January 2013 - Snow and design

The cold hand of winter arrived at Chastleton last week with low temps and a good dose of snow, banishing the wet and mild weather we had been experiencing over Christmas and New Year.
I did manage to get some tidying, pruning, managing of the wormery, setting mole traps, mending peach tree cover and hedge cutting done in the early weeks of this month before frost, snow and ice took over. John Poole came in and cut our autumn raspberries back on the 7th as well.
Matthew West (historic blacksmith) came and fitted the historic looking chain in The West Garden fencing with my assistance. He also measured up for a hand rail that we are having fitted by The Best Garden steps to make them safer to manage. This rail will be historically in keeping with the garden in its design and installed for the new season opening in March.

 

The West Garden Project is ongoing - the fencing is now completed and creates a discrete boundary that opens up the space. Next stage is to finish the new cold frames, paint the gate and fence blue and get engagement potting tables set up.

 

There is always plenty of office work to do as well and I have been busy planning and preparing for next open season. Some of the jobs include: updating risk assessments and health and safety, ordering, reviewing the short garden guide and proof reading the garden section in our new property guide book. I have been drawing up the designs and schedules of works for the expanded Kitchen Garden and making plans with the team. Here are some examples of some of the designs below:

The Roots and Alliums bed.

The Legumes and Salads bed.

The Potatoes, Brassicas, Pumpkin and Squash bed.

 

The first job will be to weed and prepare the beds for planting and start seed sowing in the greenhouse and planting out early alliums, fruit and asparagus.

Sadly, we have had more casualties with the garden walls. Two more sections of wall have collapsed - another one in The Forecourt, this time by the churchyard, and a section at the end of the garden in The Wilderness. So I have completed a survey of the walls of the garden and am working with the Visitor Operations Manager (Dawn) and the Regional Surveyor (Jo) to risk assess and prioritise repairs and provide interpretation information for visitors to the property.

The Wall between the Forecourt and church yard has fallen casualty to the wet weather last year.

 

The door from The Stable Yard to The Forecourt is due to have repairs to its hinges.

 

Snow meant I struggled to get in to the property today (Mon 21st Jan) as there has been about a ft of snow and the small lanes were icy to negotiate.

The lane outside the property.

The garden looked lovely in the snow and Dawn and I worked to brush the snow off the topiaires so that the weight of it did not snap the branches and it did not cause scorch marks on the leaves.

The Forecourt.

The Forecourt.

 

The Stable Yard.

The Rose Terrace.

The Kitchen Garden.

 

The Best Garden.

Anna carefully removing heavy snow from fragile topiaries.

There are lots of activities planned over the next few weeks - including recruiting a seasonal gardener assistant, wall repairs, path repairs, finishing off the cold frames in The West Garden, rose and shrub and climber pruning, building a leaf litter store, cutting back ivy, tidying the car park, starting propagation and bed preparation for The Kitchen Garden etc. I will keep you posted as always.
We are having a few garden open days for visitors over Feb 14th, 15th and 16th to see early spring flowers and snowdrops - please see the property web page, our Facebook page and local press for details. We have never opened the garden this early in the season - so it is an opportunity to see our snowdrop collection once the snow has melted.

December 2012 - Wild weather and planting

The infra-structure of the garden came off badly to the wild weather we have been having in December. The Forecourt dry stone wall has crumbled in a couple of places following the excessive wet and windy weather. The wall has been made safe and the area roped off and we have booked for some builders to repair the damage in Jan 2013 - but a few plants and nice ferns have been crushed unfortunately. The wall will be sympathetically reconstructed to retain the correct aesthetic look and feel for the property- but be a lot more stable and strong.

 

On a more cheerful note John Poole and I planted up the apple cordons on the top terrace above the croquet lawns. John and I carefully chose bareroot, heritage varieties from Walcots Organic Fruit Tree Nursery and were very pleased with the results. The border was previously a rather lost, neglected rose border with very weak, old roses - so the new look is an improvement and appropriate for the garden.

Cordons are a great way to grow fruit trees in a small space. We support ours with hazel sticks coppiced from the garden.

 

The latest turf repairs around the garden and re-turfing in the West Garden was finished this month too.

A new year and new projects will start apace at Chastleton Garden in Jan 2013 and I will update you in my first entry of the year in due course.



 

 



November and December 2012

November and December has seen us bracing ourselves against further rain and wind and now we have definitely got to colder climes with impressive haw frosts and even some snow and ice.
We have been tackling a variety of jobs:

We have worked to cut back, sort and weed the herbaceous perennial borders around the garden. We do leave a few plants over the winter for seed for birds and for frost foliage effect. However, the majority of the borders are cut back and sorted for the winter and readiness for mulching with manure or garden/ mushroom compost. Due to the rambling nature of the borders it is important they have a good weed and sort out at the end of the season.

Here in the Kitchen Garden you can see where we cut back some herbaceous perennial border plants and have left others.

Leaf clearance is an ongoing project in the garden over the autumn and winter months. My volunteers and I have spent many hours out with the leaf blower clearing fallen leave and putting them on the leaf compost pile to rot down as leaf litter for re-use in the garden.

