Tag Archive: norfolk
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
Old School Garden – 29th September 2015
To Walter Degrasse
Dear Walter,
I’ve looked back at what I wrote to you at this time last year and it began ‘I’m feeling very guilty’. Once more I find myself confessing to not much happening in the garden, well until the last few days at any rate.
As you know we went on a two week trip to the Hebrides (Mull and Arran) and Northumberland in late August-early September and this, coupled with an earlier spell away in Portugal has meant that the garden has been sorely neglected; but for the harvesting and watering efforts of our daughter, Lindsey and friends Steve and Joan, that is.
My other excuse, and you’ll be bored at me banging on about this, has been decorating, decorating, decorating…and still one more room to go plus some finishing details.
Enough of the excuses, what have I been up to in the garden? Well of late hedge cutting, including an overdue trim of the neighbours’ side of a mixed hedge that forms one of our boundaries. And today I am going to do drastic work on that laurel hedge that backs the main lawn (or should I say ‘Mole patch’). You might recall my plans to create a wildlife pond on the northern side of this and how my plans for the hedge are to:
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let more sunlight into the pond area
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reduce the height of the hedge to make it easier to maintain
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create a sweeping curved profile to add visual interest.
Hedge cutting time…
The laurel hedge, side- trimmed below head height in preparation for a more major cut.
Well, I’ve made a start with hedgecutter and loppers and today I will try to tackle the thicker stems using the wonderful battery-powered chainsaw I was given to trial by it’s makers Ego. And I mustn’t forget to mention Deborah’s efforts in weeding paths and beds, which has certainly made things look a lot tidier.
Despite the neglect nature seems to find a way of surviving and so there’s still plenty of ornamental interest in the garden at present, including a lovely Hydrangea paniculata, Sedums, and of course the various grasses which are now starting to put out their feathery flowers.
Cimicifuga
Stipa gigantea and friends
rose tunnel putting on another flush with Aconitum alongside
Macleya and Aconitum
Amaranthus ‘Fox Tail’
Asters
Rudbeckia
Sedum- the ‘Chelsea chop’ worked well on these
Agastache rugosa- grown from seed thsi eyarand abig favourite with bees… and me
Begonia in hanging basket
Rose
Hydrangea paniculata
Sun flowers in the kitchen garden
Nicotiana, Sedum and Stipa tennuissima combining well
There seems to be a good crop of apples on the way to add to those already picked. It’s also been a good year for figs and we are just about coming to the end of the cucumbers, peppers (which were decimated by an attack of caterpillars) and tomatoes (the shortening days and contrasting night time and daytime temperatures are having their effect on what remain on the plants). I’m also rather pleased with the crop of squashes this year, largely planted to provide ground cover while we were away, and they seem to have done this and rewarded us with a winter’s supply!
Returning to the house renovation side of things, I finally bit the bullet and chopped off the stems of the ivy growing up the front of the house, which had been encouraged to cover up some rather unsightly painting over flintwork (sacrilege). I now plan to remove the dead stems with crow bars etc and then get the builders in to sandblast the front and repoint the stones. Quite an undertaking, but I think it will be worth it in improved appearance alone.
The front of the house with its, now dead, ivy- removing this, sandblasting and repointing the flintwork will be a major undertaking, possibly before winter really sets in
I’ve also been splashing out on some bulbs and spring bedding in the form of violas and pansies, which I’ve started to use in some of the containers that were beginning to look a bit sad. They will hopefully provide a good splash of colour during the dark winter months. Oh, and I came across a plant on a visit to Wallington Hall in Northumberland (more on this visit in due course) which I couldn’t resist; a Crocosmia called ‘Norwich Canary’- as a season ticket holder at Carrow Road it just had to come home with me!
Pansies and violas will give us some winter colour
‘Norwich Canary’- a lone flower hints at what will come in profusion …next yearIt’s also that time of year when I put out the bird feeders and I was immediately rewarded with the usual crowd of Blue and Great Tits plus a few other species. It is lovely watching them have their breakfast while we have ours.
