June Tasks

It should now be safe to plant out remaining bedding, including those cannas and dahlias.
Water hanging baskets every day
Shade and ventilate greenhouses
Feed plants in borders, and start dead heading flowers.
Thin out hardy annuals and veg sown in the garden.
Ensure net cages over soft fruit, peas and any other vulnerable veg are secure, without access holes for mice or pigeons.
Removed reverted branches of variegated shrubs.
Remove suckers (growth from the roots) from roses, lilac and other suckering shrubs.
Remove spring bulb foliage when it can be lifted easily.
Remove alge and blanket weed from ponds etc before it becomes a problem.

Debbie and The Furtive Man....

This must be the latest I have written the monthly diary for quite a while. I went to Devon to attend a baptism for the Bank Holiday and have yet to catch up with all the work.

We had an incident in the middle of last week: I had just finished lunch and was about to return to the yard when I received a strange phonecall from Debbie. She sounded very quiet, but was furious and indignant, whispering that she had just spotted someone stealing plants from ‘her’ Fountain Beds. I couldn’t believe her; I didn’t think people really did that sort of thing. Debbie was insistent and said she’d seen a man with a satchel, looking suspicious. Then she said she’d seen him walking back to his car with paeony leaves sticking out of the satchel. Then she rang to tell me to go and look in the footwell of his car, which I promptly did. Sure enough there were a couple of bare rooted plants in plastic bags. I was still not sure, they could have been there before he arrived at Spetchley.

Debbie continued to ring me with updates, the man repeatedly returned to particular places in the garden, and was constantly watching the other visitors around him. Finally he realised that we were watching him and started to make his way back to his car.

I phoned the gamekeeper for moral support, and when he arrived Debbie confronted the man. After a little waffling he was very embarrassed and admitted everything. His satchel contained a digging tool and plastic bags; he had come equipped! We recovered the plants and cuttings and felt very pleased with ourselves.

Taking plants, cuttings or seeds is theft.

A few days later I received a hand written apology,a promise never to return and an amount of money for buying more plants.

On a more upbeat note, the paeonies are showing their buds, the daffs are almost over but the rhododendrons are just beginning. There is always something new to see at Spetchley.

We have just planted up a new bed in Smokey Hollow called imaginatively ‘Bed 9 copse’, under the wispering pines. It is now full of rhododendrons, lilies and hydrangeas. Rhododendrons particularly like it as they like the needle fall from the pines which turns the soil acidic. The picture is Rhododendron Percy Wiseman.

Best wishes

Kate

May Tasks

Plant extra rows of veg for continuous cropping in the Kitchen Garden.
Remove the faded flower heads from daffodils but do not cut down or tie the leaves.
Water greenhouse plants and install shade netting if necessary.
Bedding plants be planted out towards the end of the month, after the last frosts have passed. Ensure they are gently acclimatised to the change in temperature outside the greenhouse or cold frame.
Prune winter flowering heathers before the end of May
Earth up early and maincrop potatoes
prune spring flowering clematis after flowering
Keep hoeing and weeding
Pinch out the growing tips of bush fuchsias
Continuously picking rhubarb and removing any flowering stems will ensure a longer crop.
Protect vulnerable plants such as young seedlings, or hostas from slugs. We use crushed egg shells as a barrier.
Trim back spreading alpines such as aubrietia and arabis after flowering.

Why Me?

Why is it that my life seems to revolve around animals and birds? I had a couple of really challenging experiences on the same day last month which turned me all of a dither! Firstly, I went round to the back of the lake to check mole traps and re set them. I have been singularly unsuccessful at this venture. Now I know why... the moles are watching. I had dug out a large, deep sod of turf to reveal both ends of a tunnel. As I stood looking into the hole, one of the tunnel ends started to fill with soil. The soil fell out into the hole closely followed by a long, snuffly pink nose. I was rather taken aback and could only watch in wonder as the mole turned round and stuck its tail out, then pushed the remaining soil out before scarpering back down its newly cleaned tunnel. I then felt really mean and had to admit defeat.

