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For this month’s Plant Focus blog Sue takes a look at the Judas Tree – Cercis Siliquastrum.

Common Name: Judas Tree
Latin Name: Cercis siliquastrum
Garden Location: Middle Garden
Country of origin: Southern Europe and Western Asia

Hello, my name is Sue and I’ve been volunteering at Highdown Gardens for about three years. I’m entrusted to do menial tasks in these beautiful gardens such as sweeping up leaves or weeding. Plus, I’m now training to be a guide hoping to share the fascinating story of the plants and people of Highdown.

The training has been fun, with Alex (the plant expert) and Ellen (in charge of volunteers) playing good cop, bad cop … one covering us in the compost of botanical facts in the hope that our horticultural knowledge will grow and thrive and the other drilling us endlessly on the facts that we have to have at the tips of our gardening gloves for when we do the tours. Yes Ellen, we can all now recognise the gorgeous Cyclamen repandum (see photo) and spot the champion tree Chinese hornbeam (Carpinus turczaninovii) at 50 paces.

Photo of cyclamen repandum (credit: Alex New)

But there is one specimen that has caught my attention and to which I keep returning – the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum). What is it about this tree that I find so alluring? I think it is partly the name. It is said to be named after that most despised of Biblical characters, Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 disciples and who betrayed Jesus with a kiss, leading to his arrest and crucifixion. He is said to have hung himself from the branches of this beautiful and quirky tree. More likely, but less memorable, is that it is named after Judea, now called Israel where it can be found.

It’s unusual but not rare and a friend recalls seeing it often in Turkey, where she lived for many years. Here at Highdown, there are three or four Judas trees and in late April this year, they were at different stages of flowering depending on their position. Let’s talk about the flowers because that is the other fascinating thing about Judas – the flowers often grow directly onto old bark. Just pause to take that in because that really struck me as being unusual! Often, before the leaves develop, these little dark pink buds pop up straight onto the bark. If you know of any other trees where this happens, please let me know! They have a complex dark pink, pea-like flower and although I’ve not seen it yet, bear a pod-like fruit later in the year. One of the trees in the Middle Garden was absolutely covered in flowers, like a damask tablecloth.

Photo of Judas Tree flowers growing directly off of bark (credit: Ellen Mascard)

Photo of Judas Tree flowers up close (credit: Ellen Mascard)

Sir Frederick Stern recorded in his book, A Chalk Garden, that one of Highdown’s Judas trees came from Afghanistan and was given to him by the son of a fellow military man, Major Arthur Algernon Dorrien-Smith, who grew them from seed. There’s a whole other story to be told about this man, and his descendants who were Lords of the Isles of Scilly and created the world famous Tresco Gardens. Maybe another day!

One last amazing fact about the Judas Tree is that it likes to lie down as it gets older – becoming more and more prostrate so that many people think it has actually died. Now that is something I can really identify with!

Photo of Judas Tree lying down (credit: Ellen Mascard)

Hello my name is Pete, I am the senior gardener at Highdown Gardens.

This month I wanted to share with you some of the regular propagation work which takes place in the garden.

Highdown Gardens has lots of different plants in its collection. Some are important mature examples or rare species, and these are being catalogued and propagated by our Plant Heritage Officer.

Many of the plants in the garden are more modest in their historical or botanical importance but still contribute to the interest and look of the garden.

Plants like these do not live forever. Some have very short lives naturally and others can find our climate challenging.

In order to ensure the continued presence of these plants in the garden different methods of propagation can be used.

Last year during the late summer and autumn, the gardeners were saving seeds from plants such as Tithonia ‘Torch’ and Lychnis Coronaria.

The Tithonia cannot survive our winter and only likes to live outside when there is no frost. It is usually fine in the South of England between May and October.

The seed has recently been sown in trays filled with seed compost and placed in our heated glass house. This should give us strong, young plants which can be planted out in the garden in May or June.

The Lychnis is a short-lived perennial that can survive our winters, so we have taken a different approach.

The seed was collected and sown in the autumn in our heated glass house. This has produced some lovely little garden ready plants which will only need acclimatising to the cold in our cold frames. They will be planted out later in the spring.

We also have a few lovely shrubby Salvias in our sensory garden. These can suffer if we have a bad winter so it is wise to take a few cuttings every year.