On the wider gardening front I’ve re-engaged with my voluntary input at Gressenhall and Blickling. I’ll be posting about the latter in the next few days, and for the former I’m pleasantly surprised at how well my areas of responsibility have come through the summer and into autumn. I went in last week and felt that not much tidying was required so I turned my hand to mowing the grass and edging this. The front entrance border with its mix of grasses, lavenders and shrubs was looking great.
Oh, and I may well be running my garden design course once more. you might remember that the Reepham Learning Community is no longer functioning so my venue at the High School is no longer available. So I’m making enquiries about running a day time course in the New Year using accommodation at Blickling. This looks promising, and it might be especially helpful to use the gardens here as a way of illustrating elements of the course. I’ve also been invited by a former student to give a talk on the basics of garden design to her gardening group near Fakenham soon, so that will help me to keep my hand in on the teaching front.
Crab apple ‘Red Sentinel’ starting to colour up
Well- red berries on Cotoneaster
Well I think that just about wraps up my recent gardening life. How is your garden looking just now? I bet it’s a picture with the weather helping to bring out those lovely autumn leaf colours in your wonderful collection of trees.
All the best to Ferdy Lise and we hope to see you soon, old friend,
Old School Gardener
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
Fun tools on display at Corpusty Mill Garden, Norfolk- or are they cunning, personally crafted designs?!
Old School Gardener
My muscles were decidedly stiff after being away from gardening for a couple of weeks. But my latest session of volunteer gardening at Blickling was very enjoyable. The team was on good form and we had lots of news to share, not least that two of the volunteers had just secured jobs, one starting that very afternoon and the other to take up a role as an Assistant Gardener at Blickling!
My session began on the edge of the car park backing the Walled Garden, where earlier in the year I’d helped Project Manager Mike prune some wall fruit and tidy up a rather messy edge where weeds had forced their way through tarmac and concrete to ‘adorn’ the old red brick walls. It was a case of ‘more of the same’ a few months on, and I was pleased with the results…see picture below.
So, after an hour here it was back to the walled garden proper with the rest fo the team to wed and mulch one of the new beds brought into cultivation, this one containing a wide range of flowers. Again, a pleasing result after a couple of hours…
Weeding nearly done…
After mulching with some ‘black gold’…
This bed is at the ‘frontier’ of the newly cultivated areas in the walled garden, which I suppose must now be about a quarter in productive use. So still a long way to go in achieving the vision of a rejuvenated garden, but some steady progress. I was especially pleased to see that the first lengths of metal path edging had gone in, which start to ‘shape up’ the whole plot.
Metal edging starting to define the beds in the Walled Garden
And the pumpkins and squashes I helped to plant out have gone to town, providing lush cover to a large area of the garden….
I took some time to look around the main area of cultivation in the Walled Garden and I must say, all credit to Mike and the team as the rows of vegetables and cut flowers look great. And it seems the rustic supports that Peter and I put up are doing their job supporting a promising crop of runner beans and sweet- smelling sweet peas….
I’ve never seen such beautful onions!
runner beans on the long supports
Sweet peas on the ‘wigwams’
Mulberries now in fruit
I couldn’t help notice that the formal gardens – the parterres and double borders- were also full of summer colour; the reds, oranges and yellows of the double borders (including some impressive dahlias I helped to plant out) looking particularly impressive….
Oh, and the white border continues to look a treat….
Old School Gardener
The second half of the recent Blickling volunteers and staff day out involved a trip to nearby Corpusty Mill, a garden developed over many years by its owner Roger Last and his late brother John since 1965. The RHS says of it:
‘Water is used extensively (ponds, streams, a small lake and a river) and there are strong architectural elements, garden buildings or follies, including a vast flint wall with the heads of Roman emperors, a Gothic arch and window, a grotto (with four chambers), a ruined tower, a classical pavilion and stainless steel spire. The planting is knowledgeable, varied and controlled. Most visitors come away quite amazed by the beauty and ingenuity of what they have seen.’
