July Highlights

 Despite the most awful drought conditions, the lilies and phlox are a blaze of colour and perfume so here's a few highlights from around the garden: July Highlights

 

ALL TIME TOTAL

 I thought it would be interesting to know our all time total for money raised for the National Garden Scheme.  I could never have guessed our total!! 

Can you believe this figure?

Exciting News!

We are thrilled to learn that next year PTC Garden will appear in Julia Goodfellow-Smith's guide to Worcestershire.  Julia has written a whopping SIX guide books on castles, walks and even coastal pubs!

We hope that it will mean we can raise more money for the National Garden Scheme which supports all the CARING charities.

 

Mowing Meadows

 

It's that time of year again!  Mowing the meadow grass is very much a one off seasonal job and Andrew certainly got on with it!!  In absolutely no time at all, it was cut and lugged off to the compost heap.  No hay this year as I knew rain was forecast and the chickens aren't short of nest box material. It always looks a tad dramatic but the long meadow grass and flowers will be back again next year.

Andrew in action!

In no time at all and despite the heatwave, another three hedges were all trimmed to perfection and the garden was left looking immaculate!

Royal Danish Horticultural Society

 The Danish flag was flying hih in the garden when we were thrilled to welcome members of the Royal Danish Horticultural Society last week for a visit organised last November by Ellen Callisten 

They had quite a busy itinerary with visits to Powis Castle, Ashwood, Highgrove and I insisted they visit Stockton Bury! What a lovely group of people they were!

  

RED ARROWS!!

 Seen over the garden!!

A Day of Battles!

 The Wisteria is almost a distant memory - EXCEPT for the Amethyst Falls on the garden tool shed!  This one still has a few flowers remaining and today was the day for exposing it to more sunlight by lifting the crown of the walnut behind the shed.  Not the easist of tasks but skillfully managed by Andrew who also  disentangled the tralling silver birch from the Acer brilliantissimum.

As if not enough, he then moved on to the Prunus kojo-mai that provides dappled shade to the Hostas in the Hostalry.  The worst job of all was tying up a Paul's Himalyayn Musk rambler which had blown down and was partially obstructing a public footpath.  This is a beast of a rose and both of us were bleeding from scratches.  It couldn't have happened at a worse tme - just as it's trying to bloom and absolutely covered in buds.  Success was declared mostly thanks to Andrew's dogged persistence!!