One of the best things that happened here at Spetchley this month was the 2 week visit by Isabelle Roberts. Those of you who have been visiting for at least 5 years will remember Canadian Isabelle who, with her husband Bill, welcomed the visitors at the gate every day. This was before the green van, before we had plant sales tables, infact it was just Isabelle, an old wooden table and an even older green Renault 5 that was pushed into position in March and pushed back into the garage in October.
Isabelle had lived at Gardeners Cottage in Spetchley for over 20 years, and returned to Canada 2 years ago. She was really keen to come back and visit all her old friends so she stayed with us in the cottage again (see Pic) and was the perfect guest. Infact we didn’t see much of her during the day as she went out visiting across the county! We shall miss her, as she insisted on always doing the washing up, and we look forward to her next holiday with us.
The gardens have been struggling, first with the heat, then with the rain, then with the 80oc or more temperatures again. We are having to keep an eye on the carp in the lake as we don’t want a repeat of two or three years ago when the heat took the oxygen from the water and more than 20 large carp died. We had to call in the fire brigade to aerate the water.
The irrigation system has been installed in the kitchen garden and makes a world of difference when watering. There are standpipes on each bed that can be linked to sprinklers so there are no trailing hoses. There is also a leaky hose type system in the main 4 ornamental beds.
I had a call last week from Mike George, a gardening show presenter on BBC Hereford and Worcester who wanted to walk and chat around and about the gardens. This was duly arranged. At the end of the interview he said that he was amazed at scale of the gardens, and how lovely they are. He said that although he had visited two or three times previously there were still areas of the gardens that he had never seen before. Very gratifying.
see you soon
Kate
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