National Garden Scheme Day 15/07/12

NGS Day July 2012.
NGS day was a dry day this year and we had about 120 visitors and raised a good amount of money for the NGS. Volunteers and staff worked hard manning the front desk, serving tea and cake, chatting to visitors while gardening, doing garden tours and selling plants and produce and gardening. The bee keeper, Michael Green, came in with the observation hive and talked about bee keeping and sold Chastleton honey. Jean did a wonderful job making and selling cakes. All in all a successful day.
Thanks to all those involved.

Jane picking black currants.

Jane and Julie at the plant and produce stall.

Strawberries from the garden for sale.

Pat manning her plant stall.

Michael our bee keeper with the observation hive.

George and Hazel at the front gate.

Alex and Mary cutting Box topiaries.

The croquet team playing croquet.

John and Jane discussing fruit.

Anna giving garden tours.

Chastleton Garden in July 2012

Chastleton Garden in July 2012.

A very busy month for us in the garden this month. The month started with monsoon like rains in the early part of the month, which made the weeds and the grass grow at a most enormous pace in the temperate climes. The poor roses and blooms around the garden were completely battered and some of the rose buds were even rotting on the the bush before they had a chance to come out. Blackspot and blight have not been good on the roses and quince trees this year too.
Myself and the volunteer team have worked hard to keep on top of the weeds in the red clover green manures in The Kitchen Garden and around the garden and this is an ongoing project. As the jet stream changed course towards the end of the month we finally saw the sun and had weather we were more used to seeing in July. The roses and other flowers perked up and the tomatoes and chillies put on a spurt of growth in the green house with the increase in sunlight.
This month we have also had the start of the restoration and conservation project in The West Garden, NGS day, Midsummer Garden Tours and Jazz in The Garden.

The poor roses on The Rose Terrace after being battered by heavy rain day after day at the beginning of July. We were busy dead heading.

However, the poppies in The Stableyard were looking good - having coped with the weather better than the roses.

The fruit and vegetables have done well though and we have been busy harvesting strawberries, black currants, cabbages, calabese, gooseberries, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, fennel and peaches and selling them on our produce and plant stall. We have also been selling plants to visitors.

Vegetables and flowers in The Kitchen Garden.

Fennel in The Kitchen Garden

Strawberries in The Kitchen Garden

Onions in The Kitchen Garden.

Green manure (Red Clover) in the four new beds in The Kitchen Garden.

Other jobs we have been busy working on this month are:

-mowing

-strimming

-edging

-weeding

-harvesting

-dead heading

-treatment of fairy rings on croquet lawn

-catching moles

-foliar feed for roses

-summer clearing and weeding of Wilderness

-hedge cutting

-topiary clipping

-pruning shrubs and Wisteria

-garden tours and visitor engagement

-plant and produce sales

-cutting back ivy

-putting new fencing up in The Wilderness

-watering

-feeding tomatoes and chillies in the green house

-summer pruning fruit trees and tying in

-work on The West Garden project

-care of wormery

-tour for local children's gardening club

-seed sowing in Kitchen Garden of root crops

-etc.

Caroline helping on the plant and produce stall.

Victor doing croquet engagement with visitors.

As ever a big thank you to all the volunteers and visitors who have made it another industrious and lovely month in the garden. Thank you, Anna.





June at Chastleton 2012

June has been a varied month. We have seen an extraordinary amount of rain and stormy weather - but we have battled on doing a lot of tying up and dead heading of the roses, climbers and fruit trees. The poor blooms are feeling a bit battered and the weeds and grass are growing apace with the warm, wet weather. The garden is looking green and luxious and the volunteers and I have been working hard to keep the garden looking good and moving on with the Garden Conservation Management Plan.

John and I pruned and tied in the old pear tree in The Stable Yard.

John planted the new Apricot tree in The Kitchen Garden.

John and I planted the new Black Mulberry tree in The Best Garden.

We have all been working hard to weed the green manure crop in the 4 new beds in The Kitchen Garden. The Red Clover will be mowed after flowering and then ploughed in to the ground later in the year. Sorrel (our intern for the summer) has been doing great work helping run the plant and produce stall. Other work done in the garden this month include:

-edging

-clipping the topiary

-strimming

-mowing

-weeding

-spraying paths for weeds

-sowing grass seed

-planning the water harvesting project for next year

-dead heading

-pruning fruit trees, climbers and herbaceous planting

-picking fruit and veg

-staking

-planting up the rockeries on the north terrace and in The Forecourt

-selling Chastleton honey

-tree surgery work on trees in the garden and the estate

-stump grinding old stumps in West Garden

-tours of the garden

-clearing and tidying The Wilderness

-potting on seedlings in the green house

-watering and feeding tomatoes and peppers in green house.

