Dear Fellow Gardeners
I do apