Steve Edney, award winning gardener, gave a talk to the Emsworth Horticultural Society last night at 7.30pm, and I was able to attend because like everything else, it's on Zoom, and I was invited. Steve was Head Gardener at the Lutyens designed Salutation garden in Sandwich, Kent which used to attract so many visitors that it was second only to Sissinghurst for visitor numbers in the area. I visited The Salutation garden with Lyn Davies, Co-chair of the EHS on a garden trip to Kent in June 2019, we loved the garden and were so pleased to find Steve on hand to answer questions about interesting plants we could not name. This is the post I wrote then where you will find better photos than these below taken from my computer screen with a mobile phone camera.
Since then, The Salutation has had financial problems, the hotel closed in January 2020, and now Steve maintains the garden on a part time basis with some volunteers. Since leaving the full time job at the Salutation, Steve has now taken a part time job developing the garden at Canterbury Cathedral.
Steve outlined quite a few of his gardening principles during the talk, including how to cover the ground so that there are not great expanses of bare earth at any time of the year, and used The Salutation Garden to illustrate how he did it. This time of year can be tricky, but as first frosts seem to get later, and not decimate things in the garden, the idea of planting wallflowers and not cutting everything back to 'put the garden to bed' and make it tidy certainly helps to keep the soil covered with plants in the winter.
Steve had a fabulous year at Hampton Court and Chelsea in 2019:
He then went on to give examples of areas where the planting is very dense. With the pink flowers in the front of the bed echoing the Echinacea at the back. If I think Echionacea don't do very well in my garden, it's because I've got one plant, I need more.
This is the lovely wild flower meadow area near the house below, and you can see how wonderful it looks in April/May
The long border looks amazing in May with masses of tulips, does he dig them out after flowering? I can remember him saying the flowers get smaller in successive years. Maybe the perennials are there waiting to burst forth?
And here's the very impressive long border, filled with a fantastic selection of plants, selected for the fact Steve likes them, but they also have to be able to cope with low rainfall which lupins and delphiniums can't do, so they are excluded from the garden.
This selection of plants below is superb, the Euphorbia is a fantastic with its contrasting blue green leaves
I took a photograph very much like this when I visited, again beautiful planting, no stinting on the numbers of plants
Certain plants make gardening easy if they grow well in your garden, Salvia 'Phyllis Fancy' is one of my all time favourites, nearing the end of November, it's still looking fantastic in mine. I did have one a plant in a pot, but have found the benefits of releasing it into a border.
I saw this Kniphofia at Llanover house in September at a plant fair, it's a must have plant as far as i'm concerned, interesting to hear Steve talking about interplanting it with Crocosmia and Camassia
Steve also talked about encouraging people to weed with a trowel or small hand fork rather than a hoe to avoid damaging plants. Mulching is useful to avoid water loss.
Steve finished with a photo of himself and his partner in their back garden, not a bit of bare earth to be seen!! I do hope all goes well with the Canterbury Cathedral garden, and we can visit these wonderful gardens like The Salutation again. One further point, The Salutation had great plant sales, I am very pleased with the Agave and variegated Plectranthus I bought on the day I visited.
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