Staking is one of the tasks that I get asked most about at Waterperry and the process starts in February/ March when we cut the Hazel from around the estate. We usually cut it on very cold days as it is one of the warming, physical winter jobs where you don’t mind being outside. Also we get to venture out to the orchard and the woods to gather our harvest. We usually cut the oldest and thickest branches hoping that on it we will find the perfect pieces of staking. We bring the Hazel back to the Gardens and store it in a sheltered place hoping that it doesn’t dry out to much otherwise it will become brittle and snap when you try to weave it.
I always know the start of staking when it is time to do the Aconitum on the main herbaceous border. From then on it will be Papavers, Geraniums, Campanulas Lychnis until it is time to stake the Asters. The process takes quite a few weeks as you need to stake them at half to two thirds of their final height and you need to judge when that will be. So from now on I will be looking at the border on an almost daily routine.
When the plant is ready to stake, we cut the Hazel to the size we need and we look for almost fan shaped pieces as you need to hold it in around the sides. We push the Hazel in around the plant, snap the top over and weave the branches together over the top. I have to say it is easier to do than describe! If the ground is too dry, you may need to make holes with a poker or even water the ground to make pushing the Hazel in easier.
There is always a touch of panic hoping that we have cut enough Hazel, that it hasn’t dried out to much and finally that the border stands up tall and straight until the end of October and that it stands in a very natural way. There is nothing better than the visitors reactions when you explain that the border is held up by staking and they don’t realise it is there.
Come and visit the Gardens in the next few weeks and I am sure you will see us staking!
Staking the border – Click here to comment or ask me a question!
Posted on May 16th, 2013 by Pat H
Cuttings, cuttings, cuttings. (click here to leave a comment or ask me a question)
Posted on May 8th, 2013 by Liz GThank you to all the lovely people who came to Waterperry Gardens over the Bank Holiday weekend, and for all their kind remarks and comments about their visit. The fantastic weather showed Waterperry at its best and made for a very nice relaxed atmosphere.
So back in the Nursery and full steam ahead, this is a mad time of year. Cuttings are such a brilliant way to make lots of great little plants. We have already done some Nepta (Catmint) and tomorrow it’s the turn of Asters. Soft-tip cuttings are easy to do right now. Using a sharp knife trim below a node to make a cutting about 5-10cm long. Remove the lower leaves and pinch out the soft tip. Insert the cutting using an old pencil to make the hole, into a pot of cuttings compost. Label and water from above to settle the compost. Cover with a plastic bag to provide constant humidity and place somewhere warm in good light. Not direct sunlight or the leaves will scorch. Remove the bag from time to time for about ten minutes to remove excess moisture. At this time of the year they root quickly, you will see new shoots emerging and eventually roots coming out the bottom of the pot. Harden of the plant by gradually removing the bag. Hey presto at least three new plants in a 9cm pot. Let me know how you get on.
I will be working in the Plant Centre this weekend, and would be happy to help you with any of your gardening queries.
Happy gardening, and now with a little rain forecast it couldn’t be better weather to water in all our planting.
Little Jewels (click here to leave a message or ask a question)
Posted on May 1st, 2013 by Liz GI’ve been watching and waiting for the lovely little alpines I potted on a month ago to flower and here they are just gorgeous. I love their simplicity and beauty, lots of pleasure in a tiny little pot.
I will be potting these Androsacea Salmontosa up and propagating them soon.
Fritillaria meleagris – click here to leave a comment or ask me a question!
Posted on April 16th, 2013 by Liz GAfter weeks of standing in the side wings, spring has finally moved centre stage. I walked around the garden last night and saw such a difference in just a few days. It’s as if Mother Nature had waved a magic wand along the Herbaceaous Border and said you may now grow.
Moving centre stage for us this week are the Fritillaries. Week by week our Fritillaria meleagris or Snakeshead Fritillary as it is more commonly known has been slowly pushing it’s way through the meadow grass around Yew Henge. Each year Pat and her team plant out at least 2000 bulbs in the autumn. They take a few years to establish themselves but in the last couple of years have started to put on a very impressive display.