Last September and October we took several cuttings from healthy, typical non-flowering stems, putting four to six in a 9cm pot filled with compost and perlite, a mineral which keeps the soil loose and well-drained, and placed them in our new heated glass house.

Earlier this month we separated all the cuttings and potted them up individually. These will make garden ready replacements for any we have lost over the winter, or give us plants to use in other areas of the garden.

This type of propagation is enjoyable and cost-effective, and there is something incredibly satisfying about watching a seed you have planted, or a cutting you have taken, grow.

Hi, I’m Charlotte and I’ve worked at Highdown Gardens for a couple of years now.

One of the most enjoyable parts of working here is the wildlife I’ve seen during this time! Every day I’ll have a robin or two following me as I work, spotting grubs in the disturbed ground.

Early last year we were closed to the public due to renovation work which gave the plants and animals some breathing space.

There were pheasants running all over the garden in packs of five or six, I’d not seen so many together before! Interestingly, the collective noun for pheasants is a bouquet , a covey or a nide. They can be troublesome in gardens, scraping the ground and digging up plants to find food. At Highdown they tucked into a large number of our newly planted crocus bulbs, what a feast!

Woodpeckers can often be heard hammering away and even seen far up in the trees. Last year a hole appeared in the Acer davidii near the visitor centre, about five foot up the trunk. This was quite puzzling until we saw a woodpecker pair coming and going. Not wanting to scare them away, we gave them plenty of space and were soon rewarded with hearing the chicks chirping away! The hole to the empty nest remains so see if you can find it on your next visit.

Not just birds, we’ve got mammals too. One morning I came into sight of a fox and three cubs playing in the sensory garden. This garden’s an ideal place for them as there are plenty of rabbits about. Obviously rabbits are a gardener’s nightmare, which is why you’ll see certain plants surrounded by a low chicken-wire barrier to deter rabbits from eating them. Despite this I love to see their little cute tails hopping about.

One time I was weeding through the borders and noticed a tiny hole next to me and saw rustling in the leaves nearby. A minute later a little furry blur ran out and then, changing his mind when he saw me, quickly retreated back into the foliage. I kept really still and the creature tried a few more times, each time coming a little bit closer to me and I saw it was a vole. Eventually he got the courage to and ran out all the way and scampered straight down the hole next to my boot.

We have smaller critters of note in the garden. Everyone is curious about the Euonymus grandiflorus in spring time when it gets completely covered in the web of the spindle moth caterpillars, from which caterpillars hang dangling in the air from long threads. The photo below shows them pupating in webs near the trunk before they become tiny white moths with black dots.

One thing I’d never seen before coming to Highdown are stag beetles, of which I’ve now seen a couple over the summer. They like living in leaf litter, dead wood and shady spaces. I think the picture may be a lesser stag beetle as it doesn’t have the large jaws.

Why not come, look and listen for wildlife at Highdown? Just remember to be respectful of creatures in their habitat, not disturbing just quietly observing.

For this month’s Plant Focus blog David Smart, Highdown’s Plant Heritage and Gardening Volunteer, writes about the Tibetan Cherry Tree.

Tibetan Cherry Tree: Prunus Serrula
Common Names: Tibetan Cherry / Birch-bark Tree / Ornamental Cherry
Latin Name: Prunus Serrula
Country of Origin: West China
Location in the garden: Prairie bed at the garden’s entrance and next to the visitor centre

The Sterns originally planted an avenue of these cherry trees in 1938 to give interest in the winter months. Sir Frederick Stern, in his book A Chalk Garden, refers to Prunus serrula as having “small white flowers of no consequence, but a very pleasant and highly decorative mahogany-coloured bark which gives interest and colour in the winter”.

Since then, new ones have been planted to replace older dying trees, however these also became diseased so it was decided to remove them upon the new redevelopments. One cherry tree from the avenue still remains next to the visitor centre, and more recently one was planted in the bed by the garden’s entrance to pay homage to those that were lost.

Prunus serrula is a round-headed bushy deciduous tree native to Tibet and Western to Southern Central China. The trunk has shiny coppery bark and the leaves are narrow, turning yellow in the autumn. The white flowers are 2cm in width, and bloom in small clusters. The tree can grow to a height of 12 metres and width exceeding 8 metres over a period of 20 ro 50 years.

