Engineers as well as gardeners
Our volunteers are a talented bunch – here, John and Stephen are making great progress installing a ramp into the Italian Garden so that volunteers can wh ...
Appley Dapply!
In the dappled shade on a glorious September day, Thelma finished beautifying the jams and jellies today, ready for the Apple Day on Sunday. You might call her ...
As good as new
Margaret is doing a fantastic job, painstakingly cleaning up and filling the holes in our mosaic-top tables. The mosaics have a range of lovely designs and were ...
Woodland clearance starts
We now have responsibility for the woodland next to the walled garden – it is very overgrown and uneven underfoot and we expect to find there trash from t ...
Enjoying the queen of games
Croquet was all the rage in the 1860s. The Earl of Essex held lavish croquet parties at Cassiobury House (in Hertfordshire!), launched his own Cassiobury brand ...
Japanese style gardening
Is Steph channelling the Japanese gardeners that Monty Don met, who were removing grass from moss gardens blade by blade? The monks and the rest of the Gardens ...
Fit, once more, for a queen (or Countess)
The restoration of the steps was completed this week – and aren’t they fantastic? They are a joy to walk down – no longer a hazard! The stonem ...
Hot, hot, hot
On the hottest July day on record, our plucky volunteers still got stuck in …watering of course, but also grass-cutting, weeding, deadheading and carting ...
Stunning!
Open Day visitors on Sunday will love the walled garden and the Italian garden – they are looking stunning! The restoration of the stone steps is nearly f ...
What a crowd!
It must have been our highest volunteer numbers yet – 27 plus a group of 10 from GSK. So we managed to get masses of jobs done as well as the obligatory w ...
Not a weedy thistle!
This “scotch thistle” (onopordum acanthium) was probably not planted deliberately but is quite a sight! They are said to top 2.5 metres if well fed& ...
Sitting pretty
Visitors on Sunday will be able to see Colchester Institute students’ Japanese themed pieces in the Glade, including these monks, who are nestled in next ...