Butterflies flutter by...

Your regular author apologises for the lack of posts over the past month - he has been taking his Masters exams at the Royal Agricultural College and then catching up on the piles of post which built up during the period!  Over the next few weeks I hope to bring you up to date on the past month at Iford, starting with the wonderful events of "butterfly day", yesterday.

Run jointly between Butterfly Conservation and Iford Arts, this wonderful free event is aimed at both children and adults, and was held this year on Sunday 27th June in the baking heat of a glorious weekend.  With England playing Germany that afternoon, those that came to Iford had the better fortune, avoiding the disappointment of a somewhat predictable televised exit from that esteemed sporting competition.

The lepidopterists and other wildlife experts had set up traps overnight in the Iford valley, and the 80 species of moth caught were on display for inspection by the 250 plus children and accompanying adults that visited us on the day.  [When the list of sightings both for butterflies and moths is available, it will be posted on this blog].

Inside the marquee, kindly donated by NFU Mutual Insurance, there were activities galore, including storytelling, paint-a-butterfly (or moth!), decorate a butterfly cupcake, and perhaps most popular of all, facepainting.

For the more inquisitive of our younger visitors there was a treasure hunt, which encouraged children to learn about trees through exploration and research, and for the adventurous, guided walks through the long wild flower meadows were available for keen-eyed butterfly-spotters.  The photographically entered a competition on the day of butterflies and moths sighted during these walks, and hopefully we can post the winning image on this blog soon.

Butterfly friendly plants were available from a stall run by Downside Nurseries in Westwood, which proved popular with those wishing to bring more of a flutter to their gardens.

Many visitors, we are told, discovered Iford for the first time: to them a big "hail and well met".  The tearoom was very busy (mostly ice creams this weekend), and we were delighted to be able to provide a rare and relatively safe environment where children could learn through the medium of discovery and play, that not all moths need be crushed immediately under foot!

The laughter of children truly is infectious, and whilst the garden itself may not be particularly suitable for young visitors owing to its historic nature, to be able to offer a free day of natural discovery for the young is greatly rewarding.  Thank you to all that made it happen.

Cinderella: Under 35s ticket offer

2010 Iford Festival

Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

under 35s special £40 ticket offer

Iford Arts is delighted to welcome back to the 2010 Iford Festival the CHROMA ensemble and the conductor Andrew Griffiths with their production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) performances of which take place on 19, 22, 24, 26, 30 June, and 02, 03 July. 

This is the same team that produced the Barber of Seville in 2009, which received many great reviews, such as Metro Life who exclaimed that "Productions such as this could single-handedly reverse opera’s dwindling fortunes… Rather than any rarefied…appeal, it is the upfront, street theatre feel of this 1960’s-set production that imbues it with knee-weakening charm."

CHROMA and Andrew are joined by the renowned director Bill Bankes-Jones, and a superb cast including Alex Ashworth, John Evans, Christina Haldane, Caryl Hughes, Carlos Nogueira, Sigríður Ósk, and Richard Suart.

During the 2010 Festival, the Cinderella team are actively engaged in working with young people in the community on a project taking Cinderella back to school. To tie in with this, we are delighted to offer the few remaining tickets for La Cenerentola at a special price of £40 to those under the age of 35.

For more information visit: www.ifordarts.co.uk.  To book tickets, please call the Box Office, Theatre Royal Bath: 01225 448844, quoting "Under 35s £40 ticket offer".

Location: The Cloister, The Peto Garden, Iford Manor, Bath, BA15 2BA.

Gates open for picnics at 6 pm, and opera performances start at 7.30 pm.

Terms and Conditions: The £40 under 35’s ticket offer for performances of La Cenerentola is subject to ticket availability. The whole party should be under the age of 35 and proof of age may be requested at the gate. Offer opens Wednesday 2 June 2010, and applies to telephone booking only; on-line booking is not available for this offer. All credit card bookings are subject to a transaction fee of £3.00. Tickets booked previously fall outside this offer and cannot be refunded. Iford Arts, The Gatehouse, Iford Manor, BA15 2BA.

