Gardens & Meadows Blog

Ever since the last refurbishment of Blue Boar, when the small amount of planting that existed was removed, the area between Kilcanon and Blue Boar Street has been a rather grey and soulless space with nothing to soften the architecture. After much debate it was decided that rather than removing sections of paving and planting things in the...

Despite (or maybe it’s because of) the hot, dry weather experienced this summer, the autumn colours currently being seen around the college are quite spectacular. Plant leaves tend to change colour as daylength decreases and temperatures start to drop, the green food making chlorophyll in the leaves stops being made by the plant, revealing the...

With lengthening days and warmer temperatures, we will be seeing more and more spring flowers start to appear in the college gardens and Christ Church Meadow. Some of these such as the areas of spring bedding in School Quad and the Rose Garden are very formal in nature, whereas other areas such as the Meadow and in the Pococke Garden are much more...

Thanks to very generous donations from the family and friends of Christopher Ainsley (one of the donors of the Jubilee Bridge) who died last year, we have had the opportunity to plant some new specimen trees around the Meadow. In total, we have planted eighteen trees, which included 3 Pin Oak (Quercus palustris), 2 Black or Water Oak (Quercus...

Following on from my article last August on flood plain meadow restoration it is time for an update on how the work has progressed and to review how successful it has been. Initially, things were quite discouraging as, although growth around the edges was quite strong, the area in the centre of the meadow became the focus of attention for a...

Two of our most notable successes in re-introducing lost plant species in Christ Church Meadow have been the establishment of colonies of Cowslips (Primula veris) and Snake’s Head Fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) in the lightly wooded and previously barren area to  the west of New Walk at the river end. The Cowslips were re-introduced...

With recent heavy and continuous rain both here in Oxford and upstream along the course of the River Cherwell and the River Thames, Christ Church Meadow has once again been fulfilling its historic role as a floodplain, and storing water pouring out of the surrounding rivers. As soon as the rivers breached their banks, the Meadow filled up very...

This year we are seeing masses of fruit forming on many of the trees and shrubs around the college gardens and Meadow. No doubt, we will be hearing the comment that it is going to be a bad winter because of all the fruit, but as far as I am aware plants cannot predict the future any more than we can. What they can do, however, is react to good...

One of the most obvious causalities of lockdown and having no gardeners on site for several months has been the traditional summer bedding in the Rose Garden area of the Memorial Gardens. Having nobody on site, we were unable to grow the necessary plants for the normal display. We clearly did not to want to leave the centre beds empty for the...

In partnership with Long Mead Local Wildlife Site near Eynsham, Christ Church is starting a project to restore the species rich nature of Christ Church Meadow. This will form part of the Thames Valley Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project, which plans to reconnect the wildflower meadows of the Upper Thames floodplain, from Oxford to the National...

Five years after the first phase of felling and replanting in New Walk, we have just completed the second phase of the work. The reason behind the work is that New Walk, rather than being a proper single species tree avenue, has, over the years, become a mixed genera and species feature. The walk was originally planted in the 1860’s to...

Back in 2015, Christ Church was offered a very generous donation by Dr Javed Siddiqi, an American  alumnus, to plant “a single, beautifully symmetric, tree that he (the Head Gardener) has his eye on, and which would fit into the beauty of his landscaping”, in memory of his late parents. The decision was made that Dr Siddiqi’s donation...

As the weather transforms slowly from summer to winter, there is an increasing amount of interest in the gardens from autumn colour in its many forms. The autumn colour typical of leaves before they drop is actually present throughout the year, but only becomes visible as the chlorophyll (green pigment) declines in the leaf leaving the other...

Over the last few years we have been increasing our number of cordless commercial battery powered machines as and when they become available and viable to purchase. This process started with the purchase of a cordless blower, chainsaw, strimmer and pole pruner from the Stihl range in the summer of 2016, and these have proved so successful that they...

