Autumns Rich Tapestry

We are experiencing a wonderful autumn here in the gardens. The colours this year are simply breathtaking, with buttery yellows, burning reds, and coppery tones of orange creating a blazing tapestry across our arboretums. We are yet to experience any heavy frost, and the gardens are still hanging on to a little bit of late summer colour also. It makes for a lovely combination.
We have almost finished planting all our autumn bulb order, which ran into several thousand and should provide visitors with a real show next spring. We have added a few new varieties of heritage daffodil to our already impressive collection, so I’m particularly excited to see them when they emerge in March or April.
Another planting project this year are our new beds of Vietnamese rhododendrons. For the last few years, we have been growing on young plants in our walled garden that came from seed that we collected in the mountains in the far north of Vietnam. It’s very exciting to start to plant these new collections out into the grounds, and we have created 4 new nursery beds in our upper arboretum specifically to house some of these special plants. Many of these rhododendron species are extremely rare in the wild, making this collection even more important, and it’s just possible that we may even have a new species amongst them.
Another very new project is our Forest Garden, which will be located to the rear of our walled garden, where we have recently installed a new access road. In time, we will be planting the area either side of the road with assorted fruit and nut bearing trees and shrubs. As the garden matures, we plan for it to gradually evolve into a forest space that supports a range of fruit, nuts, vegetables and herbs and offers information so visitors can learn about the project.
As we prepare for the coming Winter, we are busy cutting back, mulching, digging out, dividing, and protecting where necessary. If you look after your garden now, it will reward you in the coming year. Our fruit and vegetable areas are currently undergoing their autumn tidy. We are organising our beds for next year and planning where to plant what. We have a crop rotation system in place, which helps prevent pests and disease and keeps the nutrients in the soil more balanced. We regularly rest beds or incorporate green manure as a way of improving the soil.
Other jobs we will be doing over the next month include lifting and dividing herbaceous perennials, wind lopping roses, spreading compost and digging over vegetable beds, leaf collection to form next year’s leaf mold, lifting dahlias, begonias to overwinter inside, fleecing tender plants to protect from frost, and the planting of new bare root hedging and trees.
Our teams of garden volunteers have been a huge help this year and I can honestly say we would have struggled without them. We would welcome any new recruits. We meet at 9.00am every Wednesday and Friday (weather permitting) and finish at 1.00pm. It’s a lovely social occasion and we try to keep it interesting and varied. Contact me at [email protected] for more information.
It’s a very busy time of the year for us here in the gardens and usually, in my experience, the time when you achieve the most. Come and see us in November! Adam

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