ROY LANCASTER VISITS...Roy looks back

摘要

There I was on a sunny July morning sipping a coffee while surveying an expanse of rough grass before me and, within 10 minutes, I spotted a solitary pink pyramidal orchid, three native geraniums and two different St John's-worts, including Hypericumhirsutum. There were four butterflies including speckled wood and marbled white plus a green woodpecker and, to my amazement, above me, a red kite pursued by a peregrine falcon. No, this was not a nature reserve but the back garden of Rob and Rosy Hardy's home on their nursery in the chalk hills of north Hampshire, near Whitchurch.Back to the beginningHardy's Cottage Garden Plants, then in a walled garden nearby, was the first of 113 specialist nurseries I have visited for the present series (plus three repeat visits), which began in 1994.As is often the case, the nursery did not appear in print until the following year, but on that first occasion in late September I had been attracted by Viota pedata, Geum 'Lionel Cox' and Hylotelephium spectabiie 'Iceberg'.