Photos: The trunk of the Tibetan Cherry Tree – Prunus Serrula

Ideally, the Tibetan Cherry should be grown in full sun, but can tolerate any aspect or exposure. It prefers any moderately fertile chalk, sand, clay or loam soils that are moist but well-drained, at all but extremes of pH. They are frost-hardy to -20 degrees Centigrade. It can suffer from silver leaf, bacterial canker, blossom wilt, as well as pests such as caterpillars, leaf-mining moths and bullfinches. Despite this it is a low maintenance plant, though may need pruning in mid-summer if the disease silver leaf is a problem.

In its native range it was believed that cherry wood kept away evil spirits, so people would hang branches of cherry wood over their doors on New Year’s Day and make cherry wood statues to guard their houses.

Hello, my name is Pete and I am the Senior Gardener at Highdown Gardens.

After the dark leaden skies that to me seemed to dominate in December, it is finally a relief to be a couple of weeks into January 2022. The days are now noticeably lighter and the garden is starting to show signs of life. On the occasions when the sun shines on a cold crisp day, it is a real joy to be outside.

One plant that is making the most of the new start to the year is the Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), a member of the buttercup family with a bright yellow flower that is native to the woodlands of France, Italy and the Balkans. It was introduced to the garden by Frederick Stern and it now thrives in our alkaline soils, having naturalised into large swathes of the garden and in some places it forms a carpet of flowers. A feast for the eyes at this time of year.

Photo: Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)

A plant that you might smell before you see it, while walking around the garden, is our fragrant Sweet box (Sarcococca ruscifolia). A flowering shrub and a member of the box family native to China, it is found throughout Highdown Gardens providing a lovely scent that can hang in the air when the weather conditions are right. As it is evergreen when not in flower, it also gives constant structure in the garden. It is a great plant if you have a difficult shady situation and you are looking for some all year interest in your own garden. It will also tolerate being controlled and shaped by a prune after flowering in spring.

Photo: Sweet box (Sarcococca ruscifolia)

These are just a couple of the plants that increase the interest in the garden throughout the winter season. Soon we will get to the inevitable explosion of growth and colour that the spring will bring.

Hello my name is Glenn, I am one of the Craft Gardeners at Highdown Gardens.

In the winter months nearly all plants go dormant, but this period of rest is crucial to survival in order to regrow and therefore dormancy during cold conditions is so important. It may also be equally important during times of stress during heat and drought, especially, for example with trees shedding their leaves early in order to conserve water.

Nature can be a great teacher if we take our time to observe. It is equally important that we also rest during times of stress. Christmas can be for many people one of those times – hectic, stressful and full of expectations to live up to.

Highdown Gardens are very therapeutic and each season offers something different to the senses. Winter time is the perfect opportunity to tap into the rejuvenating energy of the garden. The garden at Highdown stands so tall and majestic it has a real presence especially at this time of the year.

Come to the middle garden and take three or four conscious breaths, free yourself from the fog of the time bound mind and allow yourself to sit in the pristine present moment, listen to the silence, the absolute peace of mind, body and spirit.

Highdown Gardens is a space to feel at peace.

After all, the gift of peace is the only gift worth giving.

Happy Christmas from all the Highdown Team.

Photos: (left) Coronilla glauca in flower, and (right) Carpinus turczaninowii in dormancy

Hi, my name is Toby. I am one of the craft gardeners here at Highdown Gardens.

Did you know that some butterflies are producing up to three broods a year? Due to longer warmer temperate seasons, butterflies are laying more clutches of eggs, unfortunately the wild flowers they rely on for food are not keeping up.

This is just one of the fascinating insights you’ll learn while chatting with John Gapper, founder of the Wild Flower Conservation Society. With the apt moniker ‘The Green Man of Sussex’ he was raised in the village of Stanmer on the South Downs, so John has spent his entire life working with and observing nature.

Photos: John Gapper

I first met John while studying Horticulture at Plumpton College and doing research for a wild flower unit, so when the opportunity arose to develop a meadow in the old orchard at Highdown Gardens, he was the first person I thought of.

John’s pioneering work in collecting wild seed has been bolstered in recent years, with support from the Brighton & Hove Council and the South Downs Communities Sustainable fund, who have equipped he and his volunteers with a new polytunnel where they produce plug plants to sell to the public.