-etc.

We have National Garden Scheme Day (NGS) on Sunday 15th July 2pm-6pm and there is a Midsummer evening garden tour with Anna on 27th July 6.30pm-8pm.

Thanks again to all the volunteer help in the garden.

Chastleton Village Fete

Fun at the fete

Chastleton garden was transformed last Sunday when the village held its fete in our grounds with the primary aim of raising funds for repairs to the church roof.

Test your strength at Chastleton!

Photo by John Hackston

After a week of appalling weather, the rain luckily stayed away for most of the day and we had a constant stream of visitors buying from the stalls, doing house and garden tours and generally enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, wonderful refreshments, games and entertainment.

Stalls in the Forecourt

Relaxing on the Terrace



Garden volunteers, Julie and Jane, kept busy manning the plant stall and doing tours of the garden

Seeing the stalls in the Forecourt, Best Garden and North Terrace reminded us of the nostalgic photos in our archives from earlier times when fetes and parties were held in the grounds.

1920/30s party/fete on the North Terrace

Well done to all the organisers, stall holders, staff and volunteers who helped make the day so successful. Below is the ancient Chastleton church which benefits from the proceeds.

May 2012 at Chastleton Garden

May has been an eventful and busy month. The early part of the month saw the end of the heavy April rains and storms, but not until a few trees in the park and car park had fallen from the windy weather.

This large Ash tree fell casulty to a storm early in the month.

The green house has been crowded with vegetable and annual cut flower seedlings being brought on ready to plant out in the Kitchen Garden and to sell on the plant and produce stall. Myself and the volunteers have worked hard potting on with peat free compost and keeping the plants watered, happy and healthy in the glass house and cold frame. Plants are hardened off in the cold frame before being planted out in the garden.

Green House/Glass House.

Cold frame with plants getting ready for planting out and sales.

The spell of rain and then warm, sunny weather has done wonders for the lawns and the growth of the plants around the garden. We have all been working hard to try and keep on top of the weeds as well, as they have put on a vigorous rush of growth with the good growing weather.

The Kitchen Garden is nearly fully planted with vegetables and cut flowers. The perennial herbaceous borders are also looking lovely as the plants start to bloom.

Here are the root crops and some annual cut flower seedlings in the Kitchen Garden. The root crops are mainly sown direct 'in situ'.

Potatoes - main crop. These are earthed up and growing well.

Brassicas - red and green cabbage and calabrese are in place and netted against pigeons and butterflies.

The onion sets are growing on nicely.

The hazel wigwams are set up and planted out with a variety of sweet peas, climbing french beans and runner beans. The wire helps protect from any rabbit visitors and the cats and is soon covered up by plant growth.

The currant bushes, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries are all coming on well.

The four new fruit and veg beds have the red clover green manure growing on and now it is getting well established we will tackle some of the weeds that are competing with it. The beds are all beautifully edged by volunteers to keep them neat. The green manure will be mown off after flowering and then ploughed in later in the year.

The flowers are looking lovely in the garden too. Some of the gorgeous blooms are peonies, irises, Wisteria sinensis 'Alba', Clematis montana and Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'.

Peonie in The Kitchen Garden.

Iris in The Forecourt.

We divided the Irises around the garden last year and it has certainly increased their vigour and flowering capacity this year.

Wisteria sinensis 'Alba'. This filled The Forecourt with its sweet candy smell from the blossom.

Clematis montana rambling through the ancient Box tree in The West Garden.

The glorious, thornless Rosa banksiae 'Lutea' romping through a Holly tree in The Wilderness area.

We had some interesting insights into the history of the paths in The Forecourt from Jacobean times this month. The Direct Labour Team from Coleshill dug a trench across The Forecourt to put in a water pipe and we had Gary, the archeologist, out to look at what was revealed. As you can see below, the very neatly preserved paths are easy to find beneath about a metre of soil and gravel. We hope to go on and geophys The Forecourt at some point and maybe put in a couple more careful trenches to find out more about the layout of pathing and grass in the 1600s.

Jacobean surface in The Forecourt.

