The Old Vicarage B&B, Little Ouse

Running around The Old Vicarage is a drainage ditch. This never totally fills and is also never totally empty. The plan is how to make a ditch into an interesting water feature?

There are already mature trees, mountain ash, walnut and oak that in places already shade areas of the bank at parts of the day. There are also new additions, such as a couple of weeping willow and some beech trees that will in years to come, will restrict light or hang over the water feature (ditch).

The next concern, is of course weeding a flower border that is on a steep bank. I am looking at completing the planting in mostly corm based plants, that will spread rapidly to the waters edge and hopefully smother weeds.

To start with though as I am removing the perennial weeds, I need plants that can help stabilise the bank. To this end I am planting some ground cover such as St John’s Wort (hypericum – I believe is the posh name for this is) on the bank.

The ditch length is in excess of three hundred metres long and at least two metres wide from the water to the top of the border. Quite a large area to plant and manage, So to minimise the cost I’ll plant up sections over the coming years by dividing corms to create new areas perhaps with some new additions. I would hope that in several years the entire flower border by the ditch will be a mass of irises, day lilies (hemerocallis) red hot pokers (kniphopia), Crocosmia and plants generally with those sword like/pleated leaves. leading down to the waters edge. I’m sure that at some point I will plant some candelabra primulas as well on that bank.