After much practice and many failed attempts due to mice eating them, we have at last mastered the art of growing them down in the Nursery. Every September we bury the bulbs in shallow trays of multi-purpose compost, cover them with glass and leave them on a shelf in an unheated polytunnel. From time to time we lift and turn the glass and make sure the compost is just moist. A bit like the Garden Team, we too are not allowed home before Christmas until we have potted them up. Usually the week before Christmas they start to put on a green shoot. We quickly pot them up in pots, up to four times the depth of the bulb, and place them in a cold frame, side by side and covered in compost. In February I will push back the compost looking to see if the shoots are beginning to put on some growth, this year it was not until the beginning of March before we removed all the compost and they have been slowly pushing through the pots ever since. They are fascinating to watch as they develop a bit like a beautiful ballet dancer. Their stems gradually unfold as they push their way past the narrow grey-green leaves until they proudly stand stretched out, their large, nodding, squarish bells, in various shades of pale to deep pinkish-purple with very conspicuous checked markings and white. Our pots have just gone up for sale this week, their stems just beginning to unfurl, 7 months in the making!
It’s not hard to see why this beautiful flower is the county flower of Oxfordshire, come and see ours this weekend during our Fritillary Weekend. It would be fun to hear from you, tell us your experiences of growing them, can anyone count how many we have in the meadow.
Happy gardening in the sun and warmth at last.
Miss H’s Herbaceous Border. (click here to leave a comment or ask me a question)
Posted on April 8th, 2013 by Pat HTradition says the garden staff are not allowed home for christmas until the Delphiniums have been slug treated! I am happy to say that this task was completed in December and the garden team had a merry old time.
We give all the Delphiniums and Hostas a treatment of liquid sluggit which we water on and seems effective for us.
In the New Year, work begins in earnest on the border.
Delphiniums are surrounded with a ring of grit, again to deter the slugs and finally a ring of farmyard manure provided by the cattle from the neighbouring farm. In the summer, the cows and calves are an essential view from the gardens and most visitors wend their way down to the Pear orchard, to take a look at them grazing happily in the meadows.
By the end of April, we will have put canes in behind the Delphiniums and we begin to tie the stems on to the canes at regular intervals until they reach maximum height and flower profusely.
On what could have been the wettest day of last year, myself, Rob and Mark took a trip to Home Farm Plants at Bovingdean, who we met at our Rare Plant Fair (this year will be held on June 9th and not to missed) We chose 4 Delphiniums for the border ‘Summerfield Oberon’ ‘Walton Gem’ ‘Foxhill Nina’ and ‘Gillian Dallas’ along with Butterball for the Island beds so this year it will be interesting to follow their development.
Throughout the year the main border occupies quite a lot of my thoughts. I will frequently be taking notes, looking at what is working where, which plants need lifting and dividing when the season is over and I always keep a diary of jobs we do every day with the weather conditions.
In February, we cut the hazel around the estate and this is what we use for our staking on the border and around the gardens, it is stored and cut to size when needed as we do not want it to dry out and become too brittle. The first thing I will be staking is the Aconitum and from then on the border is looked at on an almost daily basis. Plants are staked when they have reached half to two thirds of their final height and then they grow through the staking and hopefully stand up in a very natural way. It is one of the jobs that many visitors are intrigued with and they ask a lot of questions about, many people think it is to keep the birds off of the plants but most people seem to love the idea and effect of it.
We put canes around the Solidago and tie string around it, making sure not to pull it in too tightly and for the last couple of years we have staked Papaver ‘Avebury crimson’ which has been very successful. We also stake Nepeta, Achillea ‘Gold plate’ Lychnis and Galega to name a few. (More to come in May)
It is lovely to work on the border in the summer and listen to the visitors as they see it for the first time and hear the surprise as we pop up from behind a delphinium that we have been tying in although on a hot day it does become unbearable in the heat of mid day, if anybody can remember that feeling! as it is south facing with a lovely old wall behind.
So hopefully summer is on its way and we can all get out and do plenty of gardening and please come and take a look at the classic border and enjoy!
Bridget’s ‘School Allotment Project’ (click here to leave a comment)
Posted on March 25th, 2013 by Bridget BHi,
I’m one of the gardens team, my name is Bridget Barnes and I spend 24 hours a week helping to maintain the 8 acres of ornamental gardens here. Living locally I have known Waterperry for many years, but my real love for the place started when I came along to one of Mary Spillers Saturday Gardening Courses back in 2003, already being a keen vegetable grower at that time, the course inspired me to grow and learn more. I enjoyed the course so much that I decided to take it one step further and do an RHS course with Ernie Bingham, he was so passionate about horticulture and did it all with humour, which helped me a lot as there is so much to learn.
