At NGS garden Ferns Lodge – 2020 is upon us but we have a plan!

Our lovely garden plan drawn by Tinstar has been updated this month to show the big works that are in hand at Ferns Lodge for 2020. I don’t pretend that we will be ready for the NGS opening in May which is why they are marked – Works in Progress!

Please follow this link and the video of the drawing of this map has been updated to show the new features at Ferns Lodge.

Our first project is by the bottom meadow where the bees are to get altogether more salubrious quarters as Bee Lane has been cleared and some sick saplings and rubbish taken down to allow a rather fine but wonky young oak tree to straighten up. The rubbish pile left by builders probably 20 years ago is now home to ferns and lambs tongues and moss – we are keeping this complete with rusty wires and angle irons as a reminder of a landmark when I first walked this old garden.

There is now a prickly bed which we hope will look fab for May.

At the top of the garden we have moved into the old vegetable plot and here I feel that we may have bitten off rather a big chew! Vegetables this summer seems a faint hope, but at least you will see the makings of something that will be nice one day!

Of course there are a myriad of other jobs –

• Painting garden furniture – this little mission is all but completed.
• Chipping in the top garden – we’re done with that too… There is plenty left for the big garden as we make progress in the spring.
• Our lovely top compost heap is now opened and this is a job that starts now. We have more compost in the work area, which will needed in the coming weeks.
• We also have a rather alarming poster to put up to tell everyone about tree works… One of the holm oak ring is growing over the awesome tree rhododendron by the lane and we want to trim him back to stop damage – hopefully we will get the green light soon as I would hate to lose him.
• The new Dutch Barn has now got a lovely new floor put down by the amazing Simon and so now we are ready to fill it with all those essentials that we need to move because of a project in the sedum barn – but that is for another day…!

All the while, the rain keeps coming making progress painfully slow. Warm weather sees azaleas and camellias putting out buds and we have even had a couple of flowers, and of course, there are bulbs popping up everywhere – how exciting!

Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.