Easton Lodge is a Victorian Gothic style stately home in Little Easton in Essex.
This time of year we are all kept busy tidying to extend the beauty of the Gardens into the autumn. The Helenium and Nepeta complement each other beautifully and the roses and dahlias are still flowering away in the Italian garden and the walled kitchen garden. After strong growth through the year, the herb beds have needed radical cutting back. And volunteElsewhere there has been lots of grass-cu ...
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 ...
It was lovely to welcome lots of visitors and their children this week – we are open every Thursday and on Sunday 20th August will have lots of extra fun activities for children. And our visitors were treated to an abundance of butterflies, enjoying the buddleia, the lavender hedges, the dahlia border and other flowers, particularly in the Italian Garden and in the walled kitchen garden. It ...
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 ...
Between the showers today, the butterflies, bumblebees and a hummingbird hawk moth enjoyed feasting from the lavender. And volunteers and visitors enjoyed seeing them there! Why not come to our Open Day on Sunday and do your Big Butterfly Count at the Gardens? The details of the Count are HERE – it starts tomorrow and runs till 6 August. The Gardens are looking fresh and green again after t ...
The dahlia delight is starting, as the extraordinarily huge Cristophii alliums fade, in the flower border in the walled kitchen garden. The rain has flattened the alstroemeria and some roses, but we can help the latter. And the rain was hugely welcome as the Gardens have been parched for weeks: the dahlias will be twice their height in no time and the rain will help bring on the soft fruit and veg ...
The orchids on the bank are today’s favourite flower, but others are also looking lovely, in particular the waterlilies and irises and the roses. It was a very busy day for volunteers today, with lots of veg to be planted, weeding, edge cutting and strimming; and of course watering too, as we haven’t had any rain for a long time. Visitors chatted to volunteers at work and relaxed over ...
Our volunteers have developed this lovely stumpery, which has matured and will soon be properly accessible again after this year’s work on the rill. The stumpery is half way down the Glade, so a reward on the walk down to the Japanese style garden and tenboudai looking out onto the fishing lake. It was a lovely day at the Gardens yesterday, with the laburnums dripping gold, the wild service ...
What a lovely week it has been and our Open Thursday visitors enjoyed it as much as we volunteers did. Why not join us next week? The sun shone and the blossom and bluebells were stunning. The tulips were iridescent in the Italian Garden and there are the first roses there too and the solomon seal on its way. The wild areas of the Gardens are changing daily: primroses and cowslips all over the pl ...
This Sunday, 23 April, is the Trust’s first ever Tudor Day, so volunteers were focused on getting the Gardens ready for this special event. The Companye of Merrie Folke have been preparing for Lord Burleigh (Queen Elizabeth I’s Chief Adviser) and entourage’s visit to Easton Lodge and the many fun activities they have planned for our visitors. So we needed to ensure the Gardens a ...
In the winds earlier this week we lost another old tree, not a particularly valued one, fortunately. So it was great to be planting a new one the same week! This is a lovely prunus. The daffodils are coming out now across the Gardens, while work continues apace to finish winter jobs – a new path going in, reworking of the rill, work on the buildings etc. And some spring pruning and the first ...
These iris are a joy to see as another herald of spring, but you have to snap a picture when you see them as the deer love eating them! We are also now seeing the pink pussy willow in the Japanese garden (Salix Mount Aso) and the first daffodils. Volunteers worked this week on splitting our snowdrop clumps and planting out snowdrops from our nursery bed to make for an even better show next year. W ...