Winter is coming.

Watching the walled gardens evolve is a slow but very rewarding process. When we close to the public at the end of October we continue to be just as busy as we are in spring (much to non gardeners amazement), however the type of work we execute is different, it at this time of year we look at.

Lawn care, including scarifying, feeding, aerating and top dressing.

Building works such as path installation, repairs and maintenance (much harder to do safely when our visitors are present)

Pruning of dormant shrubs, climbers, fruit and perennials.

Cleaning and maintenance of glass structures.

Tree work

It is very easy indeed to keep busy through these months and as with anytime of the year a garden is subject to an almost cyclical series of tasks, for example you tend to sow your Tomato seeds, do the first mow, prune the vines and plant the Tulips all at approximately the same time of the year. This is true of any completed garden with the exception of perhaps some new projects or plants to care for. However as Holkham are in the process of rejuvenating the Walled garden we are finding that each year this changes as the project marches onwards.

The first year I was here a lot of time was dedicated to clearing of overgrown shrubs, which allowed room for new projects. In my first full close season we were mainly building paths and beginning our commitment to mulch, this allowed better access to the garden and saved some time in the growing season with less weeding needed in the mulched areas. The second full close season saw us build the last few pathways creating the extension to the veg patch, build a timber education centre and again up the ante on the mulching stakes.

So what does this mean?.

Well now that the majority of the construction is done we can concentrate a little more on plant care, ensuring the entire garden is mulched, renovation pruning of overgrown climbers is completed along with planting some exciting new ones (watch this space). The main benefit however won't be realised until spring and summer, extra time afforded by our mulching programme will allow us for the first time to tie in climbers as they grow, dead head more often and start to edit our borders.

The great thing is that the standard is rising and horticultural tasks that we had to (painfully) ignore and walk past will now have a chance of being completed instead of being ignored because of more pressing matters, which is the nature of a restoration.


The project reaching a much more interesting time is hugely supported by our team of amazing volunteers, subsequently the full time staff are drip feeding the volunteers with the knowledge necessary to progress in the form of short workshops based around horticultural tasks and plant identification sheets.

One of our volunteers Kate, emphasises the flurry or activity still happening behind the scenes.

"A friend of mine thought that as Holkham was now closed until the Spring and that my volunteering in the walled gardens was on hold until then.
How wrong was she! Although there is no requirement to turn up every week and certainly not when it's pouring with rain, this is a busy time of the year in the gardens. We're getting them ready for the Winter and making the most of the fact that the weeds are slowing down. This gave us volunteers time to dead head, tidy and prepare the soil for mulching. We also learnt a bit about hard wood propagation, from the experts.

This week Philip, the Head of Landscapes, had an 'important' birthday. So all the team, gardeners and volunteers got together at lunch time to celebrate with some lovely cakes. So yummy, it's not all hard work, but just enough to justify cake!"

The "Beyond the Walls" project continues at full steam towards our goal of restoring some of the derelict structures and improving our visitor offering, in the interim we aim to have the gardens looking as good as is humanly possible.

Mulching

The Heavily fragrant Edgeworthia chrysantha var. grandiflora, leaves us in anticipation of the delights it has in store for us. 

With 6 and a half acres of Walled garden we are very privileged to have a huge growing footprint, this abundance of space allows us to grow every thing from the rarest shrub from deepest Asia, to the ubiquitous Onion.  However there is a caveat.  By creating clement growing conditions, water, shelter and food we also invite "Volunteer plants" (a polite term for weeds).  Ive mentioned before that not all volunteer plants are bad (see the Wildflower post), a self seeding Digitalis can be an absolute delight.

One of the best ways to combat annual weed is to use a mulch, covering the soil surface with a 3 or 4 inch layer of organic material to exclude the light and limit annual seed germination. 

You can mulch with a lot of different materials including inert gravels, crushed glass and even plastic sheeting, but in many cases its better to use a well rotted organic matter, such as manure or compost.

Its easiest to mulch your beds when your plants are not in their full glory, a great time is in autumn perhaps after a tidy up in your herbaceous borders and when the vegetable patch starts to empty out.

This Daphne sp. brings welcome colour with its scent, a real treat in midwinter.

How to use a mulch effectively.


1.  Prepare the site, remove all perennial weeds such as Thistles, Dandelion, Couch grass etc.  These persistent plants will happily grow through your mulch.  You can get away with using a hoe for the smaller annual weeds.  Make sure the site is both frost free and moist, you don't want to trap frost or a dry strata within your mulch.

2.Cover the open soil uniformly to a depth of 3 to 4 inches or 10cm.  You could apply a layer or two of newspaper to the surface before adding your chosen surface material to make the process extra effective.

3.Avoid dropping the mulch into the crowns of evergreen plants such as Kniphofia spp.  Rake level.

By mulching now we shall reap the benefits later in the season and weed control should be much less challenging at our busiest time.  Other benefits to mulching include.

• Make soil more moisture retentive
• Helps warm the soil.
• Improves soil structure.
• Increases bio mass/diversity within the soil.
• Looks great aesthetically.
• Adds nutrients to soil.

We always try to be sustainable where possible and to that end we use a Bio Digestate to mulch with, this is obtained as a by product from the estate Bio Digesters used to generate energy.

 Another source of organic material comes via our relationship with London Zoo who trade their herbivore waste for a supply of Quercus ilex brash used to feed their Giraffes.

Here one of our hard working Volunteers Ted applies a Zebra manure, he joked that we "might get stripey roses", we shall have to wait and see.