April
The wet cold winter had one advantage for us. The weeds were as badly affected as everything else in the garden and so there wasn’t quite so much work to do as usual when we got back here at Easter. However, the lake was overflowing badly and so there has been a lot of erosion of the earth behind the dam, and we’ll have to do some serious repair work as soon as the water level drops. And edward’s first jetty was completely wrecked, with bits of washed right over the dam. The big excitement has been the new polytunnel even though it took slightly longer than the 6 hours they suggested it needed to put up! Despite Edward’s amazing DIY skills it took about 4 days.
May
The polytunnel was completed, and our friendly local roofer built us a pergola from the salvaged roof beams of the old barn which attracted lots of interest from passers by. The garden is generally looking good, and actually rather grown-up, especially when we looked back at photos from previous years. The new bulb bed and the iris bed have been spectacular and the wisterias in pots have flowered for the first time. All in all its been a good month in the garden!
June
The cold wet spring had some advantages. The garden hasn’t needed watering and is greener and lusher than usual, and the flowers are lasting longer, even though they are later to appear. As a result the whole place is looking good. And our experimental meadow “squares” in the top field were ready to come into flower properly…
And Edward transformed the sitting room!
July
The experimental planting of annuals in the top field has worked quite well, with a good mix of colours, heights and timings . It has attracted a lot of birdlife, especially goldfinches. We’ve seen partridges and pheasants running in and out, and the hares seem to quite like it too. Coots and moorhens have raised broods on the alke this year, although sadly the heron and the carp seem to have eaten most of the chicks, and we’ve also seen kingfishers, and we think /hope they might even be living in one of the banks on our lake.
August
We got back from a few days working in London in the middle of a huge storm that devastated parts of the garden, flattening plants, breaking branches off trees and overturning large pots. We then had 2 or 3 weeks of baking hot weather, including a week of 30C+, which scorched the foliage of trees and even relatively tough plants, and shortened the flowering times of many others. Since then it has continued warm and very dry. The garden seems to have survived the worst though, and is still looking passable, although a bit sad in places and we’ve even started to deadhead and cutback.
Edward has been very busy on the building front. We’ve moved the great heap of rubble and earth than stood next to gravel garden, with a bit of help from our friend Nick, and now Edward has built not only a second iris bed, but also a much larger new raised bed for alpines which also includes a pond. The rest of the stone has been put aside for next year’s projects. The ground where the heap was has now been levelled and got ready to be the extension to the gravel garden.
September
We stayed for a few days into September but managed to achieve a lot. We finished the laying out of the new gravel garden with 25 cubic metres of “car park” gravel [which is really just crushed rock] and started planting into it. Edward also installed a woodburner in the kitchen, and already we wish we had done it years ago. The kitchen was warmed up in about 30mins! Next step is to install another one at the other end of the house.
October
Back for half term. The top field was still looking good despite the rain & neglect, largely thanks to the cosmos
Le Domaine 