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A lovely snowdrop Thursday

Many visitors enjoyed the first ever Snowdrop Thursday this week. They sensibly came prepared for all weathers and there was a very chill wind blowing across the overflow carparking on the airfield road. But the Gardens have some shelter and later in the ...

027 2022 02 10

Snowdrops in the green

What a busy day… lifting snowdrops in the green ready for sale at the first Snowdrop Open Day, this Sunday 13th February, and lots and lots of tidying of the Gardens so they look at their best. The snowdrops are bang on schedule, with swathes fully ...

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The snowdrops are coming!

The snowdrops are everywhere – they have spread and we have helped them along! Yesterday Petra was at the Gardens and set up this lovely photo of snowdrops on one of the old brackets in the kitchen wall. Her photocards will be on sale at the Gardens ...

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Dead, crossed or poor shape

Neil helped us prune the apples and pears this week. My recollection of his key messages: first cut out dead wood; then take out branches which cross; and finally focus on the shape of the tree – with the aim of opening up the centre to allow air to ...

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New year, new home

Sue, new volunteer Jo, and Peter took the opportunity of lovely weather and relatively soft soil on Thursday to move these cornus bushes from their nursery bed to the winter walk. Meanwhile others gave a new home to snowdrops recovered from a compost pile ...

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A fun activity

The wisps weren’t very long to play with this year, but Clare still managed to create a lovely swirly crown for the willows by the rill pond. It was a cool morning, when Ian and Tony were planting trees in a small glade and Sue was sowing wild flowe ...

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All hands on leaf collecting

The thing about arboretums is they produce a lot of leaves! Last year the leaves disappeared – we must have had winds just as the leaves were falling? This year we have worked hard to collect them in, so that we can make lots of lovely leaf mould, f ...

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A gorgeous autumn day

Today the sun shone and it was beautifully warm at the Gardens, so it was a real pleasure to be there, cutting back the geraniums, planting bulbs, raking leaves, adding to the dead hedges and getting the rill flowing. It was lovely to welcome Ruth from th ...

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Larking

We get a lot done on volunteer days at the Gardens – and have fun too! This week we spread out around the Gardens in a big push to tidy up and get ready for this Sunday’s final Open Day of the season. We have picked and cleaned the pumpkins an ...

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Onward march

Looking for unexploded ordnance and finding plant labels, that is the name of this game – Bill has been making steady progress on it and this week Paul and Peter from Great Easton joined the fray. Our hope is that, once the way has been declared cle ...