In 2009 I decided to change from a desk job to gardening and came to work as a seasonal gardener, I was supposed to leave at the end of that September but I’m still here four years later. Is it just me or have we had harder winters since then? I did worry about whether I would be able to cope with working outside all year round, but wearing seven layers helps a lot!
This week always feels like the kick start to the growing season for me as we have the first session of the ‘School Allotment Project’. The project has been running for the past seven years or so and because vegetable growing is an interest of mine I was given the task of creating a purpose built garden (with a bit of help from the team). In the previous years, we had just squeezed a few veggies in amongst the asters in the nursery beds. If you are paying a visit to the gardens please pop down and take a look, it is tucked behind the Formal Garden by the Pear Orchard. The garden is made up of raised beds which are great for a few reasons, they warm up quickly in the Spring, you can work on them whatever the weather, as the idea is not to stand on the soil and cause damage to its structure, planting can be denser as there is no need to walk between rows, hence a higher yield from a smaller area and best of all NO DIGGING, the idea being just to add organic matter over the surface and let the worms do the rest!
A class of eight year olds from Wheatley Primary School are helping us with the garden this season; they will come along once a month with a final visit in July to harvest. During the first session with them we will be sowing some seeds into pots in readiness for a Pumpkin Competition between the children and the class teacher and also putting some seed potatoes in. Potatoes definitely seem to be a favourite when we come to harvest time, along with the excitement of pulling the carrots up. It’s great to share knowledge with the children, a bit of history, mathematics, biology, healthy eating, food miles, friendly bugs, helping the bees………the list is endless and they just love getting their hands dirty and enjoying the fresh air down at the bottom of the garden.
I will let you know how the allotment is progressing later in the season.
Happy gardening,
Bridget
It’s the new rock & role update! (click here to leave me a comment)
Posted on March 21st, 2013 by Liz GSophie and I have finished cleaning up the alpine beds on my Alpine mission. Here we are disinfecting the geotextile membrane to ensure we have killed all lurking bacteria.
The beds are all clean and the alpines Jane potting up are now under the glass to protect them from the wet whilst getting light and cool air to help them grow.
These alpines have been hardened off so are ok to be uncovered, they will only be re-covered in extremely wet weather. The newly potted alpines will join them soon.
These are cuttings taken last year, ready to pot up now.
Finally some images from our Saxifrage Garden. Don’t forget to come along to our Saxifrage day this Sunday and quiz Adrian the garden curator.
Alpine Gardening – it’s the new rock and roll (click here to comment)
Posted on March 12th, 2013 by Liz GThanks Pat for a great blog last week and some very cute photos. I have a cute photo this week but fortunately not of me!
I have had a brilliant week in the Nursery. Alpines are a new departure for me, I used to think it was herbaceous growing in miniature. Waterperry was famous for it’s alpines under the leadership of Valerie Finnis, so here goes my challenge. We are very lucky to have a dedicated band of volunteers who look after the Alpine Garden, thank you to them.
The first job is to sort through all the existing stock, clean it up and find out what we have. I have lots to learn. Thankfully Adrian Young, curator of our wonderful National Collection of Kabschia Saxifraga and newly awarded Silver Saxifraga is on hand with masses of helpful advice and identification. The first alpine I tackled was Achillea clavennae also known as silvery yarrow. Typically found on the mountains of the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. It forms low rosettes of divided, fragrant, silvery leaves which are partially evergreen. In mid-summer a mass of flat clusters of white flowers arise on 15-25cm stems. Prompt dead heading often results in a second flush of flowers in early autumn. Like most alpines, it needs well-drained soil in full sun to light shade. Takes any soil and is reasonably drought tolerant.
I have absolutely fallen in love with these little gems, I only went home at night because I couldn’t see anymore in my shed. Beautiful shapes, flowers, textures. Fairly low maintenance, take up very little space, very cheap to buy. Cuts down weeding as they like to grow in all the cracks in walls and paving where weeds like to grow.
