European Gardening: Where are you in Europe?, 1 by Mike_G

Mike_G wrote:
Back on topic - I did mean to respond to Philomel's request a month ago and am only just getting around to it!

I'm in a village in West Surrey between Godalming and Farnham - Godalming being the home for many years of Victorian gardener Gertrude Jekyll. Close by is the village of Thursley, where Edwin Lutyens - renowned architect and garden designer - lived when he was a boy. Jekyll and Lutyens worked together on many garden design projects - setting standards that I spectacularly fail to live up to! (Both of their houses' gardens have been open under the NGS (Yellow Book) scheme, and are both quite something to behold.)

I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by large tracts of Surrey heathland - much of it owned by the Ministry of Defence. A big advantage as it's unlikely (or less likely) to be sold off for houses, only offset by the disadvantage of occasional intermittent crackle of small arms fire in the evening, as the squaddies do their manoeuvres... (Have had winter morning walks on the heaths where the only - literally- bird that I've seen is the Dartford Warbler, a rarity in most parts of the country.)

It's still all a bit of a novelty as for most of my life I played out an urban existence in South London - but I find I now don't miss London at all.

Last Autumn I heard about a couple of tiny patches of open ground - not much bigger than my garden - about 6/7 miles away that was good for orchids. A survey a few weeks ago counted 1,600 of them! Here's a picture of one or two.

Mike