Hints and Highlights
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Tony's Top Tips!
Tony Nield our Estates Manager shares his top gardening tips and seasonal highlights from the Hall Place Gardens.
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April 2010
Get down to Hall Place this week and see the last throws of the Fritillaries flowering (Fritillaria meleagris) in the recently created wild flower areas created to the north east of the rock garden.
(Fritillaria meleagris)
You will be greeted by the delicate white and purple (snakehead) flowers gently hanging like bells nodding in the breeze. Take a good look as the flowers are only about 250mm above the ground and the flowers only between 20 to 400mm long, but well worth a look.
Do you know what is happening in our recently created woodland wildflower areas at the moment? It’s one of the best sights in our woodland countryside at this time of year! You’ve guessed it, the Bluebells are going to carpet an area to the south of the river towards the syphon to the south west of the house. This lovely sight of Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) will give a great display before the emerging leaves throw the area into shade.
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
The garden is a glow with cherry blossom at the moment with a variety of colours from white through to pink and red, ornamental apple (Malus) are also looking spectacular as are the Snowy Mespilus trees (Amalanchier) that have as much bloom as our Forsythia had a few weeks ago. A few willow leafed pears are also in full bloom (Pyrus salicifolia). Other plants to look out for are the Exochorda x macrantha, with their delicate white flowers, two can be found around the outside perimeter of the sunken garden, one of which is the size of a large buddleia. Between the sunken garden and the sensory garden you will see a small tree tucked away near the large eucalyptus. This is just coming into flower and will look spectacular in the next few days with it’s clustered rosy-lilac flowers which wreath the branches, which are followed by purple tinted seed pods from July onwards. If you are after a small tree for your garden I would keep my eyes open for this, known as the Judas tree (Cersis siliquastrum)
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Ornamental Apple (Malus) |
Exochorda x Macrantha |
Judas Tree (Cersis Siliquastrum) |
We have now lost the daffodils as the days get longer and warmer the blooms have faded like old wrapping paper. To be replaced with bright fresh tulips of many colours, the majority of which are found in our many herbaceous borders and mixed beds, which woke up after their winter hibernation just a few weeks ago and are looking to race away and dazzle us with colour and shape this summer.
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This is also a good time to visit the azalea beds at the moment again located in the south west corner of the gardens. Many are already out and after such a cold winter it is anticipated they will flower as well as the forsythia have already, and if that is the case we are in for a great year of flower.The spring bedding still looks spectacular and on a calm day the sweet scent in the enclosed garden tells us all is well with the world and summer is knocking on the door. |
Azalea beds south west corner
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Why not visit the greenhouses to and see great displays of stocks with their sweet scent? Calceolaria that look good enough to eat, but please don’t! A few of the bougainvillea are still flowering and will remind you of your holidays in the Med. The bottlebrush (callistemon) is still blooming with its bright red bottle brush looking flowers. The Banana trees are also ripe with bunches of their delicious fruits.
Whilst in the greenhouses visit our shop and see the great range of herbaceous plants, mostly raised here at Hall Place, with many wonderful alpines and herbs that all look stunning and ready for planting at this time. We do also have an interesting selection of shrubs, climbers including clematis, beautiful azaleas of many colours. Indoor plants are also available with many smaller specimens for people who have the patience to see the plant grow and develop. We also have many edible crops for sale. The tomato plants have been selling very well as have the beans, peas, onions etc. We have reduced the Brassicas to £1.50 per tray and don’t forget to see the young asparagus plants for sale, well worth making room in the garden for these once you have seen the price of them in the shops at the moment. Don’t forget every penny you spend is ploughed back into the House and gardens!!
Good hunting and until next time enjoy the gardens.
Tony
Hall Place Trees
Winter 09-2010
We have planted a number of interesting trees these last few months here in the gardens. We lost a couple of recently planted beech trees Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’. The ones that have survived are growing very well and making good growth. They were part of a recently planted screen along our southern boundary, that were planted to replace the many Lombardy poplars, that are now over mature and will decline very quickly over the next 10 years. Our policy is to replace the dead and dangerous ones with alternate Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’ and oak Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata’, these have a similar growth pattern to the Lombardy poplars, but they have a much longer life span but will take longer to reach their mature height. Another advantage of having two species from different genera is that they will not all be wiped out if we ever get another species specific disease and vector like the one that killed off all the Elm trees in the early 1970’s. Talking of which we have recently planted an English elm tree Ulmus glabra. I understand this specimen was raised by using micro propagation from stock that has shown remarkable resistance to this disease. Only time will tell before we can be confident it will survive. If the specimen does survive it will be a very welcome addition to our tree collection and may remind some of our visitors of the grand English elms that used to grow in abundance in the countryside and urban areas.
photograph by Chris Mansfield
We are still building our collection of oak trees and after my recent visit to the eastern states of North America where I saw many of their native deciduous trees including the black walnut and many oaks, we have selected two specimens of oak Quercus alba and Quercus falcate.
Two other trees recently planted include a young specimen of the common walnut Juglans regia and a Montpelier maple Acer monspessulanum. This is not a commonly planted tree and was raised from seed collected by myself. I came across the parent tree whilst carrying out a tree survey on one of our UK RAF bases in the south of England, and what a find. This tree has a particularly beautiful leaf which is three lobed widely spread and round tipped. This species is native to southern Europe and west Asia.
Febuary 2010
Gardening in February is no joke!
Luckily February is a short month, and this year it is proving to be a little colder, wetter and snowier than usual, in fact December and January were the same. This may make the spring a little later this year and delay a few of the operations we normally carry out during February at Hall Place.
What you can be getting along with is completing your orders for seeds, onion sets and seed potatoes. You can also get along with any new designs you may have for the gardens. You can check over your garden tools, keep them clean and sharp. A light coat of oil in the autumn is always a good suggestion and wrapping them in hessian. Now is a good time to get your mower serviced either by a specialist or if so inclined do it yourself!
Don’t forget to keep a close eye on your house plants and make sure they are not being over watered. Also you can check for any pests or diseases.
I would leave it a few more weeks depending how the weather improves before I would get out and remove the last few leaves from the lawn and all those twigs, a springbok rake is the ideal tool for this, as the grass starts to grow it will be a good idea to scarify the grass to help remove thatch and moss. Leave it just a few weeks later before you spike your lawn, and you can top dress with a propriety top dressing and sand, work this in well to the holes created with the spiker.
So, what’s looking good this time of year? The heather garden looks spectacular at the moment with all the different heathers in flower and the various coloured stems of the cornus plants, it really looks pretty when the sun is out early in the mornings or afternoons. Snowdrops in the rock garden and near the boundary by the azalea beds under the old lime tree are looking particularly good at the moment too. Near this, in the Rock Garden, you can see the witch hazel and Aconites in flower. In another couple of weeks the crocus will be out in force across the gardens, and it will be well worth a visit. If you can get here before the ducks eat the flowers that is, apparently they’re a delicacy! Even if the weather doesn’t cheer up you will always have something to look at in the greenhouses, and at the moment you will get the end of the cyclamen, you can also see the bottle brush in flower and the bird of paradise. The trusty banana tree has also a nice crop of bananas.
photograph by Chris Mansfield
We still have a few cyclamen left in our shop that are on offer and a few Christmas box Sarcococca a beautiful scented winter flowering shrub for that shady corner in your garden.
