Westwood designv3

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A huge variety of vegetables are grown in the kitchen garden, often at its most
prolific by late July. In the quadrants surrounding the beds, greengages, figs,
quinces and plums ripen, but the Kiwi ‘Jenny’ planted against the bothy wall has
obstinately refused to bear fruit. In the surrounding meadow and fruit cage, all
colour of currants, gooseberries, tayberries and jostaberries are harvested. This
last is a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Companion planting
of marigolds, Ammi majus and nasturtiums add to the colour, and when the
vegetables are over the beds are planted up with green manures, such as rye, vetch
and phacelia, to prepare the soil for the following year’s crop.

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The repeat flowering Rosa ‘Albéric Barbier’ spills
down the edge of the loggia, diffusing its light, fruity
fragrance and is joined by Rosa ‘Wedding Day’ with its
apricot buds which open to white. Below, clouds of the
blue catmint Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ keep the bees busy
and provide a second flowering in September. The blue
and white theme is extended with salvias, penstemons,
rosemary and Agapanthus ‘Windsor Grey’.

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Yet more roses festoon the gates and walls along the
driveway. White flowering R. ‘City of York’ combines
with the deep crimson R. ‘Souvenir du Docteur
Jamain’ to climb through the gates and urns, and
despite the cold north winds here R. ‘Mme Alfred
Carrière’ and R. ‘Wedding Day’ have flourished.

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AUTUMN

The landscape and particularly the orchards truly embody the lines of John Keats’ poem
‘To Autumn’ as the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Ribbons of morning mists
are suspended across the valleys, waiting for the warmth of the day to evaporate. Rich
jewel-like colours hang from the hedges and trees as the burgundy-flushed skins of
the Doyenne du Comice and Beurre Hardy pears compliment the deep blackberries,
elderberries and bright shiny rosehips and hawthorn berries.

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MORNING DEW HIGHLIGHTS spiders’ webs strung between lichens, mosses and fungi. A Cotswold colloquial name for this
bushes and trees but also covering the grass in a lacy cloth, which decaying wood is droxy wood.
seems to disappear by mid-morning. The overnight moisture
reinvigorates the grass turning the parched summer fields green Westwood is a mushroom forager’s paradise, for those who
again and the trees take on a softer hue in the autumn light. In the know their fungi. Giant Puffballs appear overnight like abandoned
woodlands some of the trees will have put on a second flush of footballs in the fields. Field edges are home to Shaggy Inkcaps and
leaves in late summer, known as Lammas growth. Particularly true in woodland crevices, Wood Ears cling to old bark.
of young oaks, ash, beech and sycamore it is the way for the tree to
compensate for insect damage caused in the spring. As the harvest is gathered by both people and animals, eventually
only the smallest, un-ripened apples are left on the trees. Known
Wood harvested the previous winter may be dry enough by the in the West country as griggles, these will provide food during the
autumn to be chipped, thereby making room for the next season’s winter for the hardiest animals and birds. But not for one bird, as
harvest. But in the woodlands, plenty is left to decay naturally, Keats’ wrote in the final line of his poem “And gathering swallows
making habitats for up to 1800 insect species as well as numerous twitter in the skies”, as they prepare to leave Westwood for their sub-
Saharan winter home.

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In Medleys wood, not far from the shepherd’s hut,
young pheasant poults are raised. Along with Ryders
and Breach woods, a programme of scrub clearance
has gradually opened up these woodlands and the
vistas across to Ranch House and Lictum House,
named after the ancient Lictum spring.

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In early autumn, feathery pink fan-shaped flowers
decorate the Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin).
Introduced to England from Iran in 1745, it is also
known as the Sleeping tree because of the way its
leaves close up at night. Cascading over the laurel
above the drive, the stag’s head sumach (Rhus
typhina) turns ochre contrasting with the evergreen
yew hedges and box balls.

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As the nights take on a chill, many plants change
their clothes for a new colour. The Virginia creeper
covering the front of the house (Parthenocissus
tricuspidata ‘Veitchii’) turns ruby-red and deep purple
and the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ changes
from lime green, to cream, to flushed with sugar-pink.
In the autumn sunshine the skin of squashes harden,
allowing better storage but the Medlars will have to
wait for the first frosts before being fully ripe.

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