Members of the team continue to work hard on shaping the topiary and improving its health. After its spring feed it is greening up well. Alex, Mary and Roger have been particularly industrious with their shears. While I am working to reshape 'The Horse'. Julie attended a useful course on topiary at Langley Boxwood Nursery and we hope to run some workshops on 'Topiary and Chastleton' for volunteers this year and the public next year.

The topiary in The Best Garden being trimmed and shaped.

Kenny and Terry came and mended the end of the garden wall in The Wilderness - much to my delight, as it has been in major disrepair for years. Now it is reconstructed it should also help keep the deer out of the garden.

Terry and Kenny having repaired the garden wall.

So another busy month. Here are a few other things we have been up to in the garden. Many thanks, as always, to my fantastic volunteer team who are a great support and so hard working.

-Mowing.

-Strimming

-Weeding.

-Edging.

-Clearing debris from storm damage.

-Rangers cutting up and chipping fallen trees in storm damage.

-Green house and cold frame care.

-Tours of garden.

-Engagement with visitors.

-Compost workshop for the public.

-Earthing up potatoes.

-Sowing root crops and green manures.

-Planning the next stage of development for The West Garden in June and July.

-Elevating the laterals on the pear espalier trees to increase their vigour.

-Pruning fruit trees.

-Feeding the Yew hedges in The West Garden.

-Dead heading.

-Tying in and pruning roses.

-Planting out vegetable seedlings and annual cut flower seedlings.

-Putting up wigwam supports.

-Planting a new nectarine tree.

-Pruning topiary.

-Running plant and produce stall.

-Picking rhubarb.

-Watering with watering cans.

-Potting on.

-Continuing to launch and run the new garden exhibition.

-Etc.







April at Chastleton 2012

So far April has been a busy month in the garden. This week we seem to have gone from drought to heavy rain and the garden is now feeling delighted with the watering, but also a bit soggy in places.

We have been busy sowing seed for vegetables and cut flowers in the green house and pricking out and potting on seedlings ready for planting out over the next couple of months and for sales in our plant shop. Jean and Jane C and Ann have been a big help with pricking out seedlings.

Jane C sowing seeds.

We have been continuing our renovation of the West Garden and have now finished cutting back one side of the very overgrown Yew hedges and will go on to feed them. We have halved the height of the Hornbeam hedge in the Brewhouse court in The West garden and have transfered the herb garden to The Kitchen Garden. Watch this space as our work continues in this area of the garden to change it into a more functional, open and working area.

Moving the herb garden to The Kitchen Garden.

Our volunteer garden tour guides, garden stewards and the volunteers manning the plants and produce stall have all been doing great work and we look forward to launching our garden exhibition in the next few weeks. Chris and Patty continue to be a great help maintaining and propagating the house plants in the mansion.

John, Jane and Mary have been busy elevating the angle of the pear espalier branches in The Best Garden to increase vigour. They have been pruning some of the stone-fruit trees and hand pollinating the peach trees. The peach tree cover has now been taken down. 

We have finished preparing the four new vegetable beds and have sown the seed of the green manure (Red Clover), which will add nutrients to the soil and be good for pollinating insects.

John helping with pollination of peach trees.

The green manure will be ploughed in later on this year. The beds will then be ready for fruit and vegetable planting early next year. We are also busy sowing seed directly into the vegetable beds, this includes: parsnip, radish, carrot and beetroot. Joe planted out our chitted maincrop potatoes as well.

Here are some of the interesting finds from when we put the new veg beds into The Kitchen Garden. Our archaeologist will assess them in more detail in due course.

Alex and Mary and Coralie have been doing great work with the topiaries. We continue to cut them back hard and give them a bit more definition. They have had their spring feed and are starting to put on some nice new growth.

Alex, Mary and Coralie pruning the topiary.

Alex and Mary have worked hard to help put the woven hazel supports up in the herbaceous, perennial borders in The Kitchen Garden which are used for cut flowers.

Alex and Mary weaving hazel supports for the herbaceous borders.



Kenny and Terry are here from the buildings team doing a fantastic job of repairing the back dry stone wall of the garden by The Wilderness. This is great as the wall has been in serious disrepair for years and will hopefully help stop the deer entering the garden.

We continue with the day to day maintenance jobs for the garden: weeding, hoeing, edging, mowing, strimming, pruning, harvesting rhubarb, etc.

Many thanks to all the volunteers for all their contributions and support this month, as always.