During my visit I was lucky enough to be given some seeds to germinate in the new glasshouse here at Highdown, so that we may plant out our own plug plants next spring. John recommended devil’s bit scabious and corn marigold to get us started, as their flowering season goes right through to October and even November, which will be of great benefit to the Downland butterflies.

Photo: Seedlings growing in glasshouse

If you’d like to support John’s vital work helping to preserve the Sussex downland wildlife, pop up to Stanmer and pick up some plug plants for your garden, and please come and see our new meadow develop here at Highdown next year.

Hopefully, with plenty of butterflies!

Photo: Devils bit scabious and Corn marigold

Hello my name’s Lisa and I’ve been a Craft Gardener at Highdown Garden for just over two months now. The Sensory Garden is one of my areas of responsibilities and I’ve seen the plants change a lot while I’ve been here.

I started at the beginning of August when lots of plants were still looking wonderful, the bright orange Californian Poppies and Calendula were very eye catching and the white Lychnis and the powdery blue Nigella filled the raised beds with colour. The plants were still enjoying the sunshine in August so the Calendula and the sweetpeas had to be deadheaded regularly.

But as the summer started to come to an end, mid to late August, lots of flowers faded and it was time to cut some perennials down to the ground, this encourages new and fresh foliage and flowers. The Nepeta, Geraniums, Stachys byzantina and Alchemilla mollis were all cut down to the ground when their flowers faded, with the warm and sunny September we’ve experienced they’ve all bounced back with young new foliage.

In September annuals such as the Poppies and Calendula finished their show of flowers and had to be removed to tidy up the beds, but other perennials were having their time to look wonderful. Salvia ‘Royal Bumble’ and Salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’ with their numerous and floating dark red and purple flowers and Symphyotrichum (Asters) with their mass of dense purple flowers are now still grabbing people’s attention.

Now we’re in autumn this is a good time to identify gaps in the Sensory Garden, some plants have been eaten by slugs and rabbits so some beds are looking less full than they should be. Autumn is a good time to plant, with moisture and warmth still in the ground, so new plants will soon be planted to fill these gaps. Come and have a look at the Salvia, Asters, Verbena bonariensis and the new plants in the Sensory Garden this Autumn, it’ll be good to meet you!

Hello my name is Charlotte, I am the Craft Gardener here at Highdown Gardens.

I have spent much time in August amongst the Irises in the Lower Garden.

There are many at Highdown due to them being one of Sir Frederick Stern’s garden favourites. Is not hard to see why with their elegant tall leaves and flowers in shades of yellow or purple, they have become one of my favourites too. Stern even cross bred species creating hybrids to plant out in trial beds to see how well they performed.

It is time to divide bearded Iris once they have finished flowering, so from the end of July onwards depending on the season’s weather of course. There are a lot of different types of Iris, check which type you have if you are doing yours.

Typically they are divided every three to five years, I have only started at Highdown this year so I don’t know exactly when they were last done, but I can tell from looking that they are very congested and this would benefit them. The purpose is to give each individual more space to grow and help to keep it healthy and perform better. It’s quite a fun garden task, though it is time-consuming.

I use a border fork to gently lift them all from the soil. You are then faced with a prawn-like rhizome with lots of roots on the underside with the tall strappy leaves coming from the topside.

This just needs preparing for replanting, the rhizome itself can be trimmed down to remove the older parts, leaving the healthier and fresher looking growth.

Very small ones can be discarded or potted up until they have grown larger for new stock to plant elsewhere. I did plant a few small ones just to see how they do. The leaves should be trimmed down to keep the energy at the roots and prevent wind damage, the Highdown rabbits have been helping us with this by feasting on them.

Whilst we were doing this, it was a good chance to remove any perennial weeds that we found. We are constantly battling ground elder here, so took the roots out as we went. There are a lot of bulbs such as snowdrops and gladioli underneath the Iris so care was taken to replant these.

After I had dug up a good few Iris, and had a nice clear weeded patch of earth, I spaced out the newly divided plants evenly to replant. They just need the roots to be fully in the soil, the rhizome needs to stay on the surface as it will not flower well or could rot if fully buried.

