Oh my name is Michael I'm welcome to our house and garden here in the village of Woolpit in the heart of Suffolk
in filming the garden it's allowing me to do a little bit of time traveling it's actually the first week of May and I
thought you'd like to see the wisteria I
planted it on the front of the house
when we moved here about 40 years ago
it's looking particularly splendid right now
sadly it'll all be over in a couple
of weeks and long before the garden is normally open at the end of May
it's mid-may and I've just come to the top of the yard to show you this little area
originally it was occupied by a breeze
block garage and workshop with a
corrugated roof David and I had
demolished it and we got some local
builders in to raise the walls and build
this little area the plantings gone
through various schemes from a herb
garden to bedding out now I'm trying to
establish the euonymus this is what
happens when you like aliens freely seed
in the border we'll just go through now
to the main garden the Acers are looking
particularly nice this time of the year
this was the garden that came with the
house there was very little here the
grass was waist high nice straight borders and tarmac paths so I got rid of
all of that and started a planting scheme the Gleditsia is now quite mature and looking
rather lovely at this time of the year
and facing west it almost glows in the
sunset the advantage of the houses in
this section the street there's and
they've all got brick walls we raised
them a little
we sustained some storm damage so I'm
waiting for Cecile Brunner to flower and
then I can cut her back and sort that
out
while I was looking at it I decided to
cut back some of the shrubs I remember
Christopher Lloyd saying when shrubs get
too big don't just do nothing either
prune them or get rid of them and make
some room
well no certainly hack them back when we
get the when we got the the land in
sections to the rear here it meant that
I could punch through the wall and made
this little window and we've just come
up the montana is looking rather nice
into the Shakespeare garden
we call it the Shakespeare garden
because not surprisingly there is the
bust of Shakespeare at the top of the
garden something we bought from the Chelsea Flower Show several years ago now he was
just a head so we had to find a
stonemason to to give him a bust and a
column and he's quite an imposing figure
which meant that this part of the garden
needed to be somewhat formal the hedging is purple prunus and copper beech
normally it would have had a light trim
at this time of the year but with the
lockdown Dan who usually does our hedge trimming hasn't been free to to get around to do it
I wanted to build a summer house and I was inspired by some designs by a lesser-known architect by the name of Batty Langley who went on
the grand tour and came back with a
series of designs for umbrellas to
terminate a walk or view I retired about
four years ago so I have the time to
work on the design and spend a summer
building
rather nice building
I've always been keen on shells and
grottoes so I thought it'd be fun to do
a shell sealing in here to a mere late
18th century plaster work it's got a
nice place to sit during the day out of
the out of the full sunlight and heat of
the day
the new tables rose is in flower  at the the moment and just picks up the candles of
the chestnut in the next garden
 
 
it's been so hot and sunny these last few
days I've just held back but waiting for
the irises to come into flower and they
are looking quite spectacular but we'll
go there in just a minute I'll just show
you the main part of the garden here as
you can see it's a mixture of fruit
vegetables and ornamentals
there's young Mr Repton a little fun thing to have in the garden
I've got about 26 different varieties of
apples which were a mixture of heritage
and modern varieties there's eight
varieties of pears
we've got plums cherries it's all sorts
of mixed fruit parsnips are coming on
the sweet peas winter lettuce and we're
just coming up to what was the asparagus
border but it honestly with Suffolk
being so dry it was hardly worth growing
it and actually you can buy very good
asparagus locally so I thought I've
always loved peonies and I thought well
why not have a peony board and then I
thought well actually they're a flower a
certain time of the year so I
interspersed some alternate planting
with peonies and Dahlia's and that's kind
of shocking pink but it's a very jolly
color at this time of the year
that's a lovely peony there called
Coral sunset
it it fades to a sort of soft
peachy color and as the iris border just
looking gorgeous it's a collection of
irises I've got some Benton iris's
there that dark mauve one blue one is is
a Benton iris and the scent is quite
quite strong and we're just coming up to
the plant top part of the garden
historically the garden at this end
I think it's been used as a dumping
ground for generations so whenever I try
to plant anything
I've always been digging up saucepans
and bits of old bicycles and even a
kitchen range and lots of bricks so
there were so many bricks that David and
I over one winter created these these
three circles which Stanley calls the
Ring cycle so Lord of the Rings Wagner's
Ring cycle so I've made a ring to go
over the top I've always admired
laburnum tunnels and arches but I
thought it'd be fun to make a ring so
that seems to be working rather well
it's only two years old just through
there I have four bays for compost as
you can imagine this garden generates an
awful lot of waste so it's all shredded
up and makes some very good compost
which I've spread on the soil actually
the birds are very good because I just
dump it in the middle and they just
spread it around looking for the little
grubs and worms that hide inside
one of the advantages of living in the centre of the village is that you have nice
roof lines and chimneys and of course
the spire of Mary's Church while the sun
is shining I'd like to bring into this
part of the garden several years ago I
created two raised beds for camelias
and rhododendrons it's not an ideal
place to grow
either it's not an acid soil here the
camellias struggle a bit but the
rhododendrons are looking very nice
indeed and I'm rather pleased with that
this area here contains a pond we have a
solar panel which operates little
Godzilla there who throws out a little
spout of water it's quite a nice area in
the garden to come and have drinks in
towards the end of an evening
I see the wisteria coming out there and
through the Shakespeare hedge
I just cut through so you get various
visitors of the garden the wisteria has
planted many years ago I bought 
in France and it
had flowered and I planted it and it
grew and grew and grew but not a sign of
flowers for many many years
and at the point that I said right
that's it it's coming out suddenly wow
it's like a tremendous waterfall and
quite beautiful and here we are back
almost where we started I hope you've
enjoyed this little time virtual tour of
the garden managed to see the garden at
different times during the
month normally would have been at the
end of May and we're almost there now we
planned to open at the end of August
though of course nobody knows what's
going to happen between now and then if
not hopefully next year but I hope
you've enjoyed this little tour and
maybe I'll see you in person in the
future
bye bye
