20210603_100513

Glorious bugs

At our next Open Day we will celebrate the bugs and other wildlife in the Gardens, with Jono Forgham on hand to lead nature walks and other activities and Essex Bat Group telling all about the bats in the Gardens. Our wildflower banks had snowdrops, then ...

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Kim’s story

At this Sunday’s Open Day, 23 May, we will be remembering the Countess of Warwick’s love of animals and just in time we have put in place an information board about her baby elephant, Kim. A storyteller will weave tales for children and the ch ...

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The new season’s joy

What a joyous Open Day we had on Sunday – the sun shone all day and the Gardens were looking beautiful, with late daffodils and narcissi and early tulips and tree blossom everywhere. We are now looking forward to the rest of the season and next year ...

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The joy of working outdoors

Winter work at the Gardens is great when the weather allows for it. Last week it was just too wet. This week was cold, but we got a lot done. Ann, Valerie and Sue tidied the border by the gate, while Peter and Ann tidied around the top of the Italian gard ...

daffs 2020

Planting a host of daffodils

Martin, Lyn, Peter and Ann planted hundreds of daffodils and Valerie and Ann planted tulips, as we look forward to 2021. Elsewhere, in the Glade we planted a himalayan birch in memory of Diana Creasey, to join the one planted for Brian. They are a small t ...

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Another little stepping stone

Our next big restoration project will be the balustrading around the lilypond. But while we are putting the plans for that into place and fundraising for it, we have funded the laying of a few additional slabs to make it easier to cross from the restored ...

bty

Hot, hot, hot

It was 28 degrees at times on Thursday and it felt it! We had volunteers back working in the Gardens, with a full set of Covid 19 risk mitigation measures in place. So we spread out across the Gardens to start getting back on top of more of the basic main ...

rhododendron 1 May 2020

A beautiful invasive species!

The Rhododendrons are flowering prolifically in the Japanese garden under development. Our volunteers are progressively cutting them back into shape, so not letting them be the menace they can be when left untended. In large parts of the UK they have take ...

japanese pagoda jan 2020 cropped

Standing tall

The Japanese garden now has its pagoda standing tall and the Salix Gracilistyla Mount Aso (Japanese pink pussy willow), magnolias and rhododendrons all have buds. It’s very exciting to see this garden developing and in 2020 the design will be streng ...

pagoda cropped

kosame turns to ooame

It rains a lot in Japan and so they have at least 50 words for different types of rain. This might have been kosame – before it turned to ooame later! Anyway, it was probably appropriate for erecting a pagoda!! Our volunteers are so dedicated and we ...