We have busily composted - these photos show this years cuttings and then below the lovely compost they turn into over a period of months.

Some of the leaves have looked beautiful - both on the ground and on the trees, as seen in these two photos of the Acer griseum and the ancient beech trees.

The peach tree cover was put up in Nov to protect the tree from rain that can carry and distribute the peach leaf curl disease. Alex, John and Roger S did a wonderful job putting up the structure and also doing some running repairs a week later after very strong winds caught under some of the sheeting.

Here is some of the turfing work that has gone on all around the garden. There were considerable repairs to be done after the lawns suffered from footfall from visitors on water-logged lawns. There was also turfing done in The West Garden as part of the development project in that area of the garden.

Snow and ice and frost have arrived and leading up to the shortest day on 21st Dec winter has started stretching out her cold fingers.

Other jobs worked on this month-

-Drawning up Kitchen Garden plans and designs,

-Tree survey and Ash tree survey in light of Ash Die Back Disease.

-Clearing and mulching borders,

-re-gravelling paths,

-leaf collecting

-ordering seeds and plants for the garden for next year,

-preparing the border for new apple cordons,

-ordering and collecting new apple cordons,

-tidying and clearing up the plant and produce stall,

-weeding,

-turfing,

-hedge cutting,

-sorting and turning compost bins,

-pruning shrubs,

-propagating strawberry runners,

-cutting back ivy,

-inducting new volunteers,

-pruning vines,

-collected plants from Hanbury Hall,

-strimming

-machinery maintenance,

-wormery care,

-care of house plant collection

-etc.

This is a pic of me - well wrapped up and covered in mud while looking at sorting and pruning in The Forecourt.

I would like to welcome two new volunteers Laura Evans who is working on the house plant collection with Patty and in the garden and Roger Gray who is working as a gardener and handyman.

I would like to say a massive thank you to all staff, volunteers and supporters who have help with Chastleton Garden this year and wish everyone a Happy Christmas and New Year. 



October at Chastleton 2012

Autumn at Chastleton Garden.

October has seen a few beautiful frosty and sunny days that has shown off some lovely autumn colour in the garden. However, the general trend for mild, wet and cloudy days has continued and the poor garden is pretty waterlogged at the end of the month. We are having to re-route visitors around the garden at the moment to try and avoid some very slippery areas and very muddy grass areas.

The Forecourt in early morning autumn sun.

The lovely red foliage of a Prunus tree in the sun by the church gate.

The red foliage and berries of a Cotoneaster at the front gates.

The Acer griseum in The Best Garden is turning from green to yellow to red.

The wet weather and footfall in the garden continues to take its toll.

We are in leaf clearing season. Alex and Richard are seen leaf clearing in The Best Garden. We store the leaves for leaf mulch.

John and Mary have been doing great work taking out the inappropriate, modern vine eyes and putting in historic vine eyes around the garden. We are putting apple cordons on this wall on the top terrace this year.

Jane C has been working with Alice taking off strawberry runners and potting them on for use in the Kitchen Garden next year.

Hedge cutting continues and as part of that we can now start sumping back the other side of the West Garden yew hedge.

This is the growth on the side of the yew hedge that was stumped back in The West Garden about 11 months ago. It is regenerating nicely, having been fed.

Jane H picking the last of the root crops and weeding in the Kitchen Garden.

Graham chatting to visitors at the beginning of one of our 'taster' tours of the garden.

I have been busy aerating the turf around the garden. I attempted to use a motorised aerator, but the lawns were too wet and I have resorted to using a push along aerator. Here I am tackling the croquet lawns. This will hopefully improve drainage and problems with compaction.

We have been manuring some of the Kitchen Garden beds.

Clearing and weeding in the Kitchen Garden.

I have been busy planting hundreds of autumn bulbs for spring flowers. They will make a lovely display in the Kitchen garden and be used as cut flowers for the house. They include tulips, narcissi and hyacinths.

The next phase of the new Kitchen garden restoration continues. I strimmed down the green manure and then Joe did a fab job helping to rotavate the crop in to break down over the winter and will aid nitrogen fixing in the soil.

Karl has been busy edging the new Kitchen Garden beds.

John has been getting our fruit ready for the winter. He has done a wonderful job pruning and tying in the logan berry and putting hazel supports in for the new apricot tree.

Patty has been doing wonderful work with me and the house staff working to maintain and improve the house plant collection at Chastleton. She also happens to be my Mum - so we are keeping the horticultural theme in the family. Thanks for all your work in the house with the plants.

Other jobs this month are:

Harvesting

Clearing and tidying

Composting

Cleaning and sorting the greenhouse

Mowing

Strimming

Edging

Beekeeper session with local primary school

Weeding

Pruning

Wormery management

Hedge cutting

Planting autumn bulbs in the orchard

Garden tours

etc.





Work Experience at Chastleton

 

 

Sam Halling is spending a week doing work experince with the team at Chastleton this week. As part of his week he has worked in the garden helping tidy up after Apple Day, pick fruit and veg, set up the produce stall and do some weeding, digging and clearing in the Kitchen Garden. Thanks for all your help, Sam.