Crocuses looking good in the sun under the Oriental Plane Trees
I had to change my day at Blickling this week, so was working alongside the Wednesday volunteers, some of whom have been in the gardens for over 10 years, and some, like me, have been inspired more recently by the project to regenerate the Walled Garden.
Our focus was the parterre. Gardener Ed gave us a quick course in rose pruning and we set off around the edges of four main beds.
Ed showing us the way to prune…
…what a performance!
Previous sessions had replaced the aging Catmint (Nepeta) which runs along side the rose beds. These contain a mixture of floribunda types, several of which are quite old and have lost their vigour…hmm, know what they feel like?
We made good progress, and by the end of the day we had pruned the roses, replaced about 50 old, weak specimens, watered them in (in bucket fulls of water taken from the central fountain) and I hoed over a quarter of the beds to finish off.
Getting to work…
..a lot of roses, some replaced
I gather from Project Manager Mike, that the fruit trees have arrived, so it could be that next week we’ll be focussed on planting them in the walled garden I’m also taking over my Garden Design group to do a practical session on transferring designs onto the ground.
The end of a sunny spring day..
Further Information:
Blickling Hall website
Blickling Hall Facebook page
A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall
Old School Gardener
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I have probably a very mundane question for you but are those grass paths a special type of grass? I am always in awe when I see photos like you have above. I’d love to try it, but I can’t imagine what the maintenance plan involves.
Hi Judy, Thanks for the query. to my knowledge the grass isn’t anything special, though it’s probably a mixture for medium-fine lawns (i.e. less rye grass, more fescues). These grass paths are mown with a small powered mower and the edges regularly cut and trimmed, with the beds hand weeded and hoed. The public don’t tend to venture inside the parterres in my experience, so they don’t get much wear. I don’t think they have any surface treatment like spiking or scarifying, and they may get a spring and autumn surafce dressing of a nitrogen rich fertiliser, but that’s about it. With grass, as I’m sure you kinow, a lot depends on your soil and the amount of sun the area gets. These are on a clay-loam and get plenty fo sunlight.Hope that helps! 🙂