This month we had our first snowfall in Toddington. It had been exceptionally mild and wet before this, but unexpectedly one morning, we woke up to a crisp white blanket covering everything. Gardens always look so neat and clean under the snow, and there is little gardeners can do outside, but it is always worth checking no branches have snapped under the weight of the snow, and theres always the job of keeping the driveway and paths snow free!
This photo show the woods behind the Manor, the main lawn in front of the house and the wonderful mature trees like the walnuts, ceder of lebanon, wellingtonias, silver lime and copper beech. The cricket square is at the bottom of the photo, as the grass is kept shorter here, it stands out against the longer outfield grass.
There a few plants braving the cold conditions of winter - the hardy ferns including dryopteris wallichiana, helleborus orientalis is almost blooming, and the marbled leaves of arum marmoratum are looking lovely.
The structures in the garden such as the wooden obelisks in the main herbaceous borders stand out against the snow too.
Our pleached are waiting patiently to be pruned back their knobbly knuckles, but look glorious against the pink manor and white snow. They are the red stemmed cultivar - tilia platyphyllos 'Rubra', so we like to leave the stems on as long as possible so providing interest during the long winter months.
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3 comments:
What gorgeous pics... they are almost enough to make me wonder if I could handle the maintenace required to have an allee of pleached trees here! (I know I couldn't--I'll have to just keep enjoying them in other people's gardens.)
I enjoyed reading your blog. I did read all the way down to August 2006. The gardens look wonderful and it is inspirational to see all the oppurtunity that I have here ahead of me. We have ten acres herewith a garden up near the house and a small hoophouse. I found your site quite by accident while searching for a topic on watering plants in a greenhouse and it lead me to your blog "the head gardener at the manor house".Penny Trupiano, Southern Michigan, USA
I'm having fun reading your Blog - it's bringing a lot back! I remember digging in the herbaceous border under the pleached limes and finding by accident the old drainage tunnel (my spade went through the bricks)running up the border on the beech side. I also remember battling with a windswept piece of paper in January 1990 trying fairly much in vain to match the original design to the plants actually "growing" in January! The other three gardeners passed me on the way to the Bothy for the 3 o'clock tea break & I joined them. When we all emerged at 3.15 the 8 wonderful Victorian chimneys had fallen in the gale, 2 crashing into the courtyard and 6 onto the path by the Copper Beech where we'd all walked at 3 o'clock - a lucky escape. I think we took at least 6 weeks clearing up the fallen trees in the gardens.
I really loved the gardens and loved working for Lady Bowman-Shaw! Lucky you!!!
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