00:00So we're here at Yew Tree Cottage in Ranton just down from Horton not a
00:06million miles from the centre of Stafford and you're opening for the
00:09National Garden Scheme? Yes we are we're open this coming Thursday and Sunday the
00:1421st of July from 2 till 5. Cool and how long have you been here in this house?
00:20We've been here heading towards 30 years now. Yeah and it's garden was it a family
00:27I mean you've created a wonderful you know little little gem here. Did you grow
00:31up with a beautiful garden? Is it something that was in the family
00:34gardening? Yeah it was in the family for both of us. Clive's family had a vegetable patch and a very productive garden. Clive's dad was a very good gardener and his granddad from Cheshire and Hay and I had a lovely lovely garden
00:48all my family did and my grandma too so big country gardens and again lots of
00:53vegetables and things you could eat yeah as well as flowers so very productive. So
00:58when you came here was that was there much doing in terms of a garden? It
01:01wasn't like this it was just really a lot of flat grass and certainly the
01:08hedges weren't here and the trees that we've got now weren't here most of them
01:11anyway so yes we had to start from scratch. We had a blank canvas didn't we? Did you kind of do the whole design as a whole or did you
01:22kind of you know do a patch and then it's evolved over the years? I did a sketch at work in my lunch break yeah so I've got the sketch in the shed
01:33that I did with the arches and the U edges yeah and then we just added the
01:40beds and borders as we wished so pretty much an organic garden we did it how we
01:46felt yeah on the day. So how would you if how would you describe your garden to
01:53someone then if they said oh what type of garden have you got what you know how
01:56would you describe it? Large country cottage garden with lots of romantic planting. Garden with an eye to wildlife we've got hedgehogs in the garden
02:10yeah we've got all sorts of creatures that come out of the pond and insects as
02:15well. Creatures that come out of the pond I like that. You never know what's going to come out of the pond. And you've got some very special plants haven't you the dioramas we'll pick your
02:26brain on that in a bit a bit more you they're particularly beautiful but it's
02:30it's a very delicate kind of garden isn't it I love how you've got as you
02:35walk across you're quite often brushing across kind of against flowers and you
02:39know that obviously was a conscious you're very much immersed it's almost a
02:44sensory thing isn't it as you walk around even more so. It's inspired by nature really because if you go out into the countryside botanising you do find that you get colonies and whole carpets of plants that co-exist and so I think that really is what inspires our planting underneath everything.
03:08And it must be nice to open it up to the public and kind of you know share share what you've
03:11created. We love sharing the garden and we love feeding them cake as well. Very famous for our courgette cake.
03:22So you know you've been here 30 years creating this wonderful thing you can never leave now can you. No. I mean that's the thing isn't it. Only for two weeks at a time. Two weeks. Who looks after your plants if you go away or have you got it so that you can get away with two weeks you know away.
03:40We do have some help from Evelyn across the road. She pops in and waters for us but we've also got a chap who helps us half a day a week and he'll come in and water if we need it while we're away as well. And they get paid in courgette cake. So these are particularly pretty flowers what are these called. These are called diorama they're angels fishing rods and they come from South Africa but they grow very well in this country.
04:08And you're rather well known for them I believe aren't you. Yeah we have a national collection of diorama. I have had for the last five or six years. There are a lot of different plants growing in the garden here. So what does that mean then. So when someone says we've got the national collection what does that mean.
04:26Well you have to apply to have a national collection and you need a representative of each of the species or the hybrids in whichever collection you've got and also two spares. So if there are 10 species then you need three of each species 30 plants. And then you open up so that people can come and have a look at them and see how they perform in all sorts of situations.
04:50So is this is this your favourite flower in the garden or not necessarily or. Without a doubt yeah absolutely our favourite yes. It's funny I've seen this once before at a garden but it's gorgeous but you don't see them that much do you. But you said they can be a bit tricky to get established. They can be tricky to get established and the nurseries find it quite difficult to grow them and then to sell them.
05:14So a big plant like this might take seven eight years to come into flower. Yeah. And so and to buy one that's two or three years old you find you struggle to find them because in the winter in pots they need some winter protection. So yeah. So that's why you really don't see them as much as you might. I know they pretty much always pink and shades of pink is that kind of. No you get pink lilac white peach deep red the deep red ones haven't really started yet.
05:42Yeah. The Paul Kerry mums are very tall and deep red and flower later in the season. So the season's quite long. Yeah. They start in June and you can still have different ones flowering really by the end of August September. It's quite surprising. But each one has its time. So this one will flower for about three weeks and then it'll be over and then something else will be flowering. So do you remember where you came across your first Deorama.
06:08Yes we saw them at Bodnant Garden and they had a great bed of them overlooking the pond at Bodnant. Yeah. Absolutely spectacular. And you just look at them when they're in full flower and it looked a bit like this but longer. And we just went whoa what are they. They've got a lovely I mean there's only a little bit of wind at the minute but just that lovely little bit of movement haven't they. Oh they're just lovely. They just blow around. I mean they're a pain to take a photograph of when it gets windy. Yeah.
06:38But there's plenty of movement to the garden which is lovely. And they're nice even when they're in seed heads even when the flowers are there. Yeah.
06:45Well we wish you all the best for these coming openings and National Garden Scheme You Tree Cottage Ranton. If people punch as much as that in Google they'll get the address and obviously from the Express and Star as well. And all the very best guys. Thank you very much for inviting us into your garden. Thank you very much.
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