A Thin Covering of Snow

The gardens have been ringing with the sound of excited children for the last couple of weeks. After paying a visit to Santa, the school groups have been busily working out the answers to the Christmas Gardens Trail Quiz and have been thoroughly enjoying doing so.

This year has been an unusually dry year in this part of the country and the Garden Team have done wonders keeping the plants in good condition by watering and mulching. A couple of the team members are now installing an irrigation system which will make life much easier if we have another dry year in 2012.

The warm November has brought out a few blooms on some of the early flowering Rhododendrons and the hardy fuschias are still showing well, all providing a display of colour during the short daylight hours.

An unexpected overnight fall of snow has added a lovely early Christmas feel to the site and though most of it has now melted it's a sign that winter has definitely arrived.

Preparing for the spring

This is a busy time for the Garden Team in what has so far been a mild autumn. In the last couple of weeks the summer bedding plants have been taken out of the Victorian Flower Garden which has now been replanted for the spring.

Purple, Yellow and White will be the dominant colours and for many the star of the show will be Primula ‘Gold Lace’, a polyanthus primula with a gold centre and black petals with gold margins. Around 1400 of this unusual variety have been planted, together with 700 Bellis Habenera ‘White’, an English daisy, and 2600 pansies both purple and white varieties.

Amongst the many bulbs planted, my favourite has to be the Tulip, ‘Black Hero’ which has a large double bowl shaped bloom resembling a peony. Muscari’ golden fragrance’ is another unusual plant. Unlike most other grape hyacinths, this one has large golden flower heads merging to a smoky purple colour and has a rather exotic fragrance. Purple cordylines, strategically placed to add height to the beds, complete the planting. I’m looking forward to next year to see the plants in full bloom.

The dahlias in the John Arnold Garden have been fantastic

this year and have only recently finished flowering. They'll

be lifted, cleaned and treated with fungicide before being

carefully stored for next year.

The last few days have been very windy and the Garden Volunteers are busy today sweeping up the last of the fallen leaves. Despite having a particularly dry summer, most of the trees have kept their leaves until now and the colours have been spectacular in the last couple of weeks.