22/6/10
With hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea to spend the day before moving house weeding vast areas of gardens, but I had promised cake and thought I'd best deliver on that promise. Today's first task was to sort out the jungle behind the trefoil beds - after negotiating an overgrown bee-laden Phlomis - and de-weed the paths and beds. Afterwards we tidied up the beds around the stables and then did a bit of cosmetic work around the beds in front of the house. It was searingly hot in the sun so it was a relief when we went into the woods to weed the last remaining bit of Michael's Wood.
And hence to the cake! I was sorry to not have enough time to stay and take some final pictures before heading home to pack, but am looking forward to going back in September and hopefully working in the walled garden and nurseries.
7 hours - claimed all travel to date.
Sunday 27 June 2010
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Penultimate day in the garden in the woods...
Well, until after the summer, that is. As I'm going away to Cornwall for the summer, to do placements at the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan, I am finishing at Knightshayes next week. Hopefully in the autumn I'll be doing some work in the walled gardens and in the nursery, which I'll sort out when we're back at college in September.
After a two-week break because of revision and exams, I was pleased to be back in the gardens and to see how much they'd changed in the space of three weeks. It seems like everything is racing to catch up with its growth after the prolonged winter, and so today all the plants were taking over, especially on the terraces and in the alpine beds. The former were full of greenery, with the roses I trained looking a bit hidden behind swathes of Lychnis. I weeded out a fair bit of Oxalis from around the lovely apricot peony (past its best, sadly) and then had a wander along the terraces to see if the other peonies were still out (yes to double pink and a white one) before morning break.
We were a diminished team today - just Claire and I as volunteers. I met the new head gardener, Ed, who is a talker. He barely paused for breath during break but has lots of ideas so should be a good influence on the garden, if he doesn't get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. After break we went to work on Lady Amory's Patch, an apt name for a large unloved bed that hasn't seen any maintenance for a year or so. It was full of weeds and leaves that had been blown in there, and was overrun with geums and columbines and a few sadly deceased specimen plants that must have succumbed to drought or cold or both. We spent the rest of the day there and managed to make a fair difference just by clearing the leaves, but afterwards it was possible to see some really lovely plants, such as a tiny round-leaved Salix (possibly x boydii?) and a large red-stemmed Salix fargesii, not to mention some spectacular purple orchids (possibly Dactylorhiza purpurella) just about to come into flower.
Ben asked me to get some seedheads of Erythronium revolutum 'Knightshayes Pink' so Kaye gave me the nod and I headed up to the woods after we finished to surreptitiously pluck a few seedheads. A slow amble back down through the gardens (there is a beautiful red Paeonia suffruticosa out and still flowering, a gorgeous dark burgundy) was a lovely end to a rather enjoyable day.
7 hours
After a two-week break because of revision and exams, I was pleased to be back in the gardens and to see how much they'd changed in the space of three weeks. It seems like everything is racing to catch up with its growth after the prolonged winter, and so today all the plants were taking over, especially on the terraces and in the alpine beds. The former were full of greenery, with the roses I trained looking a bit hidden behind swathes of Lychnis. I weeded out a fair bit of Oxalis from around the lovely apricot peony (past its best, sadly) and then had a wander along the terraces to see if the other peonies were still out (yes to double pink and a white one) before morning break.
We were a diminished team today - just Claire and I as volunteers. I met the new head gardener, Ed, who is a talker. He barely paused for breath during break but has lots of ideas so should be a good influence on the garden, if he doesn't get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. After break we went to work on Lady Amory's Patch, an apt name for a large unloved bed that hasn't seen any maintenance for a year or so. It was full of weeds and leaves that had been blown in there, and was overrun with geums and columbines and a few sadly deceased specimen plants that must have succumbed to drought or cold or both. We spent the rest of the day there and managed to make a fair difference just by clearing the leaves, but afterwards it was possible to see some really lovely plants, such as a tiny round-leaved Salix (possibly x boydii?) and a large red-stemmed Salix fargesii, not to mention some spectacular purple orchids (possibly Dactylorhiza purpurella) just about to come into flower.
Ben asked me to get some seedheads of Erythronium revolutum 'Knightshayes Pink' so Kaye gave me the nod and I headed up to the woods after we finished to surreptitiously pluck a few seedheads. A slow amble back down through the gardens (there is a beautiful red Paeonia suffruticosa out and still flowering, a gorgeous dark burgundy) was a lovely end to a rather enjoyable day.
7 hours
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