Rain with a good chance of... rain

3/10/09

It's been a case of gale-force winds and little else here since Saturday. After a dry day yesterday (Monday) I had high hopes for a clear day today. Sadly it was not to be. As soon as I turned off the M5 I was hit by a squally shower and things stayed that way throughout the morning. Delightful.

I arrived at the gardeners' shed just as everyone was getting ready to go out to tidy up the beds outside the Stables. The rain didn't stop at all while we deadheaded Euphorbias, cut back Achilleas and Geraniums and scraped up what we could of the fallen leaves. The customary robin joined us for a while but even he got fed up with the constant downpour.

After a quick cup of tea Lucy, Jude and I headed up to meet Kaye, the plant records administrator, at the office behind the walled garden. She showed us how records are kept of every plant throughout the gardens (including the kitchen garden borders, woods and parkland). The process was set up by the last head gardener, John Lanyon, who catalogued many plants with Kaye. Everything is now on a large computer database, and apparently the trust is working upwards from Cornwall and Devon in its attempt to create records for all its gardens. A mammoth task! We were told what to do if/when we planted specimens or found tags on dead plants or tags on the floor - get it to Kaye asap so she could add or 'dead' the plant on the database.

With lunch out of the way we loaded up the tractor and trailer with tools and lots of heathers - Calluna vulgaris 'Kinlochruel' and another one whose name I forgot, and went up to the woodland to find spots to put them. The ground is exceedingly waterlogged after all the recent rain, and today's downpour just made things worse. The weekend's gale force winds have done for the vast majority of the autumn colour, but Sapium japonicum was hanging on in a sheltered spot. There were a lot of branches down too, so all in all it was probably for the best that the garden closed last Friday.

After weeding, we scattered the plants across the soil in a fairly random way and then dug them in. The soil was incredibly stony and full of roots in my patch next to the Yew tree (a lovely prostrate variety). A brief patch of sunshine lent a lovely autumnal air to the gardens and cheered everyone briefly before we moved on to the next plot to be planted. Here we pulled the dead leaves from a Yucca before getting rid of a few Lady Ferns, once again with a robin's trilling accompaniment.

5.5 hours