Category: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden

Trunks ‘on the huh’ at Blickling

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19/11/2015

The ‘dynamic duo’ of Peter and I continued with strimming the avenues and connecting paths in the outer gardens at Blickling this week.

I arrived to find the gardeners and Peter gathered around a large, new trailer which had just been delivered. I later looked this over and had an interesting discussion about its features and how useful an addition it was going to be to the gardeners’ armoury….

Hmm…big, shiny….

The ladies, meanwhile were finishing off cutting back and clearing the double borders, which only a few weeks ago had been resplendent in their late summer colours.

Cutting back the double borders on a beautiful autumn day

Having adjusted the belt on the strimmer I found I was really getting into my stride (or should I say ‘swing’?) with this useful machine- it was rather like old-time scything but without the muscle power needed for that. However, it was sweaty work clearing around trees and the edges of shrubs where the mowers can’t reach.

under control for now, rhododendrons and other under stoey shrubs soon encroach on the tree-lined avenues…

a holly that will need stooling soon…

…some trunks are definitely ‘on the huh’ as a result of delayed control of the under storey.

After lunch I had an interesting chat with gardener Ed and Peter about the way the avenues of Beech, Oak and other trees have to be regularly cleared of fast-growing understorey trees and shrubs such as holly, yew and rhododendrons. The impact of letting these plants over grow the trees was evident in the bent over trunks of some examples (or ‘on the huh’ as we say in Norfolk!).

The maintenance plan involves every year or so stooling (or coppicing) these vigourous plants and so maintaining space around the avenue trees. As Ed pointed out, there are some clear examples of where action is going to be required in the near future, so perhaps Peter and I will be moved on to chain saws soon!

Blickling has a new website, why not take a look at the link below?

A virtually deserted garden at a sun-scanned Blickling..

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, avenues, blickling, coppicing, cutting back, double borders, garden, national trust, norfolk, stooling, strimmer, strimming, trees, understorey, whipper snipping

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Down the Avenues at Blickling

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13/11/2015

More strimming this week in my short session at Blickling.

The ladies were whisked away to pull up the Penstemons for over wintering and to make way for next spring’s display of Hyacinths.

Fellow volunteer Peter and I were sent to the wider gardens where the grass had been mown a few days before, but where the mower couldn’t go, we were to strim away the long grass around tree trunks and edges etc. There are several avenues of beech and other trees radiating away form the more formal gardens area and we worked our way along and around these.

As I’ve reported before, these strimmers are pretty strong and use a plastic-sheathed metal cord which is quite capable of cutting through pretty thick stems as well as grass. We were mindful of this and were careful not to go too near the trunks of the trees for fear of ‘ring-barking’ them, which causes wounds that are open to disease and rot.

The Hall has now closed for the winter (apart from special events and group visits) and the gardens are on shorter opening hours. The last colour of flower has now pretty much disappeared and the focus in the gardens is on cutting down, pulling out, dividing and mulching in preparation for winter.

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, blickling, garden, national trust, norfolk, penstemon, strimmer, strimming, whipper snipping

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PicPost: Autumn

Filed under: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden, PicPosts- great photographs — Leave a comment

10/11/2015

Blickling Hall, Norfolk

Tags: blickling hall, norfolk

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Stalking at Blickling

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07/11/2015

A rather dull, overcast day greeted we garden volunteers on our latest session at Blickling. The team was rather depleted, also, with a few people away on holidays.

It was to be a day of ‘stalking’- cutting down the stems of the many herbaceous plants in the long border overlooking the parterre. It was also rather busy and noisier than usual; as it’s ‘half term’ here there were lots of families around walking the gardens and enjoying some community education activities in a tent by the lake.

In the morning we continued the cutting and tidying process already begun the day before- we had about 7/8 of the border left. Apart from the occasional entanglement with the floppy stems of climbing roses, it was relatively straightforward; I dived into the borders and focused on cutting, with others doing this and collecting the cuttings and raking over the border to make it look tidy. Once this is finished (the main parterre borders had already had the treatment), the borders will be lightly dug over and then mulched with compost to provide winter cover for the soil and help to feed the plants and improve soil texture. By the end of the session we had virtuially completed the whole border- and produced several truck loads of cuttings which will be shredded and added to the Hall’s large compost heaps.

