Christmas is coming to Houghton

My last week at Houghton of 2013 and the time has flown by.

Father Christmas (well a tree type, FC type, person) made a surprise visit this week following the Snowman's visit last week. Big FC helped me clear the shrubs near the Peacock garden which were really overgrown and needed a trim. Lots of clearing this week and Rose pruning in the walled garden. Some of the Roses climbing the walls were reaching up and over the top of the wall so a ladder was needed for some serious hacking back. They look much better and we will hopefully reap the rewards next year when the Roses come out.

The garden is looking very bare and you can gain a sense of the structure of the plants and trees. Much easier to see what needs doing. The Crab Apple trees still have beautiful red fruits dangling from them and you can see new life coming at the base of the Perrenials, waiting to spring into life in a few months.

I made a few more Gourd bird feeders and the birds are darting around from branch to branch.

It has been a huge learning curve but I feel like I am a long way from the allotment holder of last year. I have my RHS Certificate now and feel much happier approaching plants and even know some of their names! I feel I have a sense of plant sizes and have been able to see plants at their height in Summer appear as a skeleton in Winter. My Allotment feels tiny by comparison to the work undertaken at Houghton Lodge and that is something I could only have gained through experience.

Looking forward to more fun next year and the change of season again, when we can sow seeds and grow from scratch.

Autumnal hues galore

A beautiful day at Houghton today in the mist and fog and it was cold. Andrew and I spent the day on the Long Border (and it is long) snipping, clipping and tidying away til all became clear. The Border is huge and requires a lot of attention. The Roses along the back wall are seriously out of control into the Clematis and we happily chopped down Sedum, Echinops and Roses amongst others.

The Sedum present beautifully intricate tight bundles of new growth at the base and look very pretty.

The spiders had been out in ernest and their webs were everywhere hanging delicately and the colours are wonderful, oranges, deep greens, blue-green, dark browns, I love it!

I also managed to come up with a plan for an area of garden in the shade, a Fernery, so hopefully that will happen in 2014 before I go!

John had planted up some of the Hydroponicum with Strawberries which will be lush before we know it.

More tomorrow.....

Creatures

Mainly quiet days at the garden this week, beautiful scenery, birds calling and hiding in the shrubs, colours aplenty in the leaves but yesterday was noisy with the wind rattling around.

A week for Moles, I learnt to set duffus traps and we caught one on the main lawn which has done tremendous damage in a huge sweep towards the river. I tried to catch another across the meadows down by the river but no luck yet. Good practice. Andrew showed me some huge rabbit warrens down by the trees near the river, never seen anything like it, hiding near the roots under the canopy of leaves. We also got to check out Badger damage and found the Chafer bugs they were

looking for. All that damage from a Badger and the grubs are tiny weeny.

I used a petrol mower to collect leaves and did some Rose pruning. We also tried to put our Peach tree to bed but the wind has probably pulled the fleece away by now.

I have been asked to design an area of garden in front of the house, hidden from the public (probably just as well!) and so I tried to measure the area, which is kind of overgrown in places and will have a think about what would look nice in a shady spot between two walls. I am going to draw my first ever plan and see how we go. So exciting thinking about choosing plants. I popped to Hillier's for some inspiration and boy was it beautiful there today, so much going on. I particularly liked the Gunnera which have been put to bed under their own leaves and look like alien life forms huddled together.

The grasses in the Centenary Border are stunning too rustling in the breeze, my faves are definatley the hairy ones, Miscanthus.

The apple trees at Houghton in the orchard are displaying apples like Christmas baubles, leafless stems with jewels hanging down. Gorgeous.

The Dragon got a new woodchip path and is looking really neat and happy.

Heavy work

This week at Houghton we had some heavy work to do.

We raised the canopies of some of the bigger trees in the garden down towards the river, some Poplar, Fraxinus, Platanus x Hispanica. By removing some of the lower branches, Andrew thought it would enable us to be able to work around the tree better, the visitors to avoid low branches and ultimately the tree will benefit from more energy going into the tree elsewhere. We produced a lot of waste using a pruning saw and loppers and took it in turns to drive the Bradshaw to remove it all onto a fire.

I had a lesson on chemical usage for weed control and tried a Knapsack sprayer for the first time. Heavy to carry and you have to use a stiff pump handle almost all the time which is tiring too. SO good to zap those weeds though in the walled garden, another new task carried out. Lots to learn this week.

