As I sit in my familiar place in the garden shed to write this blog, the wind is whistling and it is snowing leaves which then hurtle to the ground. We also have rain – that very rare commodity that I dreamed of this summer, and it is truly proper, British wellie boot weather for NGS Garden Ferns Lodge.
We are getting on with our monster project. The 4,500 litre sweet water tank is now in the ground, and we have removed masses of laurels and drilled them to make way for him. He is fed by the gutters of the little Dutch barn and there is a downpipe to take water from the new greenhouse and its gutters which is to be delivered next spring. The footings for this charming structure is the next job, together with masses of more clearing followed by an industrial amount of planting. I have plants brought on and ready to go into the ground, but their size and quantity is feeble in comparison with what will be needed! However it’s only October and we don’t open for the NGS until the beginning of June… What could possibly go wrong!!!
In amongst the the autumn cut back, the greenhouse project and the general hurly burly of getting NGS garden Ferns Lodge put to bed for the winter, its fun to look back on this summer in the garden. Despite the dry weather and all the challenges that this brought, as ever the high spot was our opening for the NGS. Helped by Harry Shutler, who is an epic photographer and videographer (as well as being much loved by Ghillie), we now have a video of the garden which you can watch here –
I say helped, Harry was clearly the brains of the operation and Ghillie was definitely the star, although the garden does put in a great appearance despite our walk around being taken at the start of very dry weather. I am afraid that you can see the start of the great brown-out here as grass, plants, trees (and even the tree ferns) first turned a sickly colour and then worse. Most things in the garden are now well on the mend and many have put on new foliage to make up for the miserable time that they had in the heat.
Of course next year we will have our secret weapon – our lovely 4,500 litres of sweet water which will make a big difference and that is very exciting. I can’t wait to see it all coming together and to do another video showing you all the changes that we have made. Better still, why not visit us at next year’s NGS opening on the 3rd and 4th June 2023 – please be sure to save the date!
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.
