July's garden... Has mostly flopped :)

Not too much to report apart from everythings coming into flower, although through lack of staking etc it's all looking a bit wild and floppy. So highlights are: poppies are gorgeous, alstromeria is lovely, cherry is rampant, dahlia's are coming on, peas are dying back and slugs are slimy little gits. Oh and my long awaited scented climber collection has been poorly treated and I've just got round to potting them, albeit in temporary small pots until I can decide on their permanent homes (if they survive!). Pics to summarise:























































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My New Hudson

Sadly D's Great Aunt passed away in May, which I was strangely affected by. Strange as in I barely knew her, but in the time that I had she'd been through a fair amount of time in hospital and that's where most of our visits happened. I was lucky enough to go with D to her house though, which is in a beautiful part of Worcester called St.John's, I think the thing that impressed me was that she was a spinster even at her grand age and at an age where it must have been quite unusual, to that end she obviously amassed the skills that her male partner would have bought to the relationship which is something to be very proud of. It does still make me smile to think that she employed a gardener up until she passed away, and sad to think how she would react if she could see her lovely gardens now.

Nevertheless, one of the things that we inherited was her New Hudson bicycle, which is amazing. It dates back to 1939 and is basically completely original, I'm part way through cleaning it up mainly because the wood worms have had a bit of a field day with the basket and it was covered in wood dust. Luckilythe basket is still structurally sound, so it'll go back on eventually. I'm torn after a conversation with my Dad about whether to keep it as original, which basically makes it an unusable museum piece or to update the wheels, tyres (obviously), touch up the paint work and rechrome the chrome bits. Tis difficult, so watch this space, I get the feeling Joan would be annoyed to see it sat just being looked at and not being used, nonsense! :)

Anyway here are some pics of before and after the start of the cleaning process (damp tea towel in the sun!)

All excited!

I should probably explain why :) I went for my second lot of volunteering in the garden's at Tyntesfield on Sunday, and came away feeling like 100% I want to do this for a living! I love everything about the gardens, especially the walled garden and glass houses. Even down to the smell of the potting sheds, it just makes me think 'this is it!'.

So yesterday I was working with a chap called Adam who's being paid to do some weekend seasonal work after being a student volunteer for years. It was different to working with the ladies I worked with last time, and pretty useful hearing how he got into gardening (which he does as his full time job now). I started the day side shooting and topping tomatoes and picking nectarines and cucumbers in the glasshouse and then headed into the walled garden to strip the three espaliered morello cherry trees of their fruit, there were thousands of squidgy ripe cherries! Then I cut some sweet peas and bunched them to sell, pulled some beetroots, spring onions, picked the nectarines on the espaliers using a pair of antique step ladders and then that was it. I was supposed to just do 10am-1pm but ended up staying until 3pm, it was awesome! Even weirder when people asked me questions as if I knew what I was doing! :)

We ended up picking a grand total of 20lbs of cherries in the end, most went to the restaurant but some stayed behind on the table for visitors to buy. It feels a bit fanciful to say it but working there is like being in another world, its so peaceful and old, there's a real feeling of history there and I imagine the original gardeners in the Victorian era going about their business growing food for the big house. Just hope that I did a good job! Will definately be back next week, so will try and remeber to take my camera this time!

For the time being this link shows a few views around the estate, also Chris Bertram's photos here are great!