So Many Things To Do!

I started work this morning in a cheerful mood, all the large jobs in the garden are finished and I was looking forward to a fairly relaxing day consisting of a bit of hoeing and weeding, how wrong I was! It's not that the tasks that lay before us were arduous , just that there were so many of them. As soon as we set foot in the walled garden we became embroiled in another rabbit hunt as a baby one hopped out straight in front of us, all to no avail sadly, they are driving us mad by eating the tops off all the flowers, in the case of the alliums they just bite the tops off and don't even eat them just to spite us! Next was dahlia duty, the cut flower border had to be staked and each plant tied in before we get any more blowy weather which can flatten them to the point of no return. Then pruning, for me the shrubby lilacs and poor Alyson got the small box hedging around the circular garden, that took the rest of the afternoon as there were so many clippings to tidy up. We didn't even start on the hedge around the herb garden (guess that's my job on Monday then) or on the aqueligias to be dead headed so we don't have a million hybrids springing up every where. At exactly which point are we going to be able to sit back and enjoy our handy work as all the books and magazines tell you to do in summer? I can answer that one, NEVER, a gardeners work is never done but we all love it anyway!

"Ah summer-what power you have to make us suffer and like it"
Russell Baker

Flamboyant Flowers

There is no getting away from it peonies are flamboyant flowers, they are tall and pink and fabulous and in bloom at Norton Conyers now. We have a rather large problem though, despite their glorious show of colour they are rather marred by the mass of accompanying weeds, the thistles match them in height, the goose grass smothers them and the bindweed wraps them up in tortuous coils. We have a plan however, although one that will not be accomplished very quickly or easily, we are going to move the entire border to the opposite yew hedge, washing the roots to remove any trace of weed before replanting them in their new home. So today Alyson and I began the grand labour by marking out the different colours by tying ribbons to the stems and inserting labels as well as mapping exactly where they were in the border in order that we may save the best examples, we counted ten different varieties but the only ones we could name with any certainty were Bowl of Beauty and Shirley Temple.
Peonies don't like being moved so we shall have to wait a few years for the new border to establish before we remove the old one and grass it over. It is a lot of work but we are adamant that the weeds will not win!

"A rose is a rose, but a peony is a friend forever"
Anon

Summer Scents And Sounds

Everyday at Norton Conyers presents a feast for the senses now that summer is here. Today was especially enchanting as the garden was awash with with perfume, the first scent to delight you is the shrub lilacs in the round garden, followed by the sherbet like fragrance of the irises. The roses then start to intrude upon your consciousness as the day warms up, not to mention all the other flowers who may not dominate the air but will reward you if you stoop and bring yourself to their level, hours could be lost pursuing this pastime!

Whilst going about your tasks there is always a background of sound to accompany you, usually there will be the hum of mowing or strimming drifting in from other parts of the estate with the chirping and full blown songs of the garden birds always a delightful refrain, add to that, as we experienced today, the overpowering drone of the bees swarming into the apple trees and then away to their summer home in the courtyard, and you have a positive symphony of sound. Summer is definitely here.

"The splendour of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm"
Therese of Lisieux

Rosa 'Summer Sun'

High Season Hoeing

The walled garden at Norton Conyers is open for the National Garden Scheme tomorrow Sunday 16th June raising money for the Marie Curie cancer nurses who are also selling teas, I do hope you will come along and support this fantastic charity. As Sundays opening is one of the highlights of the gardens year we got stuck into the hoeing as soon as we arrived today, every time you turn your back at present another weed springs to life in the rich soil. The only change in the hoeing routine was a quick visit up to the hall to retrieve the table that normally sits in the orangery, Sir James had needed to borrow it to help with the re-hanging of the ancestral portraits so we got a sneak preview. It is the first time I've seen them adorning the walls and it is an impressive sight, many generations of Grahams peering down at us, a pity they cannot talk and tell their stories as in the Harry Potter movies! Alyson and I spent the last few minutes of the afternoon making flower arrangements for the orangery, we are spoilt for choice with the materials on offer now, come and critique our efforts!

"We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children"
David Brower

The Iris Walk

Three summers ago I spent my first ever visit to Norton Conyers dividing one half of the Iris walk with a group of ladies from the WFGA, little did I guess that I would go on to work and learn so much there. Only now is the toil of that day coming to fruition, proving that the first and most important thing a gardener must learn is patience, it has certainly been worth the wait. A pity we didn't push on and get the other side finished as well, it had to wait for the following year so those irises will not match the splendour of the opposite side this time, but next years display should be twice as stunning. It was a busy day in the garden for visitors yesterday I'm pleased to say as the place takes on a extra glow when being viewed by appreciative guests, next week may be even more beautiful as by then the peonies should have burst into life with their flamboyant blooms.

"Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash"
Margaret Atwood The Handmaids Tale

Busy

It's a jungle out there..........

I've not much time for the finer things in life, like blogging, at the mo as work comes first. Make hay while the sun shines as they say. The only day I'm not gardening this week is Sunday and it's the same the week after, but I'm having fun visiting lots of different types of garden and meeting lots of new people. Tuesday I joined Mark and Lisa and Paul for another blitz job on a lovely but sadly neglected plot in Whixley, we worked for eight hours and still only scratched the surface so we go back again for round two next week. Take a look at the before and after shots of what Lisa and I managed to achieve whilst the boys got on with the heavy stuff like mowing, personally I think grass cutting is relaxing compared with sorting out weedy borders and wild shrubs but don't tell them that!

"The busy man is troubled with but one devil, the idle man by a thousand"
Spanish Proverb

But not for long with the Greengate Gardening team on the job!

The Big Plant Out 2013

Yesterday was scorchio which was just typical given that it was the big plant out of dahlias, more salvias, verbenas and nicotianas. We started the day fairly gently with Alyson and Nikki going off to see to the mowing, it was my 'rest' day from grass cutting so I ended up shovelling horse muck from the heap then onto the dahlia border, smelly and covered in flies in the warm weather but good for the bingo wings! After tea break we commenced planting which took us the rest of the day, culminating in block planting the sweetcorn and earthing up the potatoes, luckily Giles did the latter as it is the worst job of all! The garden is looking truly beautiful now and full of promise for later in the season so well worth a visit if you are passing.
"And what is so rare as a day in June? Then if ever, come perfect days"
James Russell Lowell