Outside in Gardening!

Spider plant (Chlorophytum)

Pelargonium L'Elegante

Here at PTC, not all gardening takes place outdoors.  There's always watering to do and plants to tend in the conservatory but somehow they are rarely mentioned here.  Strange how house plants could possibly have gone out of fashion.  One thing's for sure - they're bang on trend right now!!  All this talk of air quality has helped their popularity.

Ours range from Begonias and Echeverias to simple Spider Plants and Grape Ivies with some ferns.  These seem to thrive where others have failed.  Most have been propagated and grown on here.  This year, the coffees will come back in for winter as it proved too cold for them in the greenhouse and their survival was a close run thing!

A few more here.

Painting -V- Gardening!

Well lid restored

Beating the rain!

Head Gardener has been a tad busy working above and looking down upon the garden lately!  She has been busy painting the eaves of the house.  Such an opportunity was just too good to miss but it was  weird seeing the garden from such a height!  

Dark & thundery but neat & tidy again.

Now painting is all finished, it's back to gardening BIG time.  With all the heat and rain, everything has been growing furiously.  With August's garden visits looming ever closer, Head Gardener was just beginning to feel a little uneasy at so many overdue jobs.  Luckily Chris arrived unusually early this Saturday and together, we just ploughed on.  Edging, strimming, trimming, weeding.....it was just non stop - that was until about 5pm when heavy rain stopped play.  As well as house painting, a couple of garden projects were completed whilst Chris G was working here.  He made a new Wisteria arch enabling me to train our (historic) wisteria to grow from the Studio across to the front of the barn.  He also erected some shelves on the end of the tool shed and detached the well covers enabling me to remove much of the well fern growth and also creosote the lids before reinstalling them.

We finished the day feeling smug as we'd beaten the rain and we're rather more in control again - phew!

Major Pruning & Trmming!

Doing the easy side first!

The trickier side of the hedge!!

When visitors come to the garden, they nearly all enquire about the Golden Marjoram we use as underplanting beneath the roses.  At this time of year, it starts to flop so we we cut it hard back.  Today was the day for this job and the Beech hedge behind the roses also had a a good trim.  This meant a huge mess requiring a major clear up!  The roses really stand out now and in a couple of weeks the Marjoram will both green up and mound up again.

As well as Rose Garden work, Chris trimmed all 4 Philadelphus shrubs.  This year was a brilliant year for them and each one was both a mass of bloom and scent.  At least it was a nice cool day for garden work.  Cutting the Philadelpus above the culvert proved tricky as it grows very close to the edge and there's nowhere for Chris to put his big feet when he has to stand so close to the edge of a drop into deep water! The other side isn't much better as there are 2 Hydrangeas and a Sorbus to say nothing of an Acanthus jungle!!  Anyway, he managed it and hopefully next year, we'll have just as many blooms and perfume!  You can see that we gardeners are born optimists and always planning ahead!

Chris skilfully avoids falling in the culvert below.

Getting in position!

He's back!!

It was a nice surprise to find that Morse is back in the garden.  Usually he hangs out in the greenhouse but today, he was found among the pots of Acers.

Morse Toad Esq!

Cherry Picking at PTC

Thanks to Chris who, without even being asked, very thoughtfully covered a few boughs of cherries with their Cherryaid sleeves.  Look how many they picked from a relatively young tree!! Need I say that they were super delicious??!!

Halesowen Garden Club Visit PTC

Pauline & Sue

Checking out our K6 kiosk!

On a cool and breezy summer evening, PTC garden played host to 30 members from Halesowen Gardening Club who all found their way to our little garden. What a lovely group they were. One gentleman had been interested in our well  Pump Restoration when reading this blog.  He very kindly brought along copies from ('Pumpy' Thomas's) Climax wind pumps catalogue!  How very kind he was.  By coincidence, his wife came from the next village and there followed many other coincidental names and places! They all said lovely things about the garden and another |£300.00 was raised for the National Garden Scheme.  We were so glad to have the services of Sue and Pauline who rode in like the cavalry as Chris and I were still working in the garden when visitors started arriving! I vowed never to go away the w/e before a garden visit ever again!!

Having cut all the hedges whilst I did all the mowing and edging, Chris was picking our cherries and cutting Aspen suckers mintes before they arrived.  He then rushed around placing cushions on every garden seat he could find only to spot that Wisteria was hiding the stone seat.  yes you guessed, he trimmed it all neatly before arranging the cushions! I then pushed my camera into his hands and rushed off to change.  All PHOTOS OF THE VISIT were taken by him. 

Al explains the finer points of horticulture to visiting experts!!

Another gentleman who knew all about phone boxes explained how he had aquired the national collection at Avoncroft Museum of Buildings.  It didn't take him long to spot our very own K6!!  How very interesting we gardening folk really are!

A Visit from Sutton Coldfield Ladies' Gardening Club

The rain held off for 50 members of the Sutton Coldfield Ladies' Gardening Club who arrived in a coach to visit the garden and enjoy coffee, cakes and biscuits.  Joe their coach driver coped brilliantly with our narrow lanes despite encountering our dustbin lorry twice.  It was much more of a surprise for them than Joe! The ladies were all very enthusiastic about the garden and many promised to make a return visit. They then left for lunch at the Masons Arms followed by a visit to Little Malvern Court this afternoon.

What a shame we forgot to take any photos whilst they were actually here!!

This means that, so far this year, our garden has raised a total of £1185.95 for charity!