Yet more strimming this week in my latest session at Blickling!
The ladies finished off planting the blue Hyacinths in the top borders. Remember the new trailer I mentioned last time? Well it seems it will be kept, but an additional ramp is to be supplied to make the gradient shallower for wheelbarrow-carrying gardeners and some better grip added to the surface.
Blue Hyacinths being planted for the spring show in the top borders
Peter and I moved across to the wonderful Oriental Plane trees and began strimming the undergrowth around these. I plumped for a large area where the rangy branches of several trees had extended their long spider-like legs. I had got about half way when gardener Ed appeared and suggested I use a ride-on mower to do most of the open grass – another bit of ‘kit’ I’m now able to use and it certainly speeded up my progress and at the same time turned the mix of leaves and grass into a finer mulch which will hopefully break down over the winter.
200 year old Oriental Planes After strimming and mowing…
The weather was a little misty to begin with but the sun eventually shone through and it’s low angle provided some long shadows and definition to the garden features. One of these, the fountain that was being cleaned a week or two ago, is now wrapped up to prevent frost damage during the winter.
Wrapped up for Christmas…and beyond. The central fountain gets its frost proof cover.
I gather from head gardener Paul, that money has been found to restore the gardeners’ bothy in the walled garden (to provide an additional base for the garden volunteers and staff) and also to renovate the second long glasshouse.
The Walled garden project seems to be gathering pace and next growing season will hopefully see the majority of the space turned over to food production. Current projects include finishing off the path edging (to be completed by contractors in the New Year), and putting up the wooden and wire supports for the wall-trained fruit (you may remember that measuring the lengths of wire and wood needed for this was one of my first jobs back in January).
I hope to get back into the walled garden again soon, but in the next few weeks all attention is being turned to ‘dressing’ the gardens for the Christmas celebrations at the Hall; ‘Putting on the Glitz’ seems to be the theme, as the place is turned back to the glamourous 1930’s.
Further Information:
Blickling Hall website
Blickling Hall Facebook page
A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall
Old School Gardener
Malnutrition is pervasive, far-reaching and complex. Because of this both the immediate impacts as well as the underlying causes must be addressed simultaneously if malnutrition rates are to be reduced, warranting the need for both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive approaches. In part one of this article we discussed the roles agriculture, livestock production and resilience building can have in improving people’s nutrition. More productive and diverse farming and reduced vulnerability to environmental and other risks can boost household nutrition. In part two we look at how gender inequality, marginalisation from society, poverty and climate change pose both threats to nutrition and how, as a result, we can fight malnutrition through building gender equality, providing social protection and mitigating climate change.
Old School Garden 