Finally, this is my favourite of the week, I’m calling it ‘ the little yellow one’, any ideas Adrian? Do let me know if you have a favourite alpine. Click on the title to leave a comment I would love to hear from you.
If you would like to find out more then why not come and meet Adrian over our Saxifrage Day on the 24th March.
A Magical Childhood from Pat Havers
Posted on March 4th, 2013 by Pat HHi, my name is Pat Havers and I am the Garden Manager at Waterperry Gardens. I will be stepping in occasionally to write the blog when Liz is away.
I’m a Waterperry girl through and through, born at home in the village I had a magical childhood playing at Waterperry house and the nearby farm. My mum worked at the estate and she often bought me to work with her, leaving me asleep in my pram as she worked. I even progressed to sleeping in the wheelbarrow on the odd occasion.
I was often to be found following Joan Stokes (Stokey) around, fascinated by the greenhouses full of Cyclamen, tomatoes, cucumbers and best of all the Orange Tree House with the orange tree in (you can go and visit it today). It was in there that I was taught how to tap the clay pots and listen to the sounds, to know if they needed watering or not. I also used to love using rabbits tails to pollinate the ‘Royal Sovereign’ strawberries, which Beatrix Havergal won some 15 gold medals at Chelsea for. One year all the staff were taken to Chelsea by coach and I was allowed to take the day off school to go, what an experience seeing the strawberries on display and being admired by everyone.
I must have been about five when Miss Havergal came around with a group of people and introduced me as her ‘youngest student’ little did I know then that one day I would be caring for her beautiful gardens. Maybe if she were here today she would be a little bit pleased.
It was after I had my own children that I came back to Waterperry Gardens in 1995 and worked under Julie Worby and Phyll Slater, Phyll taught me the art of staking and supporting plants in the herbaceous border passed down by Mary Spiller and Miss H. From there on I worked under Bryn Davies who took me from a Gardener to a Garden Manager and what an educational and fun time that was, I learnt so much from him.
I now have a great team alongside me, Bridget, Mark and David along with some lovely volunteers who join us weekly, what ever the weather. We continue to care for the gardens in the way Miss H did.
Throughout the year I will keep you up to date with the fantastic herbaceous border, telling you about the maintenance of it and why its one of the most important jobs in the garden.
Half way down the Virgin’s Walk
Posted on February 25th, 2013 by Liz GWhat a clever man Jonathan Cooke was to create the area known as the Virgin’s Walk. The 12ft high brick wall creates an air of mystery beyond the garden entrance. I love sneeking visitors round the corner into this secret place, showing them plants which would be suitable for a cool shady spot in their own gardens. People who have never visited before, or don’t think they have time to look around the garden are always surprised to find this cool, peaceful, serene, shady, east facing garden.
Galanthus ‘Ophelia’ immediately greets you as you turn the corner. A tall statuesque, double snowdrop bred by Heyrick Greatorex, a famous series which he named after Shakespearian female characters. Your eye is then caught by Osmanthus delavayi AGM. This is such a useful evergreen shrub. Takes any aspect in the garden, small dark green, rounded leaves with highly scented, small white flowers, followed by blue black berries. Vinca minor f. alba ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ AGM is planted underneath. Again takes any aspect, evergreen, dark green leaves, mat forming, with beautiful pure white flowers. Just behind you can see Arum italicum subsp. Italicum ‘Marmoratum’ AGM. This bulb takes any aspect, has large, arrow-shaped dark, glossy green leaves veined creamy-white from winter into spring. Most people don’t notice this plant until September when the pale green/yellow flower turns into a fiery red fruit loved by blackbirds. To the left hand side of Osmanthus, underneath are two of the dainiest, delicate little flowers. The first one is Hepatica transsilvanica AGM, semi-evergreen with lavender-blue flowers and the other Hepatica nobilis AGM with the prettiest little pink flowers. There is a little shady garden already with not a fern or hosta in sight.
Well I haven’t even got half way down, I have only walked a few feet, there is still the Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum AGM and Cornelian cherry, Cornus mas to tell you all about …..
I would love to read your comments or thoughts on some of the things I have talked about. Just click on the title ‘Half way down the Virgin’s Walk’ above and join in.
Next time our Garden Manager, Pat Havers will introduce herself to you and will pop up from time to time with her own additions to the blog.