I must admit to being blown away by the thoughtful, clever and sensitive design and the sheer beauty of this five acre garden laid out in three distinct parts. The main and more complex layout is on an intimate scale near to the house and there are two landscaped meadows. Each area has its own character and atmosphere. A recent Country Life article comments:
‘Although the garden’s buildings and plantings are very varied, all are governed by three general ideas. First, the brothers felt it was important to manage visual effects ‘with some restraint’, thus hedges and borders were positioned so that only one building showed at a time. Next, to mitigate the possible dullness of an essentially flat site, they created innumerable changes of level, most of which were only modest, but, as Mr Last points out: ‘Even a few feet can make a huge difference.’ Finally, they wanted to create marked changes of mood, so some areas are open and light-filled, but others are densely planted and shaded.’
All I can say is that ‘it works’- a sensitively designed and fantastic blend of planting, statuary, humourous features and attention to detail.
Further information:
Corpusty Mill Garden website
Country Life article 2014
Old School Gardener
The volunteers and staff at Blickling had a fabulous day out recently, visiting two nearby gardens not normally open to the public. Our first visit was to the medieval manor of Oxnead Hall.
Wikipedia says:
‘Oxnead is a lost settlement in Norfolk, England, roughly three miles south-east of Aylsham. It now consists mostly of St Michael’s Church and Oxnead Hall. It was the principal residence of the Paston family from 1597 until the death of William paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth in 1732. Under Sir William Paston (1610–1663), Oxnead was the site of several works by the architect and sculptor, Nicholas Stone, master-mason to Kings James I and Charles I…
The house was originally built for Sir Clement around 1580 but was remodelled by Nicholas Stone, for Sir William Paston, between 1631 and 1632. At its zenith, the house had seventy-nine rooms but under the Earls of Yarmouth it declined until by 1744 it was described as ruinous….
Nothing remains of the garden statuary installed by Nicholas Stone, though his Hercules, originally from Oxnead, can be seen in the Orangery at Blickling Hall. Blickling, in its parterre, also has a sixteenth or early seventeenth century fountain, consisting of a basin on a base, bought from Oxnead in 1732.’
The gardens here are extensive, with some lovely changes in level as they tip towards the River Bure. A recent occupant ws also something of an enthusiast for garden features; he added a ‘folly’ near the river and one or two other garden buildings broadly in keeping with the overall style. He also added a rather grand extension which, whilst in keeping with the roginal building, did not have planning permission, so is not occupied. The gardens are formally laid out near to the house, with agrand parterre of box and simple landscaping of the ruins of the old Hall, which have been left exposed and which in one or two cases, have been graced with further statuary.
I particularly liked the water gardens which weave among the River and give lovely views to the Hall and the rest of the gardens. the Head Gardener here (a former Blickling gardener), is making steady progress in restoring the grounds to their historic pattern, including a walled kitchen garden.
To end the trip we all enjoyed some coffee and cakes prepared by the Gardener’s wife. Though impressive and well looked after, Oxnead’s gardens by and large lacked floral or other planting interest to suit my own taste in gardens, which leans towards the arts and crafts tradition where planting design and variety takes a more central role.
Our second visit of the day was to prove right up my alley…
Read more in a day or two’s time!
Old School Gardener
My latest visit to Blickling focused on the Moat- which runs along three sides of the Hall- and tidying the well stocked borders and edging the fine turf.
I also popped along to the Walled Garden and saw Mike the Project Manager hoeing out weeds among the ever- expanding growing areas. The main plot looked splendid.
Old School Gardener
I’ve posted about the Plantation Garden in Norwich before. A couple of days ago I had a few things to do in Norwich, so I took the chance to pay it another visit. It was a lovely sunny morning and the place was nearly deserted; I sat, secreted away in this beautiful spot. Enjoy the pictures…
Old School Gardener
Old School Garden 