I decided to try elsewhere and went into the peacock pen where there was more mole activity. After realising this was a battle I was not going to win, I turned back to the cage door... only to see the white peahen taking advantage of a loose latch and making a bid for freedom, closely watched by her 2 remaining chicks. Panicking, I managed to manoeuvre between the chicks and the door whilst the white mum walked round the outside of the cage. I then rang Debbie, who must have thought I was having a turn, but did arrive very swiftly, and slowly walked round the cage encouraging the mum back to the door where, thankfully, the call of her chicks was just too strong for her to ignore. She had been a free bird for all of 6 minutes!

Now, less of my adventures and more of the gardens. It has been a difficult month: lovely weather to start the month and terrible weather to end. We managed to mulch most of the main borders and the gardens looked really lovely for opening, although it had been so cold that all the daffodils and crocus have been very late. This is the first year that I can remember us having such a spectacular show of crocus when the gardens have been open. (see pic). Although the rain has been a bit of a nuisance we have done our best to make sure that the gardens are at their best for the Easter Bank Holiday weekend....

Best Wishes

Kate

April Tasks

plant those early potatoes as soon as the weather allows
Check and cllean garden pool pumps
Cut grass regularly when the ground is not wet
Feed camellias and rhododendron if looking a bit yellow. They require a special sequestered iron food.
Feed herbaceous borders with a good quality granular feed, e.g. Growmore.
Sow broad and French beans, carrots and winter brassicas.
Prune hydrangea and cut down hardy fuchsia

Pests, Pests, Everywhere....

We have had an interesting, if irritating month for pests. There were rabbit tracks in the snow, all over the kitchen garden. Even in the vinery there was evidence of rabbit digging. I set a humane trap on the outside of one of the gates and made a channel under the gate for access. Annoyingly, it has yet to trap the little beast, but did trap a squirrel over the weekend.

Then, as I was in the kitchen garden, explaining a task to Richard, he suddenly pointed to what he thought was a fox running across Miss Berkeley’s patch. I looked up to see the back end of a white tail flashing against the shrubs: a roe deer. I am still puzzled as to how it got into the kitchen garden, which is walled and gated.

Richard went one way and I went another, opening all the gates and hoping that the deer would find one and leave. However, it suddenly rushed behind me before I got to one of the gates, crashed into it, then turned round and went down the border. Richard tried to chase it back but it suddenly disappeared. We can only assume it went through the hedge into the Millennium Garden. We left all the gates open all day, hoping that it would find its own way out. We haven’t seen it since so we can only assume it left.

Then there are the moles.... everywhere. I was setting a trap bahind the lake this morning and a mole started to lift a hill right next to me! I tried to catch it but it was too fast. If you drive by the gardens, have a look on the other side of the road at the lawn of the village hall. It is full of molehills. This is just a small indication of all the hills that are appearing at the back of the lake, up the drive, in my garden, by the peacock pen.....

Speaking of peacocks, 3 of the peacocks left to go to a new home at the beginning of the month. Two of the female chicks and the older female all went together to a farm where there are already other peacocks. We were very pleased to see them go to such a good home as there was just too little space for 7 fully grown birds in the pen.

The weather has been frustrating. Beautiful,(see pic.) but becoming rather tiresome. We are unable to do so many of the normal early spring tasks due to the snow. It feels as if spring is about a month late. I have yet to start the leeks and parsnips in the kitchen garden, and I am getting a little concerned.

We were remarkably lucky to escape the worst of the snow though. The only damage we sustained was a couple of cedar branches that came down next to the rose lawn due to weight of snow.

Don’t forget that the Gardens open for the new season on 21st March. See you all soon....

March Tasks

Pot up dahlias and cannas in the greenhouse to give them a head start.
Dig up and divide congested clumps of snowdrops etc as the flowers fade.
Prepare the vegetable patch, clearing and digging over or rotovating on fine dry days.
Plant the early varieties of potatoes that you prepared (chitted) last month.
Cut down ( pollard) willows and cornus that are grown for their winter colour.
Cut down autumn fruiting raspberries.
Finish pruning roses, wisteria and campsis.
Start to cut grass on a high cut, when the lawn is dry enough and the weather is sunny. and don't forget to browse those seed and plant catalogues for your summer bedding and baskets before its too late.