Back to Knightshayes again, hurrah!

What with assignments, Christmas and several severe weather 'events' (snow), I've not been volunteering at Knightshayes since early December. So it was with not a little excitement that I got out of bed this morning and drove up the Exe valley to Bolham.

The house has a habit of looming out at you when you're least expecting it, and the mist and rain this morning added to the general spooky feel. I recall Paul saying that if we wanted to know how the weather would be, we need only look to the hills in the west; today the hills weren't visible. Nuff said.

As I stomped down to the gardeners' shed I bumped into Kay, who showed us how plant records are kept. Upon checking whether I had my own secateurs (I did), I was taken to help prune the roses in the terrace beds. The roses haven't been pruned for several years, and had thrown out suckers here there and everywhere (including into the terrace above). So once I'd pruned a climbing rose (Rosa racemosa if memory serves) back into a more manageable state, I went off to find some bamboo canes to train them, only to be frogmarched back by Paul, this time armed with a saw, to cut down some hazel branches instead. So off we went, selecting long, straight branches that were not too thick and not too thin, suitable for bending and using as hoops to train the roses. I then made an artistic attempt at hazel hoops, which seemed to go down well with everyone, and tied the rose branches to the hoops. It did look rather nice, even if I do say so myself.

By this point the rain was horizontal so we elected to take an early lunch. It transpires that Paul is leaving to work for Clinton Devon Estates (who own Bicton Arena), which sounds like an interesting mission, and considerably more independent. However the intended new head gardener for Knightshayes was offered another job by another National Trust place and so unless they find someone by the end of April, they will find themselves without a head gardener or an area supervisor for the ornamental gardens. Paul's breadth and depth of knowledge is astounding, so his replacement will have rather large boots to fill.

After lunch, and somewhat cold after sitting in damp clothes for an hour, we headed back out to the roses. Alison and I were charged with pruning a couple of shrub roses, and proceeded a little over-zealously, some might say. Kay managed to hide her horror fairly well, but I think next time I will reign in my maniacal chopping and perhaps go for a light trim instead.

5 hours