That’s really all there is to it, I gave them some growmore and water to help them on their way to beautiful blooms next year.

Be sure to come and see them next May and June.

One of our Irises – prawn-like rhizome with lots of roots on the underside with tall strappy leaves coming from the topside – spaced out newly divided plants

Hello my name is Pete, I am the Senior Gardener here at Highdown Gardens.

It’s August and the Garden is now open to the public without booking being required, we hope this will continue. When we first opened in June it was with a limited number of visitors and a booking system in place, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone for respecting this necessary inconvenience.

Seeing people back in the garden, taking their time to enjoy the wonderful collection of plants makes all the hard work worth it. In fact, we are now in our peak visitor season!

If you are planning a visit to the garden, please take the time to read our new information panels at the entrance to the garden, they provide an overview of what you can expect from your visit, as well as a few reminders of how everyone can play a part in protecting the garden and its collection of plants.

The new areas in the garden have been a great success. The new prairie borders are really starting to look wonderful, even though it is only their first year, this display should hopefully only get better as the individual plants grow bigger and stronger. Our new sensory garden has also been very popular with visitors, with its raised beds bringing the plants up to eye level. The new accessible bonded gravel path links these two areas so they can be appreciated by all of our visitors.

Hi everyone, I’m Alex and I’m the Plant Heritage Officer at Worthing’s treasured Highdown Gardens.

In the orchard area here at Highdown Gardens, we’ve made the decision not to cut the grass so often. If we let it grow we encourage the wild plants, for which the chalk downs where we are located are so famous, to grow and flower.

Happily, a wider variety of plants leads to a greater amount of wildlife like insects and mammals too. It can take years for some of the wild flowers to establish but, straight away, some of the most exciting wild plants have shown up and shown off their beautiful flowers.

Two species of chalk-loving orchid have appeared and we’re told by those that have known the garden for years that these species have not been seen in the orchard for some time. The first is the pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis). This beautiful plant catches the eye as soon as you are near it. The flowers range from pale pink to magenta. It gets its name from the way the group of flowers on each plant – the inflorescence – is shaped like a pyramid.

Anacamptis – A pyramidal orchid

The second orchid is different. The bee orchid (Ophrys apifera) doesn’t catch your eye immediately, perhaps because the flowers are spaced further apart on each plant. But, once you’ve noticed it and you get closer you can’t help but marvel at its sheer amazing oddity.

The plant has evolved not only to produce flowers that look like a bumble bee, they also give off pheromones – the chemicals that insects make to communicate with one another – that mimic those of female bumble bees. The point of all this is that certain male bumble bees, especially the long-horned bee (Eucera longicornis) – now sadly in decline in the UK – are fooled into thinking that the flowers are female bees. The duped bees are drawn irresistibly to the flowers and end up getting covered in the pollen and transfer it to the next flower once they have been lured in once again.

Ophrys – A bee orchid

Whether for bees or pyramidal orchids, we now need to leave the grass uncut long enough that they produce their seed and spread themselves through the area a little more.

Orchid seed is absolutely tiny, each seed is the size of a particle of dust. By making a seed that is so small, the parent plant can make an enormous number of seeds that are capable of travelling quite a distance as they are so light and literally float away on the breeze. But there is a cost to all of this productivity.

Most often, when seeds are made, they all contain a parcel of sugars and fats that feed the young plant once it germinates; think of it as a little packed lunch. With orchids, there’s no room to fit the packed lunch into the miniscule seed and so they need to be able to grow without their own food. As it’s impossible to grow without any food, orchids have evolved to get around this problem by gaining their food from another organism. They get this food from fungus.

Ophrys – Close up of a couple of bee orchid flowers

The roots of the fungi find a way into the outer casing of the seed and transfer fats and sugars to the developing orchid. With some species of orchid, this debt is repaid once the orchid grows but with others, it is not.

Fungus roots are everywhere in the soil and owing to their small size, orchid seeds can spread far and wide but if we stop and think about it for a moment, it is not difficult to see that getting a fungus root tip and a tiny dust-like particle of a seed to actually meet one another is a rather a chancy matter. This is why, despite the literal billions of orchid seeds that float out there into the grasslands, fields and hillsides every year see relatively few orchids. By leaving the grass to grow we at least give them a fighting chance.