What weather we have had at NGS garden Ferns Lodge!
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk for more information.
Wet, wet, wet and then it rained some more…! Also, cold – so we still have blue bells and the foxgloves are miles away from being ready to flower. The only things that seem to be loving it are the weeds. Fortunately it is so damp that docks can be pulled out of the sodden earth – but of course, they are a large and thriving family and despite the ease of dispatch, we don’t seem to keep up. The water course is still full and Ghillie spends most of his time splashing around it its muddy, smelly water…!
Amongst all of this we have made progress, albeit slow, and super exciting – our stunning red cedar greenhouse is here and should be complete in a few short days. It is captivatingly good looking with its gothic front door, lovely porch and pretty shape. Importantly it is our Tardis to growing more at home for planting out and it will be fab once we get to grips with it. Preparing for its arrival was a big undertaking and the guys from Woodpecker Joinery have done a fab job. Excited is an understatement.
Another major job has been the levelling of the ground – twenty tons of earth and Dan with his digger! We now have something approaching level ground and the rain and sun will, we hope, germinate the grass seed before the pigeons get the lot! Another ten tons has been used to level the rest of the big garden and whilst we are far from ready for you, we might just be lucky and have grass where just now there are great tracts of black rolled earth.
The vegetable cage is coming on – broad beans, potatoes, corn, strawberries, celery, beans and stacks more. Soon we will have tomatoes, courgettes – VERY exciting.
The birdsong is deafening, there are nests all around and we have an owl that has decided to call all day. We seem to have a rather large rabbit population and despite our best efforts, the deer still like to visit and are massively partial to camellia.
So as the hurtle to the finish line continues, we are hoping for sunny, summer afternoons and we hope that you will like all that we have done at NGS garden Ferns Lodge over the winter. It has been a scramble but great fun and we can’t wait to show you what we have been up to – including our darling little greenhouse. See you in a few weeks time.
