Yellow Garden

 About the Yellow Garden                                                                                                    

Purpose

The yellow garden was originally created as a place to sit, eat, read the paper, shell seeds, brush the dog - a calm, sensible everyday place in contrast to the intensity of the rose garden. It is also a corral for anything yellow that I felt should feature in the garden but that I could not bear to place in line of sight of anything pink! It is enclosed by evergreens on all sides to ensure both pinks and yellows are kept at a safe distance from each other. When the gardens first opened to visitors in 2012 it seemed the obvious place to serve tea and cakes, and over the years it has slowly morphed into the tea garden. 

Contents

The roses here are mostly hybrid musks, David Austin hybrids and albas all surrounded with perennials in shades of white and yellow. As yellow rose bushes are largely a 20th century development most of the roses here are repeat flowering varieties, and this extends the rose flowering season into August and September. There is an old bomb shelter in the southwest corner, which I find adds great perspective when feeling overwhelmed!

History

The site of the yellow garden initially contained a large hut and two big mounds of flinty subsoil. The beech hedge had not been trimmed for around 30 years so the first thing to do was to chop the beech hedge to a sensible height and allow the lower trunks to bush out. The yellow garden was laid out in September 2003 at the same time as the rose garden, and planting was completed in spring of 2004. Below are some photos taken before and during the yellow garden's early days.

Peak Season: June/July

June and July are a good time of year in the yellow garden as the roses are in full bloom and perennials such as sisyrinchium striatum, alchemilla mollis, geranium pratense f album and phlomis russeliana merge together into a continuous romantic tapestry.