Wisteria

So... the wisteria is now nearly fully out on the front wall of the house, and the inky purple buds are just prising themselves open on the frames in front of the manor; in the garden the casita wisteria is nearly there, and the standard plants are running a little later.  Tomorrow, weather permitting, I hope to post photos so that the wisteria junkies amongst our growing readership will be able to time their visit to us to coincide with a favourite plant etc.

Cutting the miscanthus

On the estate farm we have been experimenting for a few years by growing an energy crop called miscanthus, more commonly known as elephant grass.  It's getting late, so I'll spare you the smug "green" chat about why it is that we put the crop in, and how wonderfully energy efficient it is and all that, and instead just show you some photos of the really amazing machine that the contractor used to slice-and-dice the crop.

In a following post, one of these days when time allows, I would like to expand a little more on how Iford is doing its bit to promote renewables.

Garden Update 15 April 2010

If the gardens at Iford are anything to go by, there is definitely plenty of evidence of "green shoots"...  here are some of the highlights from my walk around this afternoon.  

Iford is open on Sundays from 2-5pm currently, and at other times for groups by appointment.  From May, full opening commences, with almost daily opening.  See Iford's website for details.

Perhaps most magnificent is the magnolia by the Loggia pond, just entering its prime this coming week.

The semi-shaded white magnolia in the yard has a week or two to go as well

Little ferns in the shade outside the side door of the manor unfurl with the warmer weather

Wild flowers under the mulberry tree, happy to see their chequerboard lawns smartened up this morning 

Japanese Cherry

This Vitis Cognitiae, which lives in a yew tree (and which gives us a glorious display of red leaves towards the end of the summer) is unusually flowering this year.  Could this be as a result of the harsh winter, anyone?

Wisteria-watch: in front of the house, three weeks or so away

But the warmer wisteria on the front face of the house, has two fronds opening.

Cherries on the lawn are in full flow

Wild flowers on the Cloister path provide a merry scene.

And of course, although we have been enjoying them inside the house for a while, the first round of 'public' orchids have appeared in their pots.  Here, pictured in the Loggia window.

Healthy lichen, healthy air.

Lichen has long been understood by scientists as an indicator-species for air pollution, and it is my understanding that the more frail-looking and leafy a lichen is, the more it is susceptible to air quality. 

So it brings great satisfaction (and not a little relief!) to discover that despite the flight path for Bristol airport and the A36 in relatively close proximity, our lichen are telling us they're happy with an explosion in the growth on the old cherry tree on the great terrace, amongst others.

So... if you need a gulp of fresh air, you know where to come!

p.s. Starter for 10:  can anyone name the lichen pictured?

Garden report: Easter Sunday (April 4th, 2010)

Thank you to all those who visited us today for our first day of opening this year.  We were all rewarded with sunshine and a brisk breeze.

During the summer season, we quite often get our regular visitors ring us up and ask whether they might know if the x, y or z has come into flower yet.  Usually it's the wisteria, sometimes the magnolia, on occasion the cherry blossom.  Well, we're absolutely delighted that people want to know, so please, don't feel embarrassed or apologetic about asking - we'd much rather you saw what you wanted to see, than that you arrived expecting wisteria and found you'd missed it by a day or two, or whatever.  Instead, be proud to be an Ifordian, part of that select club of people that are 'in the know', and keep in touch!

To make things a bit easier, and very much on the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, as the summer season progresses we're aiming to post (at least fortnightly, if not weekly) a short pictorial report on the current plant-situation in the garden.  This will act as an opportunity to see what you missed if you didn't visit last week, and also to show you what you might expect to see if you were to visit in the next couple of weeks.

And here is the garden report issued from the Iford office at 19.00 hours on Easter Sunday:

Blooming marvellously are:

Clematis armandii on the front of the house

Grape Hyacinth

Fritillary (with a pair of anemonies)

Camellia by the loggia

Iford's native buxus sempervirens (and what a crop of seeds we had!) which grows to 40 feet

And budding up nicely are:

Ornamental cherry on the top lawn

Cotton buds on the ornamental willow

Fig on the South Wall of the Cloister

Clematis montana rubens in the Cloister

Japanese White Iris kaempferi in the Oriental Garden

Magnolia soulangiana by the Loggia

Tree Peony lutaeia (probably not 'ludlowii')

Wisteria sinensis on the Casita

And not forgetting the orchard...