Uploads from Four Seasons Garden, tagged tree

Carpet of autumn leaves in the lower garden

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:29:14 -0800

In very late autumn, after the Japanese maple leaves have fallen, we have a beautiful deep carpet of additional fallen leaves blown from Lime trees in the neighbouring Arboretum. They are lovely to see and lovely to walk through.

We leave them for a few days but when they become less pretty we again turn them to our advantage by moving them to our warm compost heaps! Amazingly all these leaves will become well rotted compost by late spring!

Tree bark of Prunus Serrula 'Tibetica' (Tibetan Cherry) in winter snow

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:35:54 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Garden air frost October 14th

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 08:09:10 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

After another early autumn air frost, the large leaves of our jungle Empress Tree / Foxglove tree (Paulownia tomentosa) in the mid left of the photo are looking very sad! Fortunately, before this air frost arrived, we had already managed to lift all the flowering begonia plants and sort them by category before putting all their tubers into winter storage.

Paulownia is a fascinating plant!

We grow Paulownia tomentosa in order to enjoy its large, unusual and beautiful leaves and the leaves are even larger than normal because of the way we prune the tree! We bought our Paulownia as a very small tree however it has a fairly dramatically fast growth rate. Every year we pollard our Paulownia and for the last 5 years or so, this has been down to a height of about 9 feet. We cut off about 8 branches each year and two or three of the stems we remove each year are 6-8 feet in length and up to 2 inches in diameter......the 8 feet and the 2 inch diameter having grown in one year! The stems of the growth removed are quite soft and and almost spongey. When we bought our paulownia in 2005 the trunk was probably about one inch in diameter and now it is about 7 inches in diameter.

We understand that the flowers of Paulownia are very pretty. We however, never see flowers on our Paulownia because of the way we prune/pollard it each year. We have noticed that the seeds can be bought from some of the suppliers in the UK such as Thompson and Morgan. However, from what we know of Paulownia we think a little more information should have been given! For example in the USA it is classified as a noxious weed! Apparently it can be very invasive because it produces prolific flowers and seeds and the seeds have an incredibly high success rate at being germinated in the wild.

As we mentioned the branches are made up of a very soft wood and we think the tree that if the tree was allowed to grow tall it would not be safe to prune it whilst climbing into it. We rest a low ladder against our and as we said prune the trunk and a couple of main branches down to a height of about 7-9 feet from the ground.

The Paulownia does not start to produce new growth until early summer. During our May charity open days when the azaleas and the new growth of the Japanese maples are looking so beautiful, the pollarded Paulownia without any leaves looks a little unsightly......for fun we put a label on the tree saying "I'm not dead, I am just waiting for summer before I wake up!" From our point of view the new leaves are well worth the long wait. Furthermore, the delay before new growth begins is no problem since our pollarded Paulownia is hidden amongst the bamboos and palms in the jungle.

Liquidambar leaves in autumn

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:25:30 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Liquidambar styraciflua (sweet gum tree)

Liquidambar in autumn

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:25:08 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Liquidambar styraciflua (sweet gum tree)

We have trained this Liquidambar, keeping the main central stem as an upright trunk. Each year we tidily prune off the lateral new growth in order to keep this the tree to a narrow width. During some winters we adorn the branches with small, decorative electric lights.

Autumn leaves of Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ after mist

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:30:56 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Autumn Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ (Smoke tree, Venetian sumac)

May be viewed in 'original' size: www.flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/6407343967/sizes/...

Summer 2011 .......These are the same evergreen plants as 1989...... but now in summer 2011 the plants are much larger!!

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:14:58 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

(moving cursor on photo will show notes giving plant names)

Despite our frontage being north facing and shaded for much of the day, we enjoy looking out onto plants which have bright foliage throughout much of the year.

The eight sides of the low, wavey box hedge are formed by about 130 golden box plants which have been cultivated from 10 original plants. In 1989 we bought 10 relatively small golden box plants in pots which Marie split up into very many much smaller plants and planted them deep in the rectangular borders. Every couple of years the box plants were split up again and by 1993 they were planted in a' wavy' / zig-zag line around the borders.

We love the golden new growth of the box and yew plants .......but of course the new growth makes the plants larger! It seems a shame to clip the plants and remove the new growth but if we leave them much longer they will start to look increasingly overgrown and untidy. In fact earlier this week we clipped the darker faster growing foliage of the hedging yew on the left side of this picture since the hedge was looking untidy with excessive new growth.

The advantage of box and yew in our frontage is that for much of this topiary a once a year clipping is mainly all that is necessary!

The Ilex (holly) 'Golden King' under the shelter of the porch and has alway escaped severe frost damage. It never sees sunshine yet it always have a welcoming glow of yellow ....even in mid winter

English garden for all seasons. Winner Daily Mail National Garden Competition 2007. Winner Walsall in Bloom 2006. www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk

The overhanging branches are a tree heather! (erica arborea).

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:25:48 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Autumn garden Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ showing leaf pattern

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:43:42 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Other names for shrub include Smoke tree and Venetian sumac
English garden for all seasons.
Winner "Overall Gardener of the Year" Garden News National Garden Competition 2010.
Winner Daily Mail National Garden Competition 2007.
www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk

Autumn Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’- with backlight

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 04:03:14 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Other names for shrub include Smoke tree and Venetian sumac

Early spring sunshine at last!

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:24:46 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

After the coldest winter in England for 31 years, it is wonderful to have had sunshine on the first two days of spring. In the last 3 months, the day time temperature has never once risen above 9C....... in consequence the flowering spring bulbs are only now getting properly underway and are about 3 weeks behind an average year.

