As the gardens close their gates it is time to reflect..
It has been a fantastic year for the garden, despite the heatwave and drought the walled garden has had a record number of visitors using their garden passes. In part thanks must go to our volunteers who help us keep up with all the many tasks, especially Dee who we sadly lost in spring this year.
We have enjoyed meeting and greeting visitors to the garden, many chose to return regularly to watch the borders change over the summer. We were particularly excited to meet plantsman Roy Lancaster who had come with friends for a house tour but ended up admiring our huge Melianthus major.
In the spring this year our volunteers helped remove the south facing fence and prepare a new border. The border was mostly a success but many of the Hydrangeas we planted did not thrive, in part due to the extreme weather so we will see how they get on next year before we make the decision to move them.
Despite some planting the gardens are terribly exposed and on the 18th February storm Eunice managed to remove the shading from our greenhouse and a Lime tree fell. Two days after closing, the gardens were battered by another storm, not unusual for us but again windspeeds were more than 95mph across the garden.
Currently the garden team are busy cutting back, planting bulbs and plants. Lots of ordering and planning is going on behind the scenes. Some of the borders are being reshaped and the vegetable garden expanded. Our crops are in a four-year rotation, so we are continually moving things around, I’m really looking forward to getting the pumpkins and squashes back into the walled garden and over the hazel tunnels.
Song - A Spirit Haunts the Year's Last Hours...
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily