The view from the Colonel's seat - Before and After

Winter in the garden brings one of the

Before

longest jobs for the gardeners.  When all
the leaves are off the trees they have to
be cleared, either raked up or blown on to the beds.  When the job is down the garden looks
tidy and the moss glows in the winter sunlight.

The fallen leaves are important to the garden
as they provide mulch on the beds and they
are also blown into the gills (streams) to help
slow down the flow of water.   In recent years,
although the volume of water has not
increased, the amount of water flowing through the garden has increased at any one time.
This causes erosion of the gill banks and
in some places is undermining the bridges.
The only solution seems to be to slow down the
flow of water.

After

Mulch is important to feed, protect the plants
and retain water in the summer.  After the big
storm of l987 the garden lost a great deal of
its overhead cover and so produced less
mulch and for the first time we had to start
buying it in.

To take a break from the monotomy of
clearing leaves some planting has been done
along with a considerable amount of
pruning.  Clearing the prunings is a challenge
here as it is not possible to bring machinery
into the garden during the winter as the ground is too wet and the paths would be damaged.
 The gardeners either chip or drag everything to
 bonfire sites outside the garden.
 You need to be fit to work here!

Garden reopens on Saturday 28th March.