The annual garden in Guildhall Yard is built as an advert for the forthcoming Lord Mayor Big Curry Lunch.
The garden brief was to commemorate the Queens Silver Jubilee with a garden as well as to advertise the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch. Initially we thought that January would be quite a challenging month for a garden, but actually it worked in our favour as blooms last longer in cooler temperatures. With inspiration from ‘Pollinating London Together’ we decided to focus on the benefits of insects in the garden. Paul Rochford, Past Master Gardener, was able to source some magnificent specimens in bud and flower that would not only put on a show but also offer an early source of nectar. Fragrance in Winter is a great lure for pollinators and garden visitors alike, we used Lonicera x purpusii Winter Beauty with its delicate, sweetly scented creamy white flowers, Hamamellis x intermedia Arnold Promise with its acid yellow deeply fragrant spidery blooms and Sarcococca confuse discreetly placed here and there so that the visitor might wonder where the overpoweringly delicious smell was coming from.
The garden also gave Paul Rochford the opportunity to showcase the Dutch elm disease resistant elm tree, Ulmus Frontier, which is now available to plant in the UK . The elms are flanked either side by Prunus Accolade which will hopefully be displaying their sugary pink semi double blooms with yellow stamens on April the 7th the date of the lunch and the date when the garden will be removed from Guildhall Yard.
There are too many other plants to mention but hopefully we succeeded in putting together a selection of plants which will continue to please both the public and the city insects until the final day. We referenced the link to the Jubilee by naming the insect houses either side of the garden ‘Jubilee Heights’ and ‘Platinum House’.
The garden will be there until 7th April 2022 and there is a plan to get the City Corporation to plant this garden out somewhere else in the City so the public and pollinators can benefit from it in the future. We are hopeful that this will happen.
Gianna Utilini, Garden Designer