Sweet Pea Planting.

Hello everyone.
Today the head gardener and I have been working flat out planting sweet pea plants.

Because I went and changed my plans I didn't have the ground prepared so the first job was to fix netting for the plants to climb as they grow. I then had to dig over the row to a spades depth.

As we went we incorporated a mix of compost and manure and as there was a bit left over after we got finished digging I just sprinkled it over the surface.

When this was all done we put in the plants around nine inches apart, I wasn't too exact about that. The green netting along the bottom is temporary to protect the plants from pigeons. Some times they bother them and others they don't so it's not worth taking a chance if you have a bit of netting to spare. The final job was to water them in.

A Good Day To Feed Grass.

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. Today I want to show you some pictures from the South Front as it's all very bright and cheerful at the moment.

Today we have had the first drop of rain since the airplanes stopped flying which I'm sure is just a coincidence but it's been nice to look up and see fluffy clouds instead of the long straight ones. Anyway the thing is, because rain was forecast I decided it was a good time to give the lawn a bit of a feed so after calibrating the spreader I got on with that job after lunch. I think it took longer to calibrate the spreader than it did to apply the feed so much so that there was enough time at the end of the day to plant 72 Geraniums in the South Front wall beds. It is still a bit early to be putting out summer bedding but Geraniums will stand a slight frost and we haven't been having anyway so I am risking it as the plants are ready to be moved on. This year all the plants for the South Front walls have been grown from cuttings taken from last years plants.

Ways To Brighten Up Conifers.

In the last post I showed how I tidied up around the base of the conifers by the greenhouse lawn. Well in this post I will show you the other side to the conifers and how I have married the two sides together.

Occasionally a branch will die back leaving a hole so as you can see from the picture below I filled the hole that was left with this earn which will have some kind of a plant in it for the summer. This die back happened some years ago now so things have grown back enabling me to train things to look the way I want it.

In this particular case the die back only occurred last year and was cut out the winter past so things are not looking so good at the moment. In time though I hope to turn this set back into something more positive. The chair is an example I just had to hand, it would be better with two chairs or even a small bench.

This view over the rose garden is what you would get from sitting on the chair as it is.

In this picture you can see how I have married the two sides together with the Ivy on one side and the earth and neat edging on the other. There are a couple more things that I've done to add some interest to the conifer trees but I need to take some pictures and will add another post in the near future.

Tidying Around The Conifers.

Today the head gardener and I have been busy tidying up around the base of these conifer trees. I cut a new edge around them last year so it was just a matter of cutting the grass with the shears and then working over the soil to remove any weeds before throwing back the soil to make a nice edge.

We managed to get this done with time enough to spare to cut the small lawns in the walled garden. I've been going easy on the grass cutting because it's very dry and still early in the season, also with everyone on semi lockdown there is no one around to see what anything looks like.

A nice place to sit

Here is the bench by the lily pond. When the former gentleman was alive he used to enjoy sitting here to do his paperwork. Occasionally I will take a break here myself.

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.