Hello and welcome to my garden. I live in West Kingsdown, Kent, England. I am situated in the South East of England. The area is known as the 'Weald of Kent' which in days of olde referred to the forests in the area. Over the years the forests have become broken up to be replaced by open countryside. On a clear day from the top of the valley the sight across the 'weald' is breathtaking.

I became interested in gardening about 14 years ago when my father asked me to help him furnish the garden with a few trees and shrubs. I was amazed how quickly I memorised the Latin names and I was soon poring over books to learn more. I decided to go to college to study horticulture where I feverishly devoured all the knowledge that came my way. I studied for 5 years part time and spent the rest of the time designing and planting the garden. The usual story – the lawn slowly disappeared and sweeping borders took its place. Our garden has almost half a mile of railway running the perimeter of the main garden (complete with tunnel) which made designing the garden a little more difficult. The railway was installed by the previous owners and is no longer in use. Maybe one day it would be nice to get it going again.

From the very beginning I knew I wanted a garden that had oodles of interest all year round. Autumn tint was something I worked very hard on as many shrubs do not colour in our heavy Kentish loam. This year is the best it has ever looked. I also have woodland borders where I pack all my beloved shade plants which come to life in early spring – I love that time of year. In fact I love all the seasons in the garden for all different reasons.

I have had brief love affairs with many genus along the way – Euonymus, Cornus, Acers, Cotinus, Pulmonaria, Epimedium, Penstemon, Hellebores and now finally daylilies. I did hybridise Hellebores as a hobby for 3 or 4 years but got tired of waiting for the seedlings to flower, usually 3-5 years on average. I think I will stick with daylilies now and one day hope to turn it into a little business which is something I have always wanted to do. I have a collection of around 1,000+ varieties – most of them imported from America and all over Europe. I need to trial them for a while to see how they perform in our climate…..but so far they have been beyond my wildest dreams.

I have now almost exhausted the space in the garden and have moved onto the field where we used to keep 3 horses and a pet cow. The ground had never been cultivated and was overrun with nettles, brambles and self seeded trees. It is clay with flint but after much work we have amended the soil and I have 17 lovely slightly raised beds for my daylilies. I have also been pollen dabbing for the last two summers and now have over 500 seedlings to look forward to, hopefully next year. Then I will need even more space. I love everything about daylilies and just wish I had fell upon them many years ago. I have a soft spot for spiders and UFs but love the minis, doubles, bagels and full formed varieties as well. I do not think I will ever get bored with daylilies……how could you?

I belong to the BHHS & the AHS and am a member of both round robins.
My Pick-a-Lily Daylily Blog has more photos and information if you are interested.

Your comments are most welcome at jenniesivyer@btconnect.com. Thanks for taking the tour.