By Ben Ruscombe-King, The Endsleigh Gardener
This year at Endsleigh summer has rather crept up on us, every thing has been a little slower and later than usual, but today as I gaze across the flower filled border, over the golden fields and down to the river, I become aware that the seasons are continuing along their inexorable course. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the hay is about to be cut, the scene is very much as it has been at Endsleigh since time immemorial and summer is very definitely here.
Sitting in the loggia, shaded from the sun, the only sounds are the buzzing of bees, the splashing of the fountain and the water spurting from the lions’ heads into the surrounding rill. Statice, now in full flower, fill the parterre beds with pastel colours and views over the wooded banks of the Tamar complete the bucolic idyll. A perfect spot to while away a lazy summer afternoon with a cool drink, if only I had the time.
In the dell the verdant tunnels of primeval Gunnera are now fully formed and provide the more adventurous visitor with exploration opportunities, whilst the streamside slopes covered in flowers offer a more genteel point of interest. Dragonflies, bees, butterflies and turquoise damoiselles flit and flutter about and the occasional, fleeting glimpse of shimmering blue flashes across the scene, as a kingfisher darts over the stream.
The long border is now at its floriferous best, with the later flowering salvia, persicaria, eupatorium, rudbeckia, perovskia and helenium now getting ready to compete for the bees’ attention with the mid-season flowerers which are still going strong due to their late start. Catanache, agapanthus, kniphofia, sidalcea, verbascum, geranium, verbena et al are holding their own and ready to do battle and what a glorious battle it will be, if a little disorderly, reds, oranges, purples, blues, pinks, yellows and whites all struggling for supremacy in one chaotic cacophony.
In the late summer at Endsleigh time moves slowly, long languorous lunches, strolls along the river, perhaps a game of croquet or adventure in the woods, life here is as it has been for aeons. Whilst the world outside moves at speed, at Endsleigh life moves at a slower pace and everything stays reassuringly the same as it ever was.
