Sorbus, euphorbia mellifera and cercis siliquastrum in blossom.
Bamboo Glade in 2009
Sorbus, euphorbia mellifera and cercis siliquastrum in blossom.
A few 2009 pictures of Bamboo Glade
The oldest banana plant in the glade, a musa basjoo, has flowered again, after an interval of a few years. Once this flowering stem dies two more stems look ready to take its place, possibly flowering next summer.
Too big to wrap up for winter, but well protected by arundo donax versicolor, phyllostachys flexuosa and other tall plants close by.
A huge decaying hawthorn tree at the south-west corner of the glade has been removed, letting in light, and making room for flowers to attract butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects.
Tall trees and many mature bamboos ensure that the glade remains largely a very shady place.
Colocasia gaoligongensis and hedychium 'Tara' are both in flower. The bamboo on the right is Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Spectabilis'.
Sunlight catches the golden culms and branches of phyllostachys bambusoides 'Holochrysa' or 'Allgold', flanked by banana plants basjoo and 'Maurellii'. In the foreground is begonia grandis subsp. evansiana.
A small pond filled with boulders from the nearby gravel pit, skirted by hedychium greenii and verbena bonariensis, which feeds two copper fountains made by Gary Pickles of Metallic Garden.
Autumn in the glade, with the fallen leaves of acer palmatum heptalobum and paulownia tomentosa, among others, covering the gravel paths.
Begonia sutherlandii, like b. grandis evansiana, provides reliable and colourful late summer perennial ground cover, even in very dry shade, in the sheltered woodland setting of the glade.
This impressive colocasia, recently introduced from the Gaoligong mountains of Western Yunnan, China, came through the winter of 2008-9 in a sheltered spot in the glade, and is still going strong in late November 2009. Behind it can be glimpsed the amazing tall pale blue stems of the bamboo borinda Yunnan 4.