Towards the end of the morning I took a break and ‘stalked’ two people from the house and collections team who were cleaning the fountain in the middle of the parterre. They were using toothbrushes, water sprayers and hands to peel away quite a bit of muck, accumulated over a few years. It was interesting to see how the definition of the stonework dramatically improved as they worked their way across its surface. It looks like the basic structure is, in the main, pretty good, but it is also clear that there are some areas in need of repair.

From here I ‘stalked’ Assistant Head Gardener, Steve, who was painstakingly digging over one of the four parterre borders; to both split some of the bigger herbaceous plants and at the same time try to remove bindweed which seems to be a long term problem here.

Part One of Steve’s Parterre Saga…

Steve was sanguine about the weed returning, but he was spacing out the plants so that it would be relatively easy to get in the border to remove it when it does return.

Plastic pipes being floated onto the lake- soon to be sunk and generating heat…

The way to the Hall…the heated liquid will be pumped to the bolier room along pipes to be laid in this trench and a heat exchanger will turn it into hot water for the Hall.

We talked about the new heating system being installed at Blickling, which you may have heard about. This is based on a water source heat pump which acts rather like a fridge in reverse- a coolant fluid is pumped into a long series of plastic pipes which are sunk into the lake and these are connected to a pump which draws in the warmed fluid and a heat exchanger in the house transfers this to the hot water system. Apparently there’s a gas back up boiler also being put in to cope with especially cold weather. This is set to reduce the £30,000 per annum fuel bill the Trust currently pays out for heating. Here’s a short video clip about the project.

After lunch my final ‘stalk’ was over to the Bug Village I had been working on last week, but was sorry to hear that gardener Ed -whose project this is- had seriously damaged his back trying to lift some of the large pieces of trunk he was installing in the new area- I wish him well soon.

Soon to be the back of a nice seat…

Stumpery….

The ‘Bug Village’ is starting to take shape nicely with several up turned stumps put in place and some further woven hazel fencing along with the large chunk that will provide a lovely seat back…in due course.

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, bindweed, blickling, cutting back stems, digging over, gardens, heat exchanger, norfolk, water source heating

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Village People at Blickling

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27/10/2015

Peter and Ed spreading shredded bark in the new ‘Bug Village’

Apologies for the title, but I couldn’t resist it. I guess a more serious alternative would be ‘weaving and strewing’!

So my latest session at Blickling Hall involved working with fellow volunteer Peter and Gardener Ed on a new project in part of the Dell Garden; this is an area that’s looked a little neglected for some time and it was good to see some work to create something different.

This was a really fun, creative day as we helped Ed work up his idea of creating a ‘Bug Village’ of different insect hotels/habitats (with fun historical references to Blickling’s owners) in a largely shady and overgrown spot.

Pea stick fence…

This Sugar Beet Fork was perfect for shifting the bark…

and no Dragons either?!

Ed had already done some clearing of the ground and had in his mind a rough layout. We started by continuing the hazel pea stick fence he’d begun which provides a really effective, simple, permeable barrier through which you can see into different parts of the area. These sticks are harvested every year from the Estate and put to use to support climbers and vegetables of various sorts. Peter hammered in a metal fence post to create holes about 6″ apart and I pushed home the sticks and wove them together.

Some of the huge Chestnut slices to be used for seating etc…

…and a rather special piece of trunk that will make a super seat back…

…and some of the stumps to be placed in the Bug Village.

After this we collected several loads of shredded bark and strew these over the areas where the bug hotels were to go- a mixture of different types of habitat and mixed in with some impressive stumps and enormous slices of chestnut tree felled elsewhere in the estate and, as Ed said ‘no good for firewood’. It was great ‘designing on the hoof’ with Ed and Peter, creating bays and spots where different elements of the layout could be best fitted in.

In particular there is an elevated spot overlooking the rest of the space which would make a wonderful spot for a seat, and Ed had already identified a wonderful piece of timber- a half round slice of Oak, I think, which would make the perfect base for this. We also helped to gather smaller edging logs which further helped to define the space and again filled in around and shrubs trees with more shredded bark.

