I just had to laugh...

Another interesting month with a couple of entertaining events.

At the beginning of the month we had a request from a young man who wanted to film a Dr Who spoof in the gardens. He needed a location for some outdoor shots and had persuded his mum and a friend to be two of his actors. I’m afraid they didn’t take it as seriously as young Jordan would have liked and I think the filming took rather longer than intended due to the fits of giggles that pealed forth. Still, Jordan was very professional throughout. He then told me he was going to take all the footage home, edit it, and add sound and special effects where necessary to make the final film. He wants to work in films when he is older, and I have no doubt he will.

A couple of weeks later we were asked to clean out the fountain in the middle of the Fountain Gardens. Photos were needed so that a quote can be obtained for repair and maintenance. In the 13 years I have been at Spetchley this hasn’t been done so I was rather interested to see what was at the bottom of the fountain.

I had spent the previous day pumping out the water, rescuing the 10 or so carp and putting them in a large dustbin for safekeeping, and removing some of the sludge. We enlisted the help of the forester, ‘Big Chris’ who said he would make a start clearing the remaining foot or so of sludge. I said I was going to finish the pea planting I was doing with our volunteer ‘Little Chris’, and would then help Big Chris. 3 or 4 minutes later a very irate Big Chris came slopping back through the Kitchen Garden, absolutely covered in sludge. He had stepped over the edge of the fountain onto the steps, the steps had moved, he had missed his footing and fallen in. I’m afraid he didn’t get any sympathy, just a lot of laughter from the gardeners and from Dave, the maintenance man. Poor chap. Anyway, after a hot bath and a large bandage on his elbow he felt justified in starting to help again. We finally got the fountain emptied, (see photo of Little Chris and Steve), finding a childs shoe, a pair of sunglasses, two piles of rocks and stones and about 80p in loose change in the process. The base of the fountain is laid out very neatly in what looks like blue engineering bricks, which was a bit of a suprise to me. There is also a sump that I knew nothing of until I nearly swamped my wellies when I stood in it as the sludge was being removed.
The requisite photos were taken and the fountain filled again 2 days later. The fish were fine and are now enjoying their newly cleaned home.

July Tasks

Water regularly: a heavy soak is better than frequent sprinkles.
Prune wisteria tendrils back to 5 buds.
Hot weather is a great opportunity for getting out that hoe.
Feed roses etc with a general fertiliser such as phostrogen, and continue to deadhead spent flowers.
Top up pools as water evaporates. Keep pumps in good condition.
Trim back geraniums and aubretia in the borders after flowering
Continue harvesting peas, lettuce, early tomatoes etc in the kitchen garden.
Start collecting seed in paper envelopes when the weather is dry.
It will soon be time to take softwood cuttings of plants such as hebes, fuchsia, salvia and penstemon.
Start cutting the grass where daffodils have been left to die down.
Tidy the dead tops of daffodils from borders when weeding.

Of Mice and Volunteers

I had become quite obsessed by rain during May, or rather the lack of it. That was until today, the last day of May, when some of the lack of the last couple of months was dumped on the gardens in one day. It is now a sunny evening after the downpour. I know we need the rain but it could have fallen during the night, or on a day when we were shut, but oh no, it had to rain on a Bank Holiday.

The Kitchen Garden is becoming a bit of a challenge as the seeds I’ve planted in the greenhouses continually get attacked by the mice. Mice are particularly fond of any type of squash: pumpkin, melon, courgette... they keep eating them. Even the sunflowers have been decimated. I have finally decided to start some of the remaining seeds off on my own kitchen windowsill. And the carrots; is it possible that ants are running off with the seed? All I see on the carrot patch are ants and no carrots. Ah well.

At the beginning of the month we had a volunteer from Slovenia for a couple of weeks.(see pic) Irena is a student of Horticulture in Slovenia and needed to do some work experience as part of her course. She has family friends in Worcester who arranged for her to help out for a couple of weeks in the gardens, and she was such fun. Towards the end of the month we also had a young lad Chris, who is keen to learn more about horticulture and offered us a week’s work experience. We tried to arrange for a range of different tasks so that Irena and Chris could both experience as many aspects of the gardens as possible.

In the gardens we seem to have been over run with ground elder in just about every border we have. Its a bit of a challenge at the moment. We are expecting a group from the Royal Horticultural Society at the beginning of June, and are trying very hard to at least get the main borders tidy.

June Tasks

Water hanging baskets every day
Shade and ventilate greenhouses, and keep paths dampened on warm days.
Feed plants in borders, and start dead heading flowers.
Thin out hardy annuals and veg sown in the garden.
Remove suckers (growth from the roots) from roses, lilac and other suckering shrubs.
Remove spring bulb foliage when it will pull away easily.
Remove alge and blanket weed from ponds etc before it becomes a problem
Make sure that tall border plants are adequately supported: pea sticks or canes and string are usually sufficient.
It should now be safe to plant out remaining bedding, including those cannas and dahlias.

Where is the rain?

April has been a tough month, with the lack of rain meaning that watering has become a bit of an obsession with me. Even throughout the Easter Bank Holidays, and Royal Wedding and Mayday celebrations I have been in the gardens watering. I have also started to become obsessive about checking the weather forecast in the vain hope of some rain. The lake and horse pool are so low I am rather worried.

Like many people I expect, I allowed the local TV signal to change to digital without changing my TV or getting a digibox. Of course we lost all our channels so resorted to listening to the Royal Wedding on the radio in the entry hut with Janet, the gate girl on duty on Friday. It was actually very moving. We strung a line of red, white and blue flags across the hut and felt very patriotic. I think a grand total of 19 visited the gardens on Friday; we really are a nation proud of our heritage, pagentry and the Royal Family.

Miss Berkeley had enormous pleasure decorating the main entry gates (see pic) for the Royal Wedding. She also decorated the tea room gardens and the white bridge over the road with the help of Joan from one of the flats. She was a little concerned about what Mr Berkeley would say but it was all vey much appreciated by the visitors.

Next week we are pleased to have the help of a student gardener from Slovenia. She is with us for 2 weeks to learn all aspects of gardening in a large country estate. I hope that she is able to take some old traditional skills back with her when she returns home.

The kitchen garden display is beginning to take shape, although the lack of rain has caused a bit of havoc with the root crops, and we haven’t yet planted out all that I would have liked to. The paeonies and lilies however seem to be thriving. The low rainfall has meant that fungal infections that often destroy the flowers in wetter seasons have been kept at bay. We are expecting a fantastic display.

See you soon

Kate

May Tasks

Try to keep ontop of the hoeing and weeding
Feed roses and shrubs with a general fertiliser; rhododendrons and camelias would benefit from an ericaceous feed.
Plant up hanging baskets, but keep them protected in the greenhouse or frost free conservatory and don’t forget to include some slow release fertiliser.
Cut the grass whenever conditions allow.
Plants that are growing in pots would benefit from a feed
If you removed your pond pump last autumn, now is the time to check it over and replace it for the summer.
Trim back shrubs that have flowered over the late winter, eg jasminum nudiflorum, removing the flowered shoots to keep the shrub within its boundaries.
Clean patio slabs and stonework to remove alge etc.
Trim back spreading alpines such as aubrietia and arabis after flowering.
It looks like we may be in for a dry summer so a water butt or other water collection system connected to the guttering is a good idea.

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.