Tree felling is always an emotive subject and not one we undertake lightly. We will only ever fell a tree for good arboricultural reasons or because it represents a significant safety hazard, and with an estimated visitor footfall in Christ Church Meadow of in excess of one million people annually it is something we take very seriously. All our...

One of the biggest successes of our policy of reduced mowing and strimming within Christ Church Meadow has been the appearance of various species of wild, native orchids. These are not plants we have sown or planted, so they must have been there, biding their time and waiting their chance to flower having previously been mown off before they had...

To me, one of the most rewarding things to do in gardening is to make more plants out of those you already have, and it always amazes me how you can take parts of a plant without roots, remove them, and, given the right treatment and conditions, get them to grow into new plants. To illustrate the process I have taken pictures of the stages of...

With the spring bedding display now looking very tired and past its best, it was time for the planting to be taken out and the fresh new plants for the summer put in. As in the autumn, the old plants were dug out and taken away for composting. Following this, the beds were dug over incorporating some of our own compost made from recycled leaves,...

One of our more unusual plants is currently flowering its heart out in the Mediterranean Border in the Masters Garden. Sadly highly under rated and hardly ever seen, I had never come across this plant until researching plants for the border. I found it on the original planting plan and having researched it, decided it would fit in nicely with...

At the moment one of our more unusual climbing plants is flowering well in the Pococke Garden. Growing on one of the bastions of the medieval town wall we have a fine specimen of Ercilla volubilis (it has no common name), a self-clinging, evergreen climber from Chile. Once named Bridgesia spicata after Thomas Bridges, an avid plant collector who...

As the days and nights are becoming consistently warmer and the days are becoming longer more and more of the spring wild flowers in Christ Church Meadow are coming into bloom. Coming to the forefront at the moment and following on from the native Daffodils are Cowslips (Primula veris) and Snake’s Head Fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris). ...

As reported in a previous blog post, British native wild flowers in Christ Church Meadows - Spring, over the last few years we have been planting 1,000's of native wild flower bulbs in the Meadow in an attempt to reintroduce lost species. At the moment the two varieties of wild daffodil that we have been planting are flowering well, having...

As part of the RSPB's Oxford Swift City project Christ Church has been donated five swift nesting boxes to put up on a building within the property. Swifts are happiest nesting in cracks and cavities high up on buildings. Because of this, the nest boxes are designed to mimic the sites the birds prefer and are mounted at least 5m above the ground...

Normally when flowering trees are mentioned, thoughts will automatically turn to trees such as flamboyant spring flowering cherries and crab apples as well as the often spectacular flowers of horse chestnut trees. However at this time of year, some more subtle trees come into their own and a few can be found around the grounds of Christ Church. All...

Due to the age and nature of Christ Church's buildings there is a constant round of building work going on. This building work often conflicts with the gardens resulting in lawns having to be re-laid or borders dug up and replanted. Often this work, although vital, means we have to work on areas that are otherwise perfectly OK, but occasionally the...

You may have noticed that as a by-product of the hot dry summer, many trees are bearing huge crops of fruit (whether this is a sign of a hard winter is open to debate), and one in particular was our specimen of Medlar (Mespilus germanica) which grows at our accommodation site the Liddell Building on the Iffley Road. The Medlar makes a relatively...

Christ Church's Memorial Garden which now forms the principal visitor entrance into Christ Church Meadow and into Christ Church itself, is a permanent memorial to the men and women who died in the First World War, and subsequent conflicts. In the mid 1920’s a War Memorial Fund was set up to commemorate those members of the college that died in...

As we begin to feel the change in the weather into autumn, it's time to start the changeover of summer bedding planting schemes to the winter/spring planting. As usual we have started with the Rose Garden area of the Memorial Gardens, one of the most photographed spots in Christ Church, and working in there can feel like being in a zoo with all...

Following what turned out to be the hottest and driest summer for many years, most of our lawns turned brown, leaving the only surviving green grass in shady areas such as in the shade of the Hall in Tom Quad and in the shade of the Cathedral in the Cathedral Garden. Normally grass will recover after drought as soon as appreciable rain falls,...

