bty

Golden in the sunshine

The golden yews were shining today and, turning our thoughts to warmer times to come, we hatched plans to take cuttings so that we can replace those we have had to remove and we have back-up should any more succumb to phytophthora. Work continued on the n ...

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 ...

bty

Swampy sheds her gold

We believe this tree by the fishing lake, beyond the bottom of the Garden, is a marsh cypress (taxodium distichum), also known as a red cypress.  That sounds right doesn’t it? They are native to the South East of the USA, but are recognised as a goo ...

bdr

Beautiful, if grey

Well, it mostly didn’t rain, and the wood around the Gardens was looking particularly beautiful, shining under the grey skies. We had a good crew in, so we set to and did more tidying up in the Italian garden and walled kitchen garden, pruning of th ...

Stumpery 3 cropped nov 2019

Growing our stumpery!

We have had this gorgeous stump for a while, but couldn’t move it! It nearly defeated Trevor’s truck, but luckily didn’t so is now installed and sitting pretty! We had another dry day, so cracked on with planting more bulbs, pruning lave ...

bty

Precision in action!

Roger’s parks management skills are legendary – and no doubt this leaf mould will fall precisely where wanted!! Leaf mould bins and compost bins were dug out today and the lovely mulches were distributed where they are needed most – part ...

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Moving on the spiders!

It’s nearly Halloween, but we can’t have spiders spoiling our refreshments offer at the last Open Day of the season this Sunday! The Gardens are looking gorgeous, refreshed by the rains and not yet hit by frost! In the Italian Garden thereR ...

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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 wheel their barrows in and out and avoid bumping up and down the newly restored steps! We were vi ...

bdr

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 Appley Dapply! Cressing Temple Barns’ gardening volunteers visited for the day, bringing ...

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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 the second world war as well as more recent stuff as we start to clear it. A good start on anoth ...

bty

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 croquet set and in 1865 a variation on the then normal game was promoted in the ‘Rules of ...