Easton Lodge is a Victorian Gothic style stately home in Little Easton in Essex.
This time of year gardening is about lots of forms of tidying: pruning to get structural bushes into shape, deadheading to leave the new flowers centre stage, the last of the strimming off of wildflower areas and of course lawn cutting. There’s always more to be done! It was a lovely day for visitors, with the Italian Garden and the Dahlia Border looking stunning. And lots of produce to sell ...
The dahlia border is now a picture, and the first job this week was to do deadheading so it looked its best for visitors! Elsewhere there was weeding to do, now that weeds are growing again following the rains; grass cutting and strimming to tidy the Gardens; and more tying in of climbing squashes – this week they reached the apex of their A-frames! Also fruit picking for jamming – the ...
Last year the dahlias flourished and won prizes, despite the rains through the summer. This drought year Sam and Richard have been working hard and the dahlias are fighting back now they have had a little rain – why not come and see for yourself this Sunday, 21 August? Following this week’s downpour, volunteers could focus on tidying and deadheading and not just watering. That should h ...
The grass is brown and a few plants are suffering, but there colour in the Italian garden, particularly from the Helenium and waterlilies, and in the dahlia border in the walled kitchen garden. And the mulberries and plums are sweeter than ever! We are watering the priority plants and trees and hoping for rain…and lots of visitors to buy our plums, potatoes, beans, courgettes, etc!
We have got a lot of work done this week, so the Gardens are looking good for this Sunday’s Open Day, when we will have a range of activities and music, in the shade, to take a moment to remember the Gardens and the surrounding area in the World Wars. We have been watering as much as we can, so there will be produce on sale too. We are lucky that we have lots of shade at the Gardens, so on a ...
We have been watching and waiting for the wild orchids to flower – and these bee orchids are as stunning as we hoped and the spotted orchids have definitely multiplied since we started a wild-flower mowing regime on the bank. The self-seeded foxgloves are also beautiful, with a whole array of them in the corner of the walled kitchen garden, and the poppies are coming. The specimen plants are ...
We are having a good year for apples and hope you will come and enjoy them with us, on Sunday, at our Apples and Bees Day. We have a good picking of Bramleys for sale and volunteers have taken some for jellies, mincemeat and cakes for the Open Day. Visitors will be able to make apple juice with the Friends of Cressing Temple and to ID apples with volunteers from the East of England Apples and Orch ...
What a tonic it was, to enjoy sunshine and a little warmth in the Italian Garden and the walled kitchen garden this Thursday, after all the rain. The Gardens are very boggy and it has been impossible for Roger and team to re-lay the path by the gate. But as always, there is always something else on the list that can be done, so long as you don’t now walk on the borders or the snowdrops and d ...
The forecast for Sunday is good; our bakers have been busy; we have gathered in our pumpkins; and our gardeners have cut the grass, deadheaded and weeded. The roses are still flowering and the trees are picking up their autumn colours. So, once we have put the Covid queueing arrangements back in place, we will be ready for the last open day of the season. Excitingly, we are also launching a fundra ...
What a lovely Open Day we had last Sunday – we welcomed many first time visitors to the Gardens as well as regulars and the rain held off till nearly closing time. The Woodland Trust and Essex Wildlife Trust volunteers enjoyed talking to visitors too and will return for the September and October Open Days. And visitors snapped up the plants and produce: the coppicers’ plant supports, t ...
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 steps to the existing paving. Meanwhile, the focus of the day was on our trees in advance of our next Open Day on 16 August. We had a lesson on f ...
Box tree caterpillars can eat their way through all the leaves on box bushes/trees and there can be 2 or 3 caterpillar hatchings a year. The moths were first reported in Britain in 2007 and are now widespread in London and the South East, so we have been keeping our eyes peeled for them. We have traps in place and Steve and Tony today were continuing the Herculean job of spraying. It was the hotte ...