Westwood design to print

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A huge variety of vegetables is 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 colours of cherries, currants, gooseberries, tayberries and jostaberries are
harvested. This last is a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Companion
planting of marigolds, nasturtiums and false bishop’s weed (Ammi majus) enhances
the potager style. Finally, when the vegetables are over green manures, such as rye,
vetch and phacelia are sown 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, Japanese anemone, Chinese plumbago
(Ceratostigma willmottianum) 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.
disappear by mid-morning. The overnight moisture reinvigorates
the grass turning the parched summer fields green again and the Westwood is a mushroom forager’s paradise, for those who
trees take on a softer hue in the autumn light. In the woodlands know their fungi. Giant Puffballs appear overnight like abandoned
some of the trees will have put on a second flush of leaves in late footballs in the fields. Field edges are home to Shaggy Inkcaps and
summer, known as Lammas growth. Particularly true of young oaks, in woodland crevices, Wood Ears cling to old bark.
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, unripened 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 each year, and they
have been joined by a confusion of guinea fowl. 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
Springs, named after the ancient 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 horn sumach (Rhus
typhina) turns ochre, contrasting with the evergreen
yew hedges and box balls.

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The chill of autumnal night encourages many plants to
change their clothes for a new, often more vibrant 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 and later 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 fully ripening.

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