Herbie...

So much has happened since last month’s blog, its tricky to know where to start. Firstly, the gardens have come alive with all the spring blossom and the daffodils are beginning to look amazing. March has been beautifully sunny, and it has almost been too hot to work in some areas of the gardens.

The blossom seems to be going over so fast but then the purple tinted leaves of the malus take over and give a fresh hue to the wooded areas. I was waiting for one of our earliest magnolia to come into flower with the hope of taking some really good pictures this year. Unfortunately, as often happens, just as the flowers were beginning to open, a sharp frost clipped the petals. However, the other magnolias that were in tight bud at the time are fine and are now beginning to open.

We opened on wed 23rd March and are now in full flow. The Tea Rooms are now under new management and are really worth a visit. The new proprietors are trying to make sure that they only use local produce, and that includes veg and fruit from the Kitchen Gardens.... which makes for very low ‘food miles’. They are offering hot and cold meals, afternoon tea on proper china, and they even have an alcohol licence...

Across the winter I have had a couple of pheasant following me round the gardens. We named them Herbie (see pic) and Harry Lightening. So don’t be suprised if you suddenly find a pheasant coming out of the woods and rushing towards you... they won’t attack, they are only after a little bit of grain.

The work on the fountain in the Millennium Garden is finished and I had the task last week of refilling it. When tested however it was noticed that the fountain flowed unevenly over the two top levels. This meant that someone had to come in with a stone grinder and gently shave a little off the rims to make them level for the water to flow down evenly. This also meant that my newly filled, and beautifully clean fountain became white and cloudy with all the stone dust, necessitating another draining, cleaning and refilling . A gardeners work is never done.

April Tasks

Construct runner bean wigwams or other supports and sow bean seeds, beetroot, radish, spinach, carrots, winter brassicas and peas.
plant those early potatoes as soon as the weather allows
Start to sow annual bedding and climbers. We sow ours into 1/2 seed trays and put them in a mist unit but your pots or trays would do equally well tucked into a closed, clear plastic bag until they germinate.
Trim back shrubs that have flowered over the late winter, eg jasminum nudiflorum, removing the flowered shoots to keep the shrub within its boundaries.
prune back hardy fuchsias to 2 or 3 buds from their base.
keep hoeing when the weather is warm and breezy to remove small weeds.
If you removed your pond pump last autumn, now is the time to check it over and replace it for the summer.
Begin to remove winter protection as the weather warms up.
Feed roses and shrubs with a general fertiliser such as Growmore or a specialised rose feed.
Feed camellias and rhododendron if looking a bit yellow. They require a special sequestered iron food.
Plants that are growing in pots would also benefit from a suitable feed.

Underneath the arches...

I think that this has been one of the toughest few weeks we have had in a long time as we are down to half the usual number of staff. Debbie has been very ill with a nasty virus that affected her breathing and Steve seems to have had a serious allergic reaction to something that we have yet to identify. This has meant that the usual schedule of work has been rather heavily modified to ensure that the main areas of the garden are tidy, ready for opening in three weeks. Chris and I have been working all the available hours, and this is when we are really appreciative of the volunteers who make such a difference. One of our regular volunteers even offered an extra afternoon to help out when she heard that we are short staffed.

Seed sowing has started, with the early peas and beans, and some ornamental plants for the kitchen garden. We will soon have all the greenhouses full again. We have also started the parsley as I intend to replace all the clumps this year. I also had a very encouraging chat with the new tea room managers, who would like to use as much of the surplus kitchen garden produce as possible in soups and salads. The tea rooms are being revamped, and a whole range of tasty food will be available again when the gardens are open.

The work has started on repairing an archway and rebuilding a fountain. The fountain just needs some sort of waterproof lining and it will be finished. The basic archway has been completed (see pic), but the brickwork surrounding it has yet to be finished, and all the coping stones in that section are also due to be replaced. When Miss Berkeley saw what the builders where doing she decided that the completed wall would be the ideal spot to show off her sculpture of a pair of partridge. The sculpture is lovely but it is a bit of a task moving it from the top of one wall to the top of another as it is quite heavy, being attached to a concrete base. Do see if you can spot it when you visit. There is also another set of partridge elsewhere in the gardens. Perhaps you might like to keep a lookout for those too.

Best wishes from a very tired Kate

March Tasks

Pot up dahlias and cannas in the greenhouse to give them a head start.
Cut down ( pollard) willows and cornus that are grown for their winter colour.
Begin to prepare the vegetable patch, clearing and digging over on fine dry days.
Cut down autumn fruiting raspberries
Dig up and divide congested clumps of snowdrops etc as the flowers fade.
Start to cut grass on a high cut, when the lawn is dry enough and the weather is sunny.
Mulch beds before the weather becomes drier, with rotted grass clippings, leafmold, bark chips or one of the decorative mulches available from the garden centre. They will retain moisture over the summer, suppress weeds and keep the borders looking fresh.
Don't forget to browse those seed and plant catalogues for your summer bedding and baskets before its too late.