On the way…

It will be great to see how Ed progresses this in the coming weeks and what visitors think of this new feature- created from recycled materials from around the Estate.

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: bark strewing, blickling hall, bug hotel, bug village, hazel stick fence, insect habitats, norfolk, stumpery

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Whipper Snipping at Blickling

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21/10/2015

After just a few minutes weeding (in the Orangery Garden once more), Ed (one of the gardeners at Blickling) asked me if I’d like a change of role- to help Peter continue strimming (or ‘Whipper Snipping’ as they say in Australia).

I was easy either way, so went with him to be briefed on the safe use of a rather good strimmer, and to receive my safety mask and ear protectors. So far so good. The cord used in these machines is seriously tough (I think it is a metal cable sheathed in plastic), so will cut through some thick stems if needed.

You might recall from my previous session that Peter had started to clear alongside the boundary hedge between the gardens and wider estate, some of which is set in the bottom of a ha ha (ditch). The idea was to clear a path alongside this hedge so that it can be easily trimmed. I began a stretch beside the Orangery and was soon impressed with the cutting power of the machine. However, I soon discovered that, strong though it is, the cable cutter was no match for the wire fence alongside the path and so I was left with a short length of cable!

It took a good few minutes to replace this (not before returning it to the workshop and putting the machine in a vice to enable the very short length of cable that remained to be pulled through and replaced).

At the end of the session….

..space for hedge trimming

It had been some time since I’d used a strimmer, but it soon became relatively easy – notwithstanding that the gap I was working in tapered dangerously close to a barbed wire fence (necessitating a diversion) and there were some thick saplings of sycamore and other species that had punched their way up through and alongside the hedge and required pruning off with secateurs. Still, I completed a reasonable stretch before ending for the day. There was also time for a quick look at the double borders, which maintain their floral splendour..

Oh, and just out of interest, the Urban Dictionary refers to Whipper- Snipping somewhat differently:

‘A snippet is a brief quotable passage. People who think in snippets are called ‘whipper-snippers.’

Women have a greater propensity to hear snippets and deduce from them because they have conversational skills that men don’t have and men tend to internalize and think about things differently.

While driving in a car:

Man: Oh! There’s that trading firm. I made millions off of them.

Woman: Williams!? What is that!? Williams!? Williams!? What is that!?!

Man: Williams!? What is Williams!? I said millions, ‘whipper-snipper.’ Where do you get ‘williams’ from ‘millions’ talking about a trading firm!?’

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, blickling, garden, hedge, late summer, national trust, norfolk, planting, strimmer, strimming, whipper snipping

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Deja vu at Blickling

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13/10/2015

In among the ferns and foxgloves in the Orangery Garden

My latest session at Blickling was working in the Orangery Garden alongside the other volunteers. The aim – to weed the borders and thin out the latest crop of foxglove seedlings. It seemed only a week or two ago that we were here doing the same…

Still, despite an aching back the following day, it was worth the forking over to see the newly turned (and surprisingly damp) soil around the neatly spaced seedlings.

Dappled shade makes for a distinctive habitat

The grasses and late summer flowers are still looking good in the double borders, though the parterre garden is now on the wane and slipping slowly into autumn. It’s also that time of year for hedge cutting (as I know from Old School Garden) and fellow volunteer Peter was detailed to strim the grass alongside part of the mixed natural hedge that divides the gardens from the wider estate. The gardeners will soon be cutting this back.

Inside the Gardeners’ Bothy- we meet up, sign in and out and have lunch here…

Did you know that ‘strimming’ (a compound word of string and trim) is called ‘Whipper Snipping’ in Australia?! (thanks to my daughter’s boyfriend Shane for that one).

Do you recall the mystery plant I mentioned in my last Blickling post? Well it turns out to be Chelone obliqua (or ‘Turtlehead’ or ‘Twisted Shell flower’)…Here’s a picture of the example at Blickling…alongside a rather more floriferous shot from the RHS….