A lorry load of forest bark similar to this arrived on the final day of BBC filming (December 7th)

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:24:31 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk

For several years we have used forest bark as a mulch and when it eventually breaks down, it adds humous to our clay soil. Instead of solid hard ground, we now have friable top soil below the bark mulch. We also use the bark for our woodland paths

We like to use nuggets of old pine bark which are mainly in the size range 2-5cm . They look tidy in the garden and last for many years before fully breaking down. The bark has a rich colour especially when damp and this is often helpful in photographs of the garden views. There is very little dust in this grade of bark. Most of the bark has come from Spanish Maritime pine trees (Pinus pinaster).

Four seasons upper garden - spring summer autumn winter

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:56:37 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

English garden for all seasons. Winner Daily Mail National Garden Competition 2007. Winner Walsall in Bloom 2006. www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk

Our plan was for the garden to have colour and interest in all four seasons.

Autumn Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ (Smoke tree, Venetian sumac)

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:44:42 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

It has been very windy, so we were quite pleased to finally manage to get some photos of this Cotinus which has some lovely autumn colour this year.
English garden for all seasons. Winner Daily Mail National Garden Competition 2007. Winner Walsall in Bloom 2006. www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk
B l a c k M a g i c

Tree bark Acer griseum (Paper-Bark Maple) at the end of winter

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 08:17:40 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Marie and Tony wish all our Flickr friends a happy Christmas and a wonderful 2012 !

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:04:02 -0800

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

We thought we we going to have a quiet year but probably not surprisingly we were just as busy as ever! Thanks so much to all our Flickr friends and Flickr visitors for your interest in our photos, for your kind comments and for posting and sharing so many of your beautiful photos on Flickr.

We also very much would like to thank the 948 visitors who came to our five garden open days this year raising £2,204 for the National Garden Scheme (ngs) and £721 for the Walsall Mayor's charity and Walsall Citizens Advice Bureau.

As you are almost certainly aware we enjoy contrasting shape and texture and colour of plants. We realize we have not posted to Flickr many individual plants which give us shades of yellow or gold in our colour scheme. We will post a few of these photos which will be mainly of horticultural interest rather than photographic merit!

Therefore we had better name the plant in the back ground which is the Catalpa bignonioides Aurea (Indian Bean Tree) which gives us these beautiful golden leaves in early summer in a shaded area of our lower garden.

1989 Front garden early spring .....the plants have grown a lot since then!

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:04:37 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

Scanned from a 1989 photo.
Many of the plants in this photo are still present in 2011 however some are so small you can hardly see them! In 1989 we bought 10 relatively small golden box plants in pots which Marie split up into very many much smaller plants and planted them deep in the rectangular borders. Every couple of years after that the box plants were split up again and again, and by 1993 they were planted in a' wavy' / zig-zag line around the borders.

May be seen in original size where the small box plants are little more visible ...but some apologies for the quality of our camera then! :
www.flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/5913737088/sizes/...

Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:35:59 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

The purple leaves are those of Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ (Smoke tree, Venetian sumac). During winter we cut this plant down to the ground and every spring the new purple leaves return.

The bamboo is Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis' which has an occasional random green stripe.

Middle garden flowers of our purple magnolia tree.

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sun, 02 May 2010 01:12:41 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

The magnolia flower is Magnolia ‘Susan’ (M. liliiflora ‘Nigra’ x M. stellata ‘Rosea’)

After summer rain (August 1st)

nobody@flickr.com (Four Seasons Garden) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:48:07 -0700

Four Seasons Garden posted a photo:

The large foliage leaves are those of the Empress Tree / Foxglove tree (Paulownia tomentosa)

Paulownia is a fascinating plant!

We grow Paulownia tomentosa in order to enjoy its large, unusual and beautiful leaves and the leaves are even larger than normal because of the way we prune the tree! We bought our Paulownia as a very small tree however it has a fairly dramatically fast growth rate. Every year we pollard our Paulownia and for the last 5 years or so, this has been down to a height of about 9 feet. We cut off about 8 branches each year and two or three of the stems we remove each year are 6-8 feet in length and up to 2 inches in diameter......the 8 feet and the 2 inch diameter having grown in one year! The stems of the growth removed are quite soft and and almost spongey. When we bought our paulownia in 2005 the trunk was probably about one inch in diameter and now it is about 7 inches in diameter.

We understand that the flowers of Paulownia are very pretty. We however, never see flowers on our Paulownia because of the way we prune/pollard it each year. We have noticed that the seeds can be bought from some of the suppliers in the UK such as Thompson and Morgan. However, from what we know of Paulownia we think a little more information should have been given! For example in the USA it is classified as a noxious weed! Apparently it can be very invasive because it produces prolific flowers and seeds and the seeds have an incredibly high success rate at being germinated in the wild.

As we mentioned the branches are made up of a very soft wood and we think the tree that if the tree was allowed to grow tall it would not be safe to prune it whilst climbing into it. We rest a low ladder against our and as we said prune the trunk and a couple of main branches down to a height of about 7-9 feet from the ground.

The Paulownia does not start to produce new growth until early summer. During our May charity open days when the azaleas and the new growth of the Japanese maples are looking so beautiful, the pollarded Paulownia without any leaves looks a little unsightly......for fun we put a label on the tree saying "I'm not dead, I am just waiting for summer before I wake up!" From our point of view the new leaves are well worth the long wait. Furthermore, the delay before new growth begins is no problem since our pollarded Paulownia is hidden amongst the bamboos and palms in the jungle.