Wealden Times | WT244 | September 2022 | Winter Interiors Supplement inside

Garden
Succisa pratensis
In Sweden you
have the right to
roam everywhere
you like, except,
of course, in
people’s gardens.
So you can
wander around,
stop to have a
swim in the lake
and then go on
and plenty of dragonflies darting around. I
did spot the succulent red berries of a red
elderberry which I haven’t seen before and tiny
pinks, Dianthus deltoides, growing alongside
one of my favourite late flowerers, Succisa
pratensis, or devil’s bit scabious. Its lilac pin
cushion flowers grow on top of a particularly
long stem creating a see-through effect. Claire
Austin’s nursery describes them as looking
like ‘a sweet from a bag of licorice allsorts’.
And then there are garden escapees such as
great stands of golden rod, Solidago virgaurea,
which is excellent as a cut flower. And then
small forms of alchemilla, hypericums and
achilleas and little blue bellflowers which
grow in the ditches alongside the yellow
flowering spikes of agrimony. And a real star
for me was a perfect little white umbellifer
with the splendid name of Solidstem burnet
saxifrage or Pimpinella saxifraga which
has the most glamorous seed-heads.
All these grow with a backdrop of moss
lined paths through the trees and giant granite
rocks embellished with mini ferns, mosses and
lichens creating a sort of fairy world through
the Norway spruces, grey birches, Scots pines,
black alders with their racquet shaped leaves
and the English oaks which form the forest. I
did try to record the song of tiny birds flitting
through the birches in particular and failed
miserably, but had more success recording the
sound of silence by the lake – the silence that
was only broken by the gentle lapping of the
water in Liksdammer lake. Oh, what bliss.
A beautiful seedhead spotted on one of Sue’s walks
Sue Whigham can be contacted on
07810 457948 for gardening advice
and help in the sourcing and supply
of interesting garden plants.
103 priceless-magazines.com