Chelone obliqua

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, blickling, chelone obliqua, ferns, foxgloves, garden, late summer, national trust, norfolk, planting, turtlehead, twisted shell flower, weeding

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PicPost: Blickling on the Web

Filed under: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden, Wildlife and Nature — 1 Comment

06/10/2015

Pictures taken on the 1st October 2015, from the Blickling Esate Facebook Page

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, blickling, national trust, norfolk, spider webs

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Picking Pumpkins at Blickling

Filed under: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden, Community Gardening, Heritage Gardens & gardening — 2 Comments

03/10/2015

It was great seeing how the pumpkins and squashes that I’d help to plant only a couple of months ago had taken over a large part of the walled garden.

On my most recent visit to blickling, together with new volunteer Gordon, I picked a large number and many heavy weight fruits on a bright, sunny day. We then managed to fill two trailers with the remaining foliage and stems and raked over the ground to leave it for weedkilling action; Project Manager Mike doesn’t like to use chemicals like this, but manpower is limited so it’s a must do in the short term to keep the ground under control.

The pumpkins will probabaly be used in the Hall’s forthcoming Hallowe’en events and the squashes in the restaurant, so its good to see that the developing kitchen garden is continuing to be of practical value.

After that we joined the ladies in weeding the well stocked veg patch along the south facing wall. This all looks very neat, healthy and tidy, despite the threat of rabbits and pigeons.

The Gardens continue to show a great range of colours and textures with Japanese Anemones, Sedums and various grass flowers now adding their sublety to the mix…

Last week I commented on how pleased I was at being able to identify (with their latin botanical names) three plants I was asked about by visitors. I said then it was probably a fluke, and sure enough this day, when asked by a visitor to name a rather unusual pink flower in the double borders, I was stumped- but then again so was another volunteer and one of the gardening staff! I’m trying to find out its name; I think it might be a Salvia of some sort- I’ll post a picture, and its name in my next Blickling post!

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: autumn, blickling, garden, kitchen garden, late summer, latin names, national trust, norfolk, planting, pumpkins, squashes

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Talking Latin at Blickling

Filed under: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden, Community Gardening, Heritage Gardens & gardening — Leave a comment

25/09/2015

My last session at Blickling Hall involved a lot of weeding along paths in the double borders- which continue to look superb as late summer flower colour is added to by the flourishing grasses.

Path weeding…never ending….

The White Borders are also looking particularly good, and the Penstemons seem to be hanging on too.

One of the pleasures of volunteering in the gardens is getting to meet and talk with the visitors, many of whom have great gardening experience. On this occasion I was asked the names of three different plants in the borders and I rather surprised myself that I knew all of their latin names! Must be a fluke…

The last person to ask me seemed more than usually interested in the latin names; it turned out he was a chemist and knew latin pretty well, so was able to translate some of the more common terms for describing colours, flower and foliage form etc.

Eupatorium (‘Joe Pye Weed’)- one of those latin names…

I was also amazed to see how tall the Pawlonia had grown and with such huge leaves! You may recall me being given the task earlier in the year of pruning these back; it certainly seems to have paid off.

Pawlonia- massive foliage

Further Information:

Blickling Hall website

Blickling Hall Facebook page

A 360 degree tour of Blickling Hall

Old School Gardener

Tags: blickling, eupatorium, garden, latin names, national trust, norfolk, pawlonia, penstemon, planting, white border

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Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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Category: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden

The ‘dynamic duo’ of Peter and I continued with strimming the avenues and connecting paths in the outer gardens at Blickling this week.

I arrived to find the gardeners and Peter gathered around a large, new trailer which had just been delivered. I later looked this over and had an interesting discussion about its features and how useful an addition it was going to be to the gardeners’ armoury….

The ladies, meanwhile were finishing off cutting back and clearing the double borders, which only a few weeks ago had been resplendent in their late summer colours.

Blickling has a new website, why not take a look at the link below?

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

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More strimming this week in my short session at Blickling.

The ladies were whisked away to pull up the Penstemons for over wintering and to make way for next spring’s display of Hyacinths.

The Hall has now closed for the winter (apart from special events and group visits) and the gardens are on shorter opening hours. The last colour of flower has now pretty much disappeared and the focus in the gardens is on cutting down, pulling out, dividing and mulching in preparation for winter.

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

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A rather dull, overcast day greeted we garden volunteers on our latest session at Blickling. The team was rather depleted, also, with a few people away on holidays.

