The Silver Lime of the Castle Park

This one was planted just after the castle changed hands, which makes it the last generation of the old park rather than a survivor of it. The sale came in 1921 and the landscape park largely went in the decades after. A silver lime banded 1920 to 1930 is therefore standing on the hinge: planted around the moment the private estate ended and the public use began, into grounds that were about to stop being anybody's private garden. Silver lime is the best of the limes to meet in person, for a reason you can see from across the grounds. Every leaf is covered underneath in a fine white felt, so in the slightest wind the crown turns over and flickers between deep green and pale silver. Nothing else this size does it. It has a darker habit too. It flowers late, in July, and its nectar is hard on bumblebees, so under a big one in high summer you will sometimes find them on the ground. The reasons are argued over and the current reading is more about a starving late-season insect finding a huge low-value food source than about poison. July, then, for the scent.