Summer Round-up

It was a really busy year, and we decided to take the summer off from blogging to allow us to get some other projects underway (details of those to follow). But now we’ll be back to regular updates here on the blog. You may also like to check out our Facebook Page.

Garden Borders

This year has seen the redevelopment of a further set of borders as we continue our four year project to bring the softer, floral elements of Harold Peto’s garden up to the quality which his buildings now deserve.

Working with garden designer Alison Jenkins, the annual border from last year (which was an emergency measure owing to a late winter!) has been replaced by the planned perennial border. And following a prolonged summer, it came into its own bringing colour right through to the end of October.

Next year it should be even better as the hardier, slower growing plants will have established themselves properly.

Iford Arts - Cloister Centenary Season

This year was the 100th Anniversary of Harold Peto’s Cloister, a remarkable building from 1914 in the 12th Century style, which today houses our performances of opera, jazz and other events.

This year the season was entirely Italian in style. Productions included the charming love story of Puccini’s La Rondine, Donizetti’s comedy La Fille du Regiment (reworked brilliantly by Jeff Clarke to be set in a troop of Californian bikers) and an emotionally intense production of Monteverdi’s Ulysses. Keep an eye out for next year’s programme or sign up to the mailing list on the Iford Arts Website.

Wisteria Season - all year!

A most unusually dry, warm summer, ensured that the wisteria flowered not once or twice, but sporadically all through the summer, only losing its last flowers on the First of October.  Who knows whether this will be repeated next year, but we can only hope!

Hydro Plant Update

The downside of a great summer is that there's no water in the river from which to make electricity - so the Hydro Plant has been almost completely dormant for 5 months.  In recent weeks we have got it turning again and now we are back, thankfully, to generating some meaningful power.  We will still probably manage to make this an average year (the first quarter was jolly wet, after all), but it's a relief to have it running nevertheless.

Visitor Numbers

We found ourselves on television earlier in the year, as the garden designer Paul Hervey-Brookes asked the BBC to film his Chelsea Flower Show introduction here, which was very kind of him!  As a result we saw more visitors to the garden in June than in recent years, and a much larger number of 'pilgrims' who had travelled from across the country specifically to visit the garden.  

It is always humbling to be reminded of the meaning and value which people place in the gardens here which we seek to maintain true to Mr Peto's ethos.

Tea Room Success

Iford's Housekeeper, Sarah (The Crafty Housekeeper), made a great impression this year in the tearoom with a new range of cakes and tasty bites.  The Rocky Road was a particular favourite and one member of the family (yours truly) had to start exercising more as a result.

Other Events

Butterfly Day 2014 was a roaring success; various charity walks and sponsored events came through; our tiny caravan site has welcomed a small number of rallies and casual visitors; we hosted three motocross events; it was a busy year on the farm dealing with new cattle housing; we removed our crop of Miscanthus which was under-performing for various reasons; repairs to the cloister became urgent as was suffering some ground instability under one corner; and this morning the 350 runners on the annual "Over the Hills Race" forded the river and ran the half mile up the drive on their 8 mile cross country run.

Roll on the winter!  I wonder what it will bring.

Autumn colour - pots, beds and leaves

Alison Jenkins produced some brilliantly colourful borders this year.  Now, with winter approaching, the team has taken the annuals out in preparation for the first of the perennials to be planted.  This is the next phase of our Replanting Scheme which is a three year project to realign the floral element of the garden, to be more in tune with Harold Peto's ethos.

With the warm weather still just about clinging on (although we had a light frosting last night on the top of the hills), we still have some late colour in the garden, and not just from the pots.

  Visitors today were treated to a warm afternoon bathed in beautiful, low autumn sunlight which back-lit the leaves of the great cercidiphyllum...

...and here the Vitis coignetiae which blushes through the old (150-200 year old) yew tree by the conservatory.

 The venerable chestnuts are changing their costumes too, and in a fortnight or so I would expect to see the beech trees above begin to turn and the acers by the cloister to join in the fun.

Summer... catch it while you can

Storms forecast for this week (much needed for the water, but you know what it can do to blossoms...) so don't miss out on the Iford summer colour. 

As readers of the blog will know, we have been undertaking a historic replanting this year which will be a three year project. The border work on the terrace, despite the long winter is really paying off, and Alison Jenkins' terrace scheme looks splendid. This is phase 1, and the rear of the borders here will be done next, with other borders around the garden following. 

 In other news, fans of Wisteria will want to know that there is a 'token' second flowering out in the upper garden, less so at the front of the house.

Historic Replant update - filling out...

 Phase 1 of the replant is now filling out with the warmer weather.

Jumping the gap: one electric fence, two borders...

 Our electric fence which repels the rabbits from the newly planted borders met with an untimely accident with a lawn mower this week, severing the fence in two.  It would be insensitive to go into the gory details of the fence's demise whilst the other tools are still in shock.

 This created a problem... how to join two pieces of (now rather shorter) electric fence together to protect two separate areas of border (note gap/lawn above).  And here is the simple solution we came up with.  Indeed it could even be employed by intentionally cutting a fence into two sections I suppose.

 This has been so successful that we are thinking of digging in the wire where it crosses the lawn so we can more easily erect the fence as needed in future years.