From here I ‘stalked’ Assistant Head Gardener, Steve, who was painstakingly digging over one of the four parterre borders; to both split some of the bigger herbaceous plants and at the same time try to remove bindweed which seems to be a long term problem here.

Steve was sanguine about the weed returning, but he was spacing out the plants so that it would be relatively easy to get in the border to remove it when it does return.

After lunch my final ‘stalk’ was over to the Bug Village I had been working on last week, but was sorry to hear that gardener Ed -whose project this is- had seriously damaged his back trying to lift some of the large pieces of trunk he was installing in the new area- I wish him well soon.

The ‘Bug Village’ is starting to take shape nicely with several up turned stumps put in place and some further woven hazel fencing along with the large chunk that will provide a lovely seat back…in due course.

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

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Apologies for the title, but I couldn’t resist it. I guess a more serious alternative would be ‘weaving and strewing’!

So my latest session at Blickling Hall involved working with fellow volunteer Peter and Gardener Ed on a new project in part of the Dell Garden; this is an area that’s looked a little neglected for some time and it was good to see some work to create something different.

This was a really fun, creative day as we helped Ed work up his idea of creating a ‘Bug Village’ of different insect hotels/habitats (with fun historical references to Blickling’s owners) in a largely shady and overgrown spot.

It will be great to see how Ed progresses this in the coming weeks and what visitors think of this new feature- created from recycled materials from around the Estate.

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

Share this:

After just a few minutes weeding (in the Orangery Garden once more), Ed (one of the gardeners at Blickling) asked me if I’d like a change of role- to help Peter continue strimming (or ‘Whipper Snipping’ as they say in Australia).

It took a good few minutes to replace this (not before returning it to the workshop and putting the machine in a vice to enable the very short length of cable that remained to be pulled through and replaced).

Oh, and just out of interest, the Urban Dictionary refers to Whipper- Snipping somewhat differently:

‘A snippet is a brief quotable passage. People who think in snippets are called ‘whipper-snippers.’

While driving in a car:

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

Share this:

My latest session at Blickling was working in the Orangery Garden alongside the other volunteers. The aim – to weed the borders and thin out the latest crop of foxglove seedlings. It seemed only a week or two ago that we were here doing the same…

Still, despite an aching back the following day, it was worth the forking over to see the newly turned (and surprisingly damp) soil around the neatly spaced seedlings.

Did you know that ‘strimming’ (a compound word of string and trim) is called ‘Whipper Snipping’ in Australia?! (thanks to my daughter’s boyfriend Shane for that one).

Do you recall the mystery plant I mentioned in my last Blickling post? Well it turns out to be Chelone obliqua (or ‘Turtlehead’ or ‘Twisted Shell flower’)…Here’s a picture of the example at Blickling…alongside a rather more floriferous shot from the RHS….

Further Information:

Old School Gardener

Share this:

Pictures taken on the 1st October 2015, from the Blickling Esate Facebook Page

Old School Gardener

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It was great seeing how the pumpkins and squashes that I’d help to plant only a couple of months ago had taken over a large part of the walled garden.

The pumpkins will probabaly be used in the Hall’s forthcoming Hallowe’en events and the squashes in the restaurant, so its good to see that the developing kitchen garden is continuing to be of practical value.

After that we joined the ladies in weeding the well stocked veg patch along the south facing wall. This all looks very neat, healthy and tidy, despite the threat of rabbits and pigeons.

The Gardens continue to show a great range of colours and textures with Japanese Anemones, Sedums and various grass flowers now adding their sublety to the mix…

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Old School Gardener

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My last session at Blickling Hall involved a lot of weeding along paths in the double borders- which continue to look superb as late summer flower colour is added to by the flourishing grasses.

The White Borders are also looking particularly good, and the Penstemons seem to be hanging on too.

The last person to ask me seemed more than usually interested in the latin names; it turned out he was a chemist and knew latin pretty well, so was able to translate some of the more common terms for describing colours, flower and foliage form etc.

I was also amazed to see how tall the Pawlonia had grown and with such huge leaves! You may recall me being given the task earlier in the year of pruning these back; it certainly seems to have paid off.