Happy January!

Well, Happy New Year to everyone, if it isn't too late to say that.

This being the UK, we'll start with a traditional comment about the weather, which has been mostly warm and wet all winter.  Looking on the bright side, we're off to a flyer here with our hydro electric plant generating lots of green electricity from the high river flow.

 Earlier this month, Rob and Tom took the opportunity of a dry couple of days to get out and start pruning the wisteria sinensis at the front of the house.  This exercise always takes at least a couple of days, removing last year's racemes and breaking off the dead wood.

With Easter so early (garden visitors arriving!), and winter having been generally so warm, we wanted to get it done before the wisteria decided to get growing again.  These wisterias were some of the first to be planted by Harold Peto when he came to Iford, in 1899, so the oldest of them are well over 100 years old.

The Oriental garden has had its annual clean out.  

- Before -

We drain the pond down to a low level, and remove the leaves which fell over the winter, clear undesirable weed, return any stones which have moved over the season, thin out the box, ferns and other plants to allow room for this year's growth, and generally tidy the place up.

- After -

This is year four of our five-year historic replanting of the garden.  After three years of working on the borders with Alison Jenkins' support and the replacement of Harold Peto's roses with help from Robert Mattock, this will be the "year of the rockery".  

Over the coming months we will try to explain a little of how we are maintaining the rockeries in the garden which are such a useful way of filling in the space, transitioning from area to area or opening up borders without leaving them exposed.

So, here's to 2016.  May we wish you a successful year full of happy gardening and garden visiting!

Path reconstruction and lawn preparation

With the main frosts gone, which lift one’s paths whether they be flagstones, gravel or tarmac, a review of paths has been necessary.

One path in particular, from Peto’s first Oriental garden to the Cloister, has got out of alignment with where it should be in terms of garden design.  Since Iford is all about design, we’re re-cutting the edge with a simple half-moon tool, and re-levelling it using Cerney “as-raised” gravel.  It is crucial for us to get a particular level of clay in the gravel to allow surface binding and drainage, and a Cotswoldy colour to the particles.  It goes down now, because whilst rollers won’t squash it down properly, the feet of 10000-or-so visitors in a year will do so nicely and we open to the public in a fortnight.

The other challenge is grass: the lawns are not looking terribly happy after a rather wet and very cold winter.  Anywhere where the drainage is poor the grass has taken on a jaundiced, chlorotic colour, with a very high moss level.  The historic lawns are difficult to drain properly because of the adjacent tree and shrub roots and so we have to make do with spiking, scarifying and new grass seed.  This year we’re using one of the golf green mixes which is hard wearing but which can be cut very short – not very bouncy, but good for the footfall and picnics in the summer for the Arts Events.