Thank you to every one of our friends and family of TCSC for your donations given in Loving Memory of your loved ones, to contribute to our Queens Jubilee tree project fund. We have raised to date £280.20 which is amazing, thank you.
This means we have the opportunity, not only to be able to plant a beautiful Queen’s Jubilee memorial tree, but to refurbish the whole front garden, which has been neglected for many years, mainly due to the difficulty of pruning the spikey pyracantha bushes, probably planted originally to protect our church, but have gone out of control over the years, together with vicious rambling Brambles, Rose bushes gone wild and rampant Ivy which have all taken over. As a result our beautiful church has been hidden from view.
David Shepherd bravely got in there and tackled cutting down the spikey bushes. We have also had a couple of work parties and are very grateful to those who turned up to help. David and Jill have been going back working between times to continue clearing the area ready for planting. Our lovely Church Warden, Alan, has been coming along to help and we all motivate each other. It is a big job due to the added complications of a black weed suppressant membrane, put down many years ago, which is not doing its job anymore and now interwoven with many tree and plant roots making it a very difficult task to clear! Then much to our dismay, as we dug deeper to turn over the ground ready for planting, we kept hitting more big tree roots and hardcore and what looked like a hidden cement path! We also found old bottles, 13inch coach bolts, gate hinges and a ‘Tiger’ car badge. So all very frustrating but interesting…. No buried treasure though! We are aiming to get the planting done before the weather gets bad, because we want to plant our Jubilee tree this Autumn which is considered the best time.
After discussions it was decided we would like a small tree, a Japanese Cherry Blossom Tree, would be a beautiful feature. David has a love of shrubs and has acquired a lot of useful knowledge over the years, so has taken on the job of selecting a variety of suitable shrubs, to help make the church garden a wonderful feature of beauty and welcoming to all. It will take a while for them to grow together because they have to be spaced to allow for growth. Hopefully our funds will stretch to intermedial small plants meanwhile to fill the spaces.
A BIG Thank you to everyone who donated to this cause in memory of their loved ones, as you can see in the list below, the amount raised bought our jubilee tree plus lots of new shrubs for the Church garden.
Plants Bought
HEBE Frozen Flame
Compact grey-green leaves with a cream margin
Flowers – Mauve spikes in summer
Sun or Part shade
Grows to 75cm
HEBE Donna Kamila
Fresh green foliage
Flowers – Bright Pink flowers in summer
Sun or Part shade
Grows to 3ft x 3ft
PHYGELIUS Colourburst Rose
Bushy upright habit.
Flowers – Mass of tubular, bright rose flowers,
Between June – September
Likes full sun
Grows to 50cm
LONICERA Baggesons Gold
Small bright yellow leaves
Small sulphur yellow flowers
Prefers sun
Grows to 3ft x 3ft
VIBURNUM TINUS
Dark green leaves
Clusters of flowers, Pink in bud opening to pure white scented flowers
Sun or part shade
Grows to 6t x 6ft
COPROSMA midnight Martin
Rounded shiny leaves
Evergreen brown/purple leaves
Grows to 3ft x 3ft
CHOISYA TERNTA Sundance
Golden leaves
Fragrant white flowers in Spring and sometimes Autumn
Likes sun
Grows to 4ft x 3ft
SKIMMIA JAPONICA Rubella
Evergreen upright dense shrub
Aromatic, red-edged green foliage.
Dark red buds throughout winter opening into white flowers in Spring
Grows to 5ft x 5ft
PRUNUS LAUROCERASUS (DWARFT ENGLISH LAUREL)
Dense tidy evergreen mound
Drought tolerant, grows well in poor soils under trees etc. Sun or shade.
Rarely exceeds 2ft high very slow spread to 4ft Excellent ground cover
HYPERICUM Tricolour (St JOHN’S WORT)
Red stems bear ovate leaves. Variegated with green, pink and cream.
Cup-shaped flowers of buttery yellow appear from July onwards
Likes full sun
Grows to 30-40cms
HEBE Marjorie
Compact Evergreen shrub, Easy to grown. Glossy green leaves.
Topped with abundant spikes of pale lilac flowers
Flowers in Summer and Autumn
Grows to 3ft x 4ft
HEBE Champion
Rounded Evergreen dwarf shrub with red-purple cupped leaves that turn deeper purple in winter.
Spikes of violet flowers in Spring
Grows to 40cm
CHOISYA Dew White Dazzler
A compact mound forming shrub with aromatic palmate leaves divided into linear dark green leaflets
Clusters of fragrant white flowers in early spring and again in Autumn
Grows to 1 meter
DAFFODILS
Narcissus Carlton – flowering height 45cm
Flowers March/April, Yellow
Narcissus Salome – Flowering height 35cm
Flowers April/May, White with yellow centre
Narcissus Lotherio – Flowering height 40cm
Flowers April, Pale yellow
CHIONODOXA LUCILIAE Glory of the snow – Flowering height 10cm (4”)
Flowers March/May, Blue flowers
