Garden Journal: 10.06.2025

Daisy Barn & Your Tree

[ Daisy Barn, 8 June 2025 ]

Well, a month after my most recent check in from Daisy Barn feels like an eternity. May was hot and dry, and I was going to and from London so often that some of the newly planted shrubs and perennials suffered badly. June has brought buckets of rain and cooler temperatures, which is a blessed relief for people and plants alike.

It is pretty amazing what you can do with £250 worth of plants, some bags of compost, and a monomaniacal determination. In a little over two months - and despite being fairly time poor - I have made a garden where before there was none.

The bare root roses I ordered to plant here are mostly old varieties. A real favourite, and new to me, is ‘Honorine de Brabant’. It is a striped rose, but paler than a mundi or a ‘King’s Rose’, and has that lusty, spherical shape that I love so much. Rosa ‘Felicia’ is a stunner, too, and her shell pink colour and generous habit make me wish I have ordered several more.

[ Rosa ‘Felicia’, 10 June 2025 ]

[ Rosa ‘Honorine de Brabant’, 10 June 2025 ]

[ Persicaria bistorta 'Superba', Lythrum salicaria ‘Blush’, Physocarpus ‘Little Angel’, 10 June 2025 ]

I bought a cheap strimmer and OH what fun I have had waving it around. I am starting to get the hang of it, and over the weekend ‘mowed’ some paths through the abundance of grasses that had grown up everywhere.

The ecosystem I decimated in the preexisting bed has been replaced with perennials woven between the preexisting, chopped-back roses and a path mulched with landscape bark. I quite like it now.

I am puzzled to find that the preexisting roses, as they bloom, all seem to be identical. Is it possible that whomever planted them liked this one variety so much that they planted several of the same, filling a whole 3mx2m bed with this one, fairly ordinary, pink rose? I have never heard of such a thing. But surely it cannot be that this one rose has self seeded itself into several different places within this bed. It is a mystery that can never be solved, and yet still I want answers. Such is the human condition.

[ Freesia ‘White’, 10 June 2025 ]

[ Rose ‘Baroness Rothschild’ and Persicaria bistorta 'Superba', 10 June 2025 ]

[ The Preexisting border. Trollius ‘Lemon Queen’, Cosmos atrosanguineus, Erigeron karvinskianus, Nasturtium ‘Ladybird Rose’, 10 June 2025 ]

[ The Ha-Ha border, 9 June 2025 ]

[ Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’, 8 June 2025 ]

I absolutely adore the purple loosestrife. I bought it from Great Dixter who had a stall at the Garden Museum Plant Sale. Very sadly the Malus sapling I bought from them has not survived whatever over- or under-watering it received in my care.

Speaking of trees, I am so, so excited to introduce you to YOUR TREE.

[ Parrotia persica 'Vanessa', 10 June 2025 ]

A couple of you incredibly kind and generous readers patronised me through Buy Me A Coffee after reading my piece on trees and one of you wrote in the comments: “for your trees”.

I was able then to go on the hunt for a tree to plant at Daisy Barn with a bit of money in my pocket!

I initially thought about a fruit tree. But then, thinking more deeply about my legacy in this place, thought better.

My favourite tree nearby where I live (and where I grew up) in Battersea is the extraordinary Parrotia persica at the centre of the Winter Garden in Battersea Park. It is an iconic tree to those who know it. When in leaf its canopy creates a secret world within. When bare in winter its arms scoop down, its elbows crooked, inviting you to sit within its immovable embrace, safe, not far about the ground.

Nobody wanted this tree. I saw it at Wisley, stuffed between hundreds of others and knew it was perfect. Not only a Parrotia persica ‘Vanessa’ but costing the exactly the money I had to spend - £45 - and perfectly imperfect in its form. Goodness knows how long it had been there. Long enough for its price tag to be outdated, with its text faded almost to nothing. It is very, very pot bound, and likely malnourished. But I have never loved a thing more.

Yes, this was my tree I knew immediately. It is OUR tree.

Driving it from Wisley to Battersea, and from Battersea to Gloucestershire was an interesting challenge.

[ Wisley to London, you know it is perfect because it fit perfectly in the car!, 30 May 2025 ]

[ Patient dogs with ‘Vanessa’, 6 June 2025. ]

These are not neat trees. Not the regimented, vertical trunk of a well-trained tree suitable for a city garden, not modest in size and habit. But in autumn it will set itself alight with vivid ruby and copper, blood and bronze. Its trunk will go its own way, its arms will stretch wide.

I love this tree so much. I love you all for your patronage, which has made this garden. Perhaps one day you will come to Gloucestershire and see it for yourself. A little bit of London, a little bit of me, and a little bit of all of you. Thank you, my friends.