I tried a ride on Mower, Artesia which we were trying to pick up leaves with. Quite stiff to manoeuvre but quite speedy to get the job done and I used the Billy Goat to pick up leaves in the orchard, the Kiwi leaves are massive and didn't really want to play ball so good old fashioned raking finished the job off.

A big job to get done was removal of four giant Rhodedendrons (Horizon Monarch) which had become pot bound and that took three people and all their might and Andrew ending up lying down with the force of them!  We re-filled the planters with topsoil and planted four standard Hollies (Ilex J C van tol) instead, which we had sourced from Hillier. I got to visit the wholesale Nursery and that was interesting to see the production of plants on a big scale. Lots I would have loved to take home and lots of plants I had not seen before or at least not identified. I did manage to buy a Skimmia rubella which I want for my front garden and the dark green foliage looks really great against the deep red buds of the flowers to come.

Lots still going on in the garden, the Cornus at the bottom of the main lawn is a bank of red stems and gives a great burst of colour against the river and lawn. The last few leaves of the Liquidambar trees are clinging on giving fire like colour to the view from the Long Border. I love the birds flitting to and fro from the bird feeders in the Walled Garden and we spotted a Woodpecker having a nibble too.

Transplanting and more bulbs

This week we were mainly working on the Mercury bed at the front of the house. The circular bed is the centre piece of the driveway down to the front door and had been neglected for a while being quite weedy and a variety of plants which did not really look happy together. Andrew and I cleared the beds and transplanted and potted up anything we thought needed saving, hairy Carex, Gaura with its wispy flowers and Salvia hotlips.

Carex are fab plants that are great to handle, they are pretty sturdy. We were running out of compost and pots for such large plants so re-housed a few in our holding bay of a veg bed til we need that space for our veg next year.

We planted the bed up the following day to Andrew's design and it is going to look great. We were working on the curved line of each bed so used a cane and tape to measure the arcs. We planted alternate Tulips and Anemones around them in three arcs. We are going to plant Box and Lavender for the rest of the bed. It is good to see some formality in the bed and see an improvement.

We removed a huge old Rosemary from the walled garden which required a saw so you can imagine how woody it was. Onto the bonfire it went, smelling wonderful!

I had a look around the garden and found some Old Man's Beard Clematis which I used to love as a child in the hedgerows. I also checked on our Rose stems we are propagating in the long border and they have new shoots! Hurray! I had a peek at the Orchids at the mo and their colours are stunning. Some of the succulents are a real joy as well and Andrew spotted a Bird of Paradise displaying 2 flowers looking lovely against the blue sky.

Trying to use all the bulbs we have, we planted up some urns and pots we could think of, all to add to the Spring colour, once the Gardens are open from March 1st.

I also had a go at hollowing out some of the ornamental Gourds we grew this summer, Swan Neck and Yugoslavian Fingers to put food in for the birds. Great idea!

We seem up to speed with things right now and as a result you get a sense of the place and how to handle the different areas. When I arrived in June, with everything in full flow, it seemed a never ending task ahead but somehow with the leaves gone from the trees and the bare roots of the garden showing it seems much more approachable. Happy days.

Frost and fire

A great week of cold weather with beautiful bright blue sky and lovely orange sunrises as you drove into Stockbridge village. 

We managed to plant hundreds of bulbs on Wednesday, Tulips kaufmanniana ‘Scarlet Baby’ and greigii ‘Cape Cod’ and Anemones. We used Andrew's design to mirror the engraving on the chimneys above the veranda beds, diagonals and infill diamonds. Should be good!

We also severely pruned the Madame Alfred Carriere roses which have been neglected for a while and trained them along wire for a better display next year. 

Lots of tidying achieved and everything went onto a big bonfire. We even started work on pruning dead wood away from the apple orchard espalier and standard trees opening up the structure to a goblet shape to let in light and air. Andrew was in his element up a tree with a saw!


A real pleasure to be in the garden again, taking time to see the birds, the mists and the ladybirds hiding in the leaves. The crab apple tree without its leaves looks like it has beautiful red decorations hanging from it. As the leaves are falling for the the first time since I have been working here, I have seen the Espalier trees properly and the pear tree is amazing! We also spotted some bright Coral Spot on the Quince, super colour but damaging.....