Relax

The head gardener relaxing in the sunshine. 

Planting Day

Today we have been doing some planting in the vegetable garden. We started with the onion seedlings, it's the first time I have grown onions from seed so it will be interesting to see how they do. There also cabbage, celeriac and runner beans. It's a little early for the beans but they have come on well and so I didn't want to check them by making them hang around in pots so I will have to protect them if frost is forecast.  The celeriac is also something new to me, I've never grown it or tasted it so that's something to look forward to.

Some of the seedlings planted today.

The head gardener supervising.

Timothy-Michael Takes A Break.

The head gardener taking a break from pruning the Poets Wife..

Raising Their Canopies.

I spent some time yesterday raising the canopy of the trees down the back drive. This should enable me to maintain the ground beneath them more easily so therefore give a better overall appearance to the place which is particularly important as it's the first thing visitors see when they arrive.

I noticed on my travels that there are a few miniature Daffodils in flower on the banks by the front drive.

Little Clues

One of the things I like about working with an old garden are the little clues it throws up about what  went before. This tree is no longer here. I'm often finding these tags when working around the place.

Tidying The Conservatory

Today we were going to Prune some apple trees but the head gardener decided it was to cold and windy so he's got me tidying the conservatory area instead.

I have some cutting down to do, a Bay tree and climbing rose to Prune and all the rubbish to Rake up and cart away.

There is talk of replacing this conservatory with a new one when they have the money, I don't know when this will be and I'm sure that when they do and if I'm still here it will become part of the wedding venue therefore out of bounds to me so it's not really something I think about too much.

The head gardener Timothy Michael checking out what needs to be done.

Trial

This is a trial post to see if this still works.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

6th January 2020

Some Autumn Planting Work.

Today we have been doing some planting which wasn't enjoyable on account of how wet the ground is and also how wet it's been again all day. Anyway not to worry, I need to get used to it as we have quite a bit of lifting and planting planned for this week.

The first job for today was to take out the summer bedding from Pumpend wall and replant with Pansies.

The next job was to sort out a corner in the courtyard. There used to be a big Buddleia bush in this corner but the builders put an end to that. Before I could do any planting I needed to put down some edging stones and work over the soil as it was full of rocks and stones. To give you some idea I will tell you that all the edging stones actually came out of the soil plus half a trailer load of rubble type stuff.

The boss has recently acquired some plants from a friend so he asked me to put them in the corner. There are a couple of Verbena Bonariensis, some Salvia and I found three Lavender plants plus a few other things which I can't tell what they are at the moment as they have no leaves on them. They are a surprise for next year.

North Front Rockery Tidy Up.

This past week I have been on quite a big tidy up project. It's a corner of the North Front that is a bit out of the way and because of this is at the back of the queue when it comes to getting attention. It was over grown when I came here and I reclaimed it and had it nice for a few years but then went and let it slip back into the clutches of brambles and other nasties. When we started doing the weddings I started to give them priority over the gardens and this has proved to be totally the wrong way to go about it. I have found that if I give the gardens what they need when they need it then they give me what I need for the weddings if you see what I mean.

Anyway here are some pictures from the North Front rockery tidy up. The pictures are arranged in a before and after sequence to give you some idea what was done. The job isn't finished as I need to find some plants to put in. There wasn't much there to start with but what there was had suffered from being over grown so I thought it best to start again.

I also have to do something with the front of the border which also carries on along the front of the wall for quite some way so there is still quite  a lot of work to be done in this area of the garden but this coming week I have some lifting and planting to do so won't get back here for a while.