its best now, as the heat-waves and lack of rain having taken their toll, but these three plants are looking stunning and all worthy of the status of Plant of Month for July 2025.
Among the services offered by Perennial are a range of garden tours, many to gardens which are not often open to the public. Long Barn Gardens is one of those. Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West bought Sissinghurst in 1930, but for 15 years before that they lived at Long Barn and it is interesting to look for the elements here which they later expanded and refined at Sissinghurst. On the edge of the village of Sevenoaks Weald, the garden has retained its long views over wooded countryside and has been the family home of Rebecca Lemonius and her husband who have lived here since 2007.
Like the house itself, the garden has developed as a kind of hotch-potch with bits added on over the years and there is a wonderful informality and intimacy about the place. Rebecca emphasises that although they garden with Vita Sackville-West’s ethos and style in mind, the emphasis is on the atmosphere which she created.
Continue reading A visit to Long Barn Gardens, Kent1. If herbs like thyme have finished flowering, trim them back to keep them compact and use the trimmings to do some cuttings.
2. Stake Dahlias before they get too tall and straggly or the stems may snap. Keep well watered in this dry weather.
3. To conserve water and before we get a hosepipe ban, just water around the roots of plants and mulch them if you can. Some are really suffering at the moment. So why not start sowing seeds of Eryngium giganteum ‘Miss Wilmott’s Ghost’ for a drought proof plant for next year? Loved by pollinators too.
Not too far away (and on the 54 bus route from Charlton and Blackheath!) lies a ‘new’ old park: Beckenham Place Park. The name can be confusing – it lies on the border between the London Boroughs of Bromley and Lewisham, but is run by Lewisham Council. It is larger than you might think, at 96 hectares (well over 200 acres), and stretches from Beckenham Hill railway station in the north to Ravensbourne railway station in the south, west into Beckenham ‘proper’ and east toward Bromley.
Beloved of dogwalkers, wild swimmers, park runners, bluebell spotters and vintage shoppers, since Heritage Lottery Funding was awarded in 2016 there have been many changes and a huge increase in community use. Old features of the 18th century estate have been brought back, playgrounds added and the 1762 mansion (which was formerly a golf club house with a small visitor centre) is now home to artists’ studios, a café, a vintage shop and hosts multiple events.
But to the gardens…
Continue reading Have you been to Beckenham Place Park lately?This year’s Autumn Show will be held a month earlier than usual, on Monday 18 August, at 7.30pm in the Old Library at Charlton House.
Please note that due to the earlier date, the Potato competition will be judged as part of the Show Table at September’s meeting.
Here’s a reminder of last year’s efforts!
The classes you can enter this year are shown below, please have a go at as many as you like!
Continue reading August Flower, Fruit & Vegetable Display 2025 – classes to enterThis is now a regular and popular event in which our panel answer questions sent through in advance from members, some with illustrations or examples sent in plastic bags. The panel this year consisted of our very own CABAHS committee member and all-round plant guru Pat K, our President Sir Nicolas Bevan and horticulturalist and teacher Joe Woodcock. Sir Nicolas invited advice and contributions from the audience too, saying that in a room full of gardeners, the panel did not “have the monopoly on wisdom”. We did our best!
Last year we were all overwhelmed by slugs and snails, this year’s scourge is aphids! The first question related to a particularly damaging infestation on Buddleja, which seemed to have caused a virus. Several people, including Joe, have experienced the same this year. He was able to tell us that it is likely to be a specific species, the Melon-cotton aphid, which the RHS are monitoring (you can report cases to the RHS here).
Continue reading June 2025: Gardeners Question TimeThere were some exquisite entries for the Show Table this month (click on the images to see in detail), but it was the simple, single species vase of sweet peas that won the prize.
Congratulations to Pat for ‘Best on the Table’ – they are perfect!
In addition to the Show Table, there was a raffle with some very desirable prizes, a heaving plant and seed sales table and of course, our annual ‘Amateur Gardeners’ Question Time’ with Pat, Nicolas and Joe.
Ali H
Being the month of June, I am pleased to say that there is plenty of colour in the garden, including Rosa ‘Bobby James’ out in flower, but, the star plant for me is definitely the Canary Island foxglove, Digitalis canariensis.
This is an eye-catching shrub (albeit short-lived) with burnt-orange-apricot foxglove flowers, (flowering since May), supported by strong, upright stems and dark green, serrated-edged foliage.
1. Plant out Dahlias in a sunny spot in fertile soil adding some compost to the planting hole. I have to surround mine with Strulch on my allotment to protect them from the hundreds of slugs and snails lurking all around.
2. Take softwood cuttings now of Anthemis, Salvia, Verbena, Penstemon and Fuchsia. Cut below a leaf node and dibble around the edge of a pot. Salvias will also grow fine roots in water to give them a head start.
3. Look out for hellebore seedlings around the base of your favourite plant. The resulting plants may not resemble the parent but they could be even better.
Jean and I were very sorry to miss the (highly successful) plant fair on 19 May but we did have a lovely visit to the fabulous garden at RHS Harlow Carr instead.
RHS Harlow Carr is a short drive or bus ride away from Harrogate, a very elegant spa town in North Yorkshire. The garden opened in 1950 with the intention of trialling and showcasing plants that would thrive in a northern climate as opposed to the possibly easier growing conditions of RHS Wisley.
Continue reading A Visit to RHS Harlow Carr
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 