Head Gardener's Diary - March
At
last, some nice drying weather and sunshine. The horticulture
students have been out in the garden; they have pruned all
the bush roses in the Rose Garden and they have sown seed
on the large area of bare soil in the middle of the garden,
which will be a Cornfield Meadow. This area has been “set-aside”
to encourage the growth of cornfield annual plants (which
farmers used to call weeds!). Unlike wildflowers in grassland
meadows, these annual species will only thrive when the
soil is cultivated every year, leaving bare soil for their
seeds to germinate on. This is the fourth year the area
has been sown but has not flowered well for the past two
years due to a lot of competition from weeds. We are hoping
this year we have timed the preparation just right to get
a good display this summer.
Under glass, the students have sown the sweet peas (for
the walled garden), which will harden off outdoors from
next week, and the half-hardy annuals, which will be protected
from frost and planted out at the end of May/early June.
We have finally finished pruning the top of the hedge
around the demonstration garden in the middle of the Harris
Garden, but still have the tops of the beech and yew to
finish. I won’t say we’re a little bit behind
but they should really have been done by August/September
2006! We are also chopping up fallen branches and generally
trying to have a tidy up around the garden before the first
Open Day on April 15th. The walled garden wall is being
rebuilt after the Grounds Department knocked a section of
it over! So hopefully everything will be ready in time.
I have to go now and pull three benches out of the pond.
We’ve had some visitors over the past few weeks who
drag benches over to the pond and sit there smoking and
drinking (we have been fishing empty beer cans out of the
pond). This is the first time they have thrown the benches
in the pond recently and I’m hoping Security will
sort them out before we have to resort to more desperate
measures!!!