One of our more unusual shrubs, the Seven Son Flower Tree (Heptacodium miconiodes), is now flowering in the Pococke Garden. This deciduous, upright, irregularly sprawling shrub has small white, sweetly scented flowers in late summer and autumn which are enjoyed by butterflies, bees and other insects. These will be followed by persistent pink/maroon...

A few weeks earlier than in recent years (because of the very dry weather) the first of our wild flower areas at the southern end of New Walk, was ready for cutting at the beginning of August. The other main areas on the Dean’s Ham and on Boat House Island still have a lot of flowers so  will be left for a while longer. The signals...

Following on from the wettest and coldest winter and spring for quite some time, we are now having one of the hottest and driest summers in living memory. Because of this, our wild flowers, although flowering well, are only doing so for a relatively short period and are going to seed very early. Quite what long term affect this will have we do not...

As with the spring display in the Rose Garden, the colour theme this summer is pink and purple, whereas in School Quad the colour scheme is much brighter. ...

Enjoying the current spell of hot weather are the specimens of Devil’s Tobacco growing by the paved area in the Pococke Garden. Devils Tobacco’s botanical name is Lobelia tupa and a plant much further from the widely known blue trailing Lobelia used in summer bedding displays is hard to imagine. Lobelia tupa is an herbaceous perennial...

Currently flowering in the shade of the Pococke Tree we have some splendid examples of the Turk's Cap Lily (Lilium martagon). These lovely flowers are native of Eurasia from Portugal in the west to Mongolia in the east. This is a very variable species of Lily varying in colour from white to near black and we are lucky enough to have examples of...

Currently flowering at the southern end of New Walk and on the Dean's Ham is a relatively inconspicuous but important yellow flower. This is Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor) a member of the Orobranchaceae plant family most of which are parasitic in nature. This is an interesting native grassland annual which we are encouraging to grow in our...

Currently flowering in the Master’s Garden is a horticultural curiosity, Adam's Laburnum (+Laburnocytisus 'Adamii'). The tree is a graft hybrid between Common Laburnum (Laburnum anagryoides) and Purple Broom (Cytisus purpureus) and first arose in a French nursery near Paris in the 1820's. As a graft hybrid it is not a hybrid in the true sense...

Over the last five years we have been doing as much as we can to encourage the reintroduction and reappearance of British native wild flowers within Christ Church Meadows and the surrounding walks. This ranges from what might be termed “passive” management, where all we do is reduce the cutting regime from weekly to once or twice a year and...

As the spring weather finally begins to warm up and the sun comes out, the various spring bedding displays around Christ Church are beginning to show their true colours. ...

In the Pococke Garden a rarely grown small green flowered evergreen shrub can be found - Daphne laureola. This shrub is actually a native of the British Isles and much of Europe favouring limestone woodlands in southern and eastern England. This shrub has the common name Spurge Laurel, which nicely illustrates the problem with common names since it...

At the end of the Meadow Building and just outside the gate into the Master Gardens there is a large but inconspicuous shrub that comes into its own in late winter and early spring. It is a Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mas) which comes from southern Europe and south west Asia and is a close relative of our native Dogwood. The shrub has yellow...

This is a follow-up to the earlier post explaining the plans for Rose Lane. Activity started with the felling of the Hornbeams. The branch material was either chipped or shredded depending on its size, with bigger material being shredded for wood chip mulch. Smaller material was shredded to decompose into organic material for mulching. The...

During the winter months, some of the shrubs that are inconspicuous in the summer come into their own. Generally, although their flowers are relatively small they make a greater impact in the winter months partly due to the fact that they are highly scented in order to attract any passing insects to ensure the flowers get pollinated. View the...

Christ Church Meadow has been maintained as a public park since the 16th century and is one of the oldest continuously managed parks in the country. Christ Church welcomes over a million visitors to the Meadow every year. The college takes its responsibility for preserving and improving the Meadow seriously and has commissioned a management...