With grateful thanks

We now have 7 volunteers helping in the gardens, variously offering from half a day a month right up to 3 days a week. We owe grateful thanks to our volunteers, who make a very big difference to the amount of work we can get through. The reasons for volunteering are as varied as the volunteers themselves. Some come due to a love of historic gardens, or a love of the outdoors. Some come for the company, or to fill in time between commitments. Others come to extend their knowledge; both in retirement and as preparation to take on further horticultural studies at university. The work is varied and interesting, and can be anything from the ladylike dead heading of roses, to the heavier tasks of mucking the roses or spreading leafmold on the borders. We try to offer jobs that are both rewarding and interesting, depending on the interests of each volunteer.

We are getting ready to undertake some essential maintenance in the gardens, replacing a fountain surround, and rebuilding an archway. The quotes are in and the work will be starting in about a week. This means that wall climbers over the arch have been given a severe haircut and the fountain in the Millennium Garden has been drained. Steve emptied the fountain, managing to get totally covered in green slime, and discovering just over £2 in small change. However he didn’t discover the pound coin I had thrown in several months earlier. I will have to look through the compost heap now to recover it...

Chris, the estate woodman, has now installed a new cleft fence (see pic) behind the Apollo statue on the South Border. It is a work of art, looks like it has been in place for many years, and will allow a safe viewing point from which to see the gunnera planted in the moat. We are hoping that the gunnera will establish very quickly and become as large and impressive as the ones often seen in Cornwall.

Best wishes

Kate

February Tasks

Tidy and cut down borders when conditions allow. Helleboure displays are greatly improved if old leaves are removed to make way for the flowers.
Check greenhouse heaters and fleece in the garden regularly. The wind can easily dislodge loose fleece.
Check garden ponds when conditions are icy and gently melt holes in the ice with boiling water. Keep pond liners from cracking by floating a tennis ball on the water. It will absorb some of the pressure from the ice.
Prepare vegetable seed beds, and sow early broad beans and peas
Prune Wisteria
Cut grass on a high cut when the day is dry and slightly windy.
Check and repair garden furniture, pergolas and arches if needed.
Remove algae from paths if they start to become slippery.
divide and replant early spring bulbs that have finished flowering
Check fruit and veg stores for rot or rodent damage. Don’t forget the stored cannas and dahlias.

Herbie the Pheasant...

Its the end of another year, and again the topic of most conversations has been the weather. At the end of November it started to get cold, the boiler was fired up for the conservatory and all the surrounding areas were snowed in; but the Midlands was spared. Then it arrived, and everything ground to a halt. The cold snap was with us for nearly a month and almost the entire year’s heating fuel for the conservatory has been used up. A water pipe froze and cracked in the kitchen garden, a pipe burst in the potting shed, and the waste water outlet to our bath froze so that the bath wouldn’t empty for several days, but apart from that we have been let off lightly.

There was so much snow fall that Mr Berkeley was worried incase the weight would bring branches down, so one of the jobs involved walking round the gardens knocking snow off the trees and shrubs with a stout stick. This sounds fun but became rather frustrating as the snow didn’t stop falling and all that was knocked off was swiftly replaced.

The hoar frost on the foliage around the gardens made a spectacular sight: a great opportunity to get out and about with a camera. Icicles started to grow from the guttering on the melon houses and just before the thaw they had reached the ground (see picture). We also had a few worrying moments when the melon house heaters repeatedly tripped and wouldn’t stay on, however this seems to have corrected itsself now.

I have a ‘pet’ pheasant that Steve named Herbie, who rushes up when I am working. He is quite distinctive as he has paler coloured back feathers than is usual. I have been carrying a pocket full of grain, dropping a few bits whenever he is about. Pheasant are quick learners where food is concerned. We have also been feeding the birds in our cottage garden, using an old poultry feeder that has protected the feed from the falling snow, as well as filling peanut feeders that hang from the trees.

This year for the first time the Spetchley staff were invited to Berkeley Castle, along with their spouses, to join staff and volunteers for a Christmas meal in the Great Hall. It was a splendid occasion, rounded off by the appearance of two Santas, ( looking remarkably similar to the two Berkeley brothers), who proceded to hand out small gifts to the guests. We had organised our own Christmas party for our garden volunteers at Spetchley but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to the snow. I hope to rearrange the date and have an outing in the summer instead.

Best wishes

Kate