March 2012

Here are some snapshots of some of the activities going on at Chastleton Garden over March 2012. March has been a busy month with lots of sun and not much rain. We undressed the Agapanthus from their fleece and bubble wrap and put them back out in their open season positions in The Forecourt - a sure sign that spring is here and summer on the way.
Having finished our three pre-season meetings for volunteers we opened to the public on 10/3/12. The lawns are being mowed and strimmed and the croquet lawns are all in good order ready for play next month. We have fed and manured the roses and put a prop under the damson in The Wilderness.
An RHS group from Pershore Horticultural College, led by John Edgeley, held an advanced pruning course in the garden on 3/3/12. Myself and volunteer John Poole attended and the day was a great success. We shared information and tips on care and development of the fruit collection in the garden, while pruning some of the apple and pear trees.
We were delighted to welcome Russell from Langley Boxwood Nursery on the 6/3/12. He came to give us some very helpful advice on the continued restoration and conservation work being done to the topiaries in the garden. We very much enjoyed meeting Russell and sharing knowledge and ideas.

Coralie, Julie, Russell and Mary.



Coralie and Mary have already made a start on getting a bit more definition and shape to the topiaries. We plan to follow a hard pruning regime and underplant with young Box plants to help bulk out the topiaries from underneath. We will also adopt a watering and feeding regime in spring and autumn.

Where the light is getting through to the stems new green growth can already be seen.

My fantastic team of volunteers and I put in the 4 new vegetable beds in The Kitchen Garden - expanding it by approx three times its size. We borrowed Hidcote's plough/rotavator and ploughed and rotavated the 4 beds. Hidcote were very kind and supportive with the loan of their machinery - many thanks all - such a help. Joe lifted the turf with a turf lifter from one of the beds and we used the turf around the garden to do running repairs. Alice, Jane C, Coralie, Julie, Joe, Karl and Jean were all a huge help in clearing, edging, turfing, etc. We continue to finish off the beds and will plant green manures in them in April and then rotavate them later in the year ready for sowing with a mixture of historically appropriate fruit and veg. The cut flower section of the existing Kitchen Garden will be expanded too.

Ploughing and rotavating the new veg beds.

Joe lifting and removing turf from one of the new veg beds.

Anna re-turfing around the garden.

Alex and Mary continued industriously with clearing the large shrubs from The Best Garden ready for re-seeding with grass.

John and Jane C and myself continue to prune and maintain the fruit trees and plants in the garden.

The expanded garden stall is all set up in the stables and being run very efficiently by Coralie with help from fellow stall volunteers. We are still looking for more volunteers to help run the stall so if anyone is interested please get in touch with Chastleton. At the moment we are selling plants and seeds and hope soon to be selling produce from the garden and a few garden tools.

We continue to clear and restore The West Garden and move the herb garden and are busy sowing seeds for veg and cut flowers in the green house for the garden. The tour guides and garden stewards are also doing great work educating the visitors and promoting the garden. We hope to have the garden exhibition up in April and ready for all visitors to enjoy.

Some extra volunteer help in Feb 2012

We had some extra help over half term this month when one of our garden volunteers, Alice, brought her two children in to get signed up to help her uncover the path in The West Garden. Ella and Katie both worked really hard while they were volunteering in the garden with us. They were a great addition to our team and very enthusiastic about their finds when clearing the path. Many thanks, girls.

February at Chastleton Garden 2012

February has been a month of snow and snowdrops at Chastleton. Early Feb saw a covering of snow and some hard frost, but the end of the month has had much milder, almost balmy temps. The snowdrops around the garden have been glorious this year and I have become a rather obsessive enthusiast of the little, white flowers.

Some of the many snowdrops in The Wilderness area of the garden.

Snowdrops

Some of the garden volunteers met with me to have their picture taken for the garden exhibition, which is due for completion in the next few weeks. The exhibition will be housed, with the expanded garden produce and plant stall, in the stables.

The gardener and some of the garden volunteers.

Some of the garden volunteers came in to the garden on Feb 14th to be involved in the Trust national spring flower count. This was great fun and revealed 28 varieties of plant out in flower in the garden on that day and got us working on our identification of plants.

Jane, Julie and Jean doing the Feb 14th flower count.

Some other activities that have been going on in the garden this month have been:-

-giving external talks to local gardening and history groups

-propagation and watering training for volunteers

-working on the herb garden designs

-continuing with restoration and conservation work in the West Garden, Best Garden, Kitchen Garden and Wilderness.

-Treatment of fairy rings on the croquet lawns

-fruit tree pruning

-chitting potatoes and planting out onion sets (non-heat treated)

-tidying and preparing the garden for opening

-finalising details of the garden exhibition and new stall.

-clearing dead wood from the Box topiaries

-recruiting new volunteers

-repairing the Victorian ornamental posts and chains at the front of the house

-re-doing the visitors' path from the car park to the house

-clearing out the dovecote

-pruning and feeding roses

-feeding fruit trees and plants

-three volunteer pre-season meetings

-etc

We look forward to lots of exciting plans in March and opening for the new season on March 10th.





Geophysical assessment in the new Kitchen Garden Area

Gary Marshall, our regional archeologist for the Trust, visited Chastleton yesturday and worked with the garden team to do a geophysical assessment and discuss the area that will be dug for the expansion plan for The Kitchen Garden. Due to the ancient and historic nature of the property we usually ask Gary to advise and assess on any projects planned that will affect the fabric of the house, garden or estate. Following Gary's advice we plan to do a couple of small test pits in the area too. By getting Gary's advise we try to ensure that no important archaeology is damaged and that any new finds can be recorded. Gary hopes to visit again once the new beds have been dug to see if there are any important finds. We await the geophys results for the new Kitchen Garden area with interest and hope to go on and geophys the rest of the garden in due course.

January 2012 - Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to all our blog visitors. January brought us a mix of mild weather with stormy, strong winds and the occasional hard frost. We have already got an excellent display of snowdrops and all our spring bulbs are well on the way to coming up.

The New Year heralds some exciting plans for work to be done to expand The Kitchen Garden and restore and conserve The West Garden, Best Garden and Wilderness. We have already made a start on the new beds in the Kitchen Garden and uncovering a cobbled path in the West Garden.

Anna measuring and marking out the 4 new vegetable and cut flower beds for The Kitchen Garden. This will double the size of The Kitchen Garden

Jean helping uncover the late 1800s/early 1900s cobbled path from the Richardsons' era in The West Garden. Having started to cut back the inside of the very wide Yew hedges, the path is much wider than we expected and is in suprisingly good condition. We have found little pieces of coal where the coalman gained access to the back door up this path during Barbara Clutton-Brock's time at the house.

Alex and Mary continuing to mattock out and clear large shrubs from The Best Garden. This area will be re-seeded with grass.

Mary continues to help us clear the dead from the Box topiaries in The Best Garden. This is an ongoing programme of restoration to improve the health and shape of the Box. We have a topiary expert coming to advise on restoration and conservation of the historic topiaries in early March this year.

Joe, Coralie and Jane C continue to help clear The Wilderness.

We have uncovered an apple and damson tree in The Wilderness - still very much alive, just smothered by the undergrowth. Although they have been rather compressed and are leaning at interesting angles we hope they will flourish now they have been uncovered. We plan to clear the area around them and sow with grass and spring bulbs.

For those of you interested in what goes on in a National Trust garden over the winter, here are some of the other jobs we’ve tackled this month in the garden:
-clearing leaves
-continuing to remove large, overgrown shrubs from The Best Garden and move roses
-checking the grounds for storm damage: we had a couple of tree casualties
-servicing machinery
-finishing spreading manure in The Kitchen Garden

-sorting seeds for The Kitchen Garden
-pruning and tying in roses
-winter pruning the Wisteria and shrubs in the Forecourt
-continuing to clear The Wilderness
-winter pruning pears and cutting down autumn raspberries
-cutting back ivy
-starting to cut back the very wide Yew hedges in The West Garden
-coppicing hazel for use as supports in the garden
-tidying and cleaning the green house ready for the new year to come

-getting the badger setts in the garden assessed by an expert from the local Badger Trust voluntary group

-helping to move to our new offices in The Hayloft

-working on the garden exhibition
-reviewing the guide book for the property with Nicola

-reviewing the garden guide, tour guides and garden talks,
-Anna giving external evening talks on the garden to local gardening clubs
-reviewing and improving our volunteer systems across the property
-recruiting new volunteers

- Anna running propagation training for volunteers
- planning the expansion for the garden stall
- finalising the Conservation Garden Management Plan and presenting the Plan to volunteers

- developing a schedule of works and rotas for the garden for the next few months

Peach Tree Cover

For the first time at Chastleton we are trying a peach tree cover on one of the outdoor peach trees from Dec to early spring. The aim is to garden more organically and by protecting the tree from rain when the new leaf buds are developing it is hoped that the tree will be less likely to suffer with peach leaf curl. This will hopefully eliminate the need to spray for peach leaf curl.
We are trialing this more environmentally friendly way of protecting the peach trees on one of the outdoor trees - if it works well we will try to cover the other outdoor peach tree next year as well. The cover has ventilation vents in the top and sides to allow air circulation and the sides are removable and will be pinned back as the weather improves and to allow pollination by insects. The cover will be closely monitored and removed in the spring to allow the tree to fully develop through the spring, summer and autumn seasons.

Peach tree cover being constructed.

Peach tree cover completed.

December 2011

Strawberry plants in the cold frame.

We continue with propagation in the garden. Jean has spent November and early December sorting and propagating our strawberries 'Florence', for our plant sales next year. They are of course potted up using peat free compost and recycled, cleaned plastic pots.
We have been more industious about collecting seeds and cuttings from plants in the garden this year. Jean has done a wonderful job helping dry and store seeds and pot up cuttings.
I feel particularly inspired to continue to develop propagation activities at Chastleton after my very helpful and educational week's visit to Ventnor Botanic Garden on The Isle of Wight in October. We have to be creative with our use of space for propagation at Chastleton at the moment - due to limited glass house and cold frame space. However, there are plans to expand the green house and add more cold frames in the West Garden in The Conservation Garden Management Plan, in the coming years.
Having had electrics installed to the green house on my arrival at Chastleton, one of my handymen volunteers helped me install a heated bench in the existing green house - which has been great. We also revamped and cleared and cleaned the green house - installing an automatic vent, a heater, insulation and shade netting. We try to make the best use of the green house space and cold frames all year round. We do hopefully plan to put back a 'hot bed' in The West Garden at some point - which will be exciting.
We have been busy recruiting volunteers to work on propagation and produce/plant sales at Chastleton at present. I am running propagation workshops for the propagation volunteers over Jan and Feb 2012. We launch our expanded stall of plant sales and Chastleton Garden Produce in The Stables in 2012.

Cornus hard wood cuttings.

We have taken hard wood cuttings of the Cornus plant removed from The Best Garden a couple of weeks ago and hope to relocate one or two of the new plants from the cuttings in The Wilderness and Nuttery in a year or two and make the remaining plants available to purchase by visitors to the garden.

Nicola and Julie in The Stables.

Nicola (Chastleton Property Operations Manager) and Julie (volunteer Garden Volunteer Co-ordinator) and I met this week to discuss and plan the Garden Exhibition that is to be put up in The Stables. The exhibition is to reflect and document the history of the estate and garden. It will also keep visitors up to date with present day restoration and conservation activities and plans on the estate and in the garden. Julie will lead our team of volunteer garden tour guides in helping put together the exhibition, with the aim of it being ready for open season in March 2012. This is a very exciting project and will hopefully aid understanding and enjoyment of the estate and garden for those who visit the property.