Sussex Exclusive Magazine. Issue 4 2023

GARDENING
In the Garden
GARDENING
Multi-award winning Sussex gardener, Geoff Stonebanks, shares his
thoughts on what he loves most about his own garden at this time of the
year, along with some creative colouring ideas to use in your own plot for the
upcoming summer.
Left: Coronilla Gluca
in February
Top Right: Camellia
William Bartlett
Things to love about your garden
in the spring
I’m very fortunate in having an office in a loft
conversion that overlooks my back garden. The
view from my desk at this time of the year is one
that always provides much joy. I have a couple of
pairs of robins flitting around the plot that seem
to have been here for several years now. The robin
is, without doubt, one of our favourite garden
birds. It seems to trust us, staying close when
we’re in the garden and occasionally taking food
from our hands. You can see one I snapped, here
in the garden at Driftwood having scavenged for
food. That said, there are plenty of other birds in
the garden too.
One of the things I treasure most about my
garden are the days when amazing light streams
across it. This can be both in the early morning
when the light really transforms an otherwise
drab view into a dazzling and exciting one from
the office. Meanwhile the view from the bench in
the front garden often captures a really beautiful
sunset, one of many we’ve had in recent weeks,
across to Newhaven Harbour and the wind farm
out at sea.
Early beauties
Throughout the spring months, one plant in
my beach garden that I adore and one that
brings the front garden alive, outshining
everything else, is the amazing coronilla citrina
glauca. It does love full sun but other than that
I’d recommend if for any garden to provide
stunning colour at this time of year. This past
winter we’ve had the very worst gales in all
the time we have lived here but this incredible
plant just seems to ignore what is thrown at it
and is determined to shine, whatever as you
can see.
Perfect beauties for the early part of the year
are camellias, stunning to look at on a cold
grey spring morning. They are like magical
works of art brightening even the coldest
garden. The largest of mine came with me
from my garden in London. I’ve probably had
it now for over 25 years. It’s a guilio nuccio and
has the most beautiful delicate pink flowers.
I think my favourite though is a stunning
one called William Bartlett which has really
beautiful double flowers that are bi-coloured
with pink streaks.
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