Garden Diary – Spring 2026

Spring has passed in a blur of growth and activity. Now, already in June, the daffodils, tulips, and Magnolia stellata have made way for daylilies, roses and peonies, among a host of other flowers.

At Central Site, a thousand roses are in bloom. In Front Court and beyond, wall-trained roses line the buildings, their flowers introducing new colours and scents to the garden. Outside the Jerwood Library, the tall flowering spires of Echiums impress and intrigue. In the Fellows’ Garden, fresh roses contrast with the wall they adorn; fleeting beauty against permanence. Lamb’s Ear (Stachys bzyantina) and Woodland Sage (Salvia nemorosa) spill onto the gravel path that leads towards the river.

At Wychfield, the Old Garden offers a verdant retreat. The Climbing Tea Rose (Rosa ‘Sombreuil’) – so-called because of its scent  – flowers against the arbour of Wychfield House. The profusion of alliums that had lit up the nearby box beds in May has faded. In its place, irises, peonies, clematis and roses take up the mantle. Their delicate flowers and foliage contrast with the well-defined shapes of the Box (Buxus sempervirens) and Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica) that offer the parterre year-round structure.

In and around the Sunken Garden, in front of Wychfield House, there are the purples, whites and pinks of alliums, Masterwort (Astrantia major) and recently-introduced Rosa Gabriel Oak. In the Old Garden, daylilies, weigela, and clematis contribute to the general exuberance. And here and there, the spires of foxgloves (Digitalis) rock gently in the wind.

The garden may be subject to the seasons, and gardening subject to fashions, and yet there is a sense of continuity and place. This was brought home to me when reading Joanna Wade’s article in Front Court, ‘The First Women’, in which Joanna describes her time at Trinity Hall among the first cohort of women to be admitted as undergraduates, in 1977.