Grasses are a cut above
The record levels of rainfall in the woeful early summer have left many local gardeners feeling drowned in depression – except people like David and Ann Smith who grow lots of glorious grasses.
For the rains which have wreaked havoc in many garden borders, hanging baskets and containers have been enjoyed by the many ornamental grasses the Smiths grow at their Penkridge home.
Tomorrow visitors to the Smith's colourful creation under a National Gardens Scheme charity opening will see the 60-plus varieties of ornamental grasses thriving in the inclement weather.
David said at one stage parts of his garden at Dene Close were swamped for a while by flooding after the fallout from a series of heavy rainstorms.
"At one time we had six inches of floodwater at the one end of the garden and we spent hours getting rid of it," he said. "It was a blow but the garden has recovered well and the grasses have done particularly well and are flourishing," he said.
David and Anne have built up the grasses collection over many years and find that visitors finding them interesting and fascinating. "There are so many of them, including misconstrues, pennisetums and bamboos," he said.
They also have another eye-catching feature – a 35ft long "rainbow border" packed with colours, ranging from achilleas, hemoracallis and heleniums.
Three other Staffordshire gardens, which attract many visitors from the Black Country areas, are open too over the weekend.
The glorious garden of Mary and David Blundell, which has a huge range of shrubs and perennial plants, Dorset House in Station Street in Cheslyn Hay is open on Sunday.
This colourful plant-packed garden has a huge collection of fine plants and is described by local NGS organisers as a "plantaholics country garden".
Another garden known for its plant collection is the colourful creation of Sri Lankan Selvarn Webster at Barton Gate, Barton-under-Needwood. She has exotic and unusual plants in a plot which includes a stream, waterfalls and a rose walk.
Keen growers Keith and Wendy Stone open their informal cottage-style garden at the Old School House at Stowe-by-Chartley, near Stafford. They have mixed herbaceous borders, a rockery and a pond on a site recycled from the old schoolyard.
And in the south of the region Mike and Sue Butler open their garden at Gladderbook Farm, near Stourport-on-Severn. The one-acre garden has unusual trees and shrubs, a small orchard and a vegetable plot.
