Bronte Parsonage June enewslette​r. The garden of the Parsonage.

'It was a little budding rose,
Round like a fairy globe,
And shyly did its leaves unclose
Hid in their mossy robe,
But sweet was the slight and spicy smell
 It breathed from its heart invisible.' (Emily Brontë)

 

In truth ‘June is busting out all over’ might have been a better choice but alas it is not Brontë!!  June is the most important month in the Parsonage garden.  Why? Because it’s time for the annual membership get-together for the AGM weekend.  Geoff and I are always keen to have the garden looking its best for the membership.

For a few years now we have been growing rose bushes (with varying degrees of success) but we are not faint hearted and have persevered: three of the five roses we planted are doing really well, one is in intensive care but the other has sadly died so, all in all, not too bad and hopefully the survivors will be flowering soon.

This year we have majored on foxgloves which are perfect in our south border shaded by the graveyard trees. We have acquired our foxgloves for free − which is always a bonus – thanks to Anthony.  Anthony looks after the gardens round the church and finding himself with too many foxgloves, he passes on his spares to us as part of a neighbourly quid pro quo. 

The lawns have never looked better than they do now; not a weed in sight, and believe me I have looked closely as Geoff promised me 50p for every weed I could find.  I'll not get rich out of Geoff! 

The new planting at the back of the heather garden is filling up nicely and soon we will be able to gather flowers from there to decorate the Museum. Poppies will soon be in their full glory − fingers crossed that the rain does not spoil them, they are so easily flattened.  The aquilegia are putting on a lovely show just now.  You never know just what you are going to get from aquilegia as, like cowslips and primroses, they are very promiscuous and like to surprise us with their offspring − we have a lovely double-flowered one this year that we have not seen before.

I could go on and on with this month’s diary, the garden is so full of lovely things but please come and see it for yourself.  Try to keep Sunday 13th July free as it's our first Open Garden Day.  If you have a plant in your garden that you can split, please bring us one, we too are potting up the Parsonage garden’s spare plants for a bring-and-buy stall.  I hope we shall see you then.