Successional paving

In the morning I met with Fergus who was preparing a lecture in the billiards room. The fire was blazing and I nearly had to pinch myself to be sure that this was real. Ferg showed me slides of the sunken garden and of Christo’s terrace at different stages through the year. This was important to understand the desired look and characteristics that need to be upheld.

Ben and I worked in the sunken garden selectively weeding the joints in the paving to remove the annual meadow grass and vigorous Cyperus eragrosti. It was important to thin out, but leave the strongest Leucanthemum vulgare and Oenthera biennis for the following spring.

In the afternoon we worked on the Terrace. Like the sunken garden the terrace paving experiences a succession of change from spring to summer. We cut the red valerian, Centranthus ruber and Alchemilla mollis hard back to the ground and weeded out the annual meadow grass and perennial weeds. In the process of weeding we were careful to keep the strongest Leucanthemum vulgare, Oenothera biennis and Erigeron karvinskianus.

Beautiful Erigeron karvinskianus sowing freely in the gaps between the masonary.