In Eastbourne there is a house called Ocklynge Manor. The owners do bed and breakfast and open their garden as part of the National Gardens Scheme and this week opened it for the Friends of Eastbourne Hospitals. It is a beautiful walled garden with a large number of old trees. In one corner is a turret which was a look out for stage coaches and at one time the illustrator Mabel Lucie Attwell lived there.

Anyway in their driveway there was a nursery selling plants -something I can never resist. They had a really interesting collection that were quite unusual and were from Rapkyns Nursery near Heathfield. My mother kindly bought me a  grass, Stipa tenuissima and a small shrub called Anisodonta capensis -more of which another time. 

Illustration by Laura Ribbons

Stipa tenuissima is also known as feather grass and it is easy to see why. I have to admit that I was not always that fond of grasses but they do add a feeling of movement in a border and their flowers and seed heads can be quite spectacular.


There is a pennisetum in our front garden that was planted a year or so ago that is doing well and the flower heads move gracefully in the breeze. They last a long time and I cut it back this spring and it has continued to do well. Grasses are very tactile as well. The only problem is I find it hard to remember all the names and must make a bit more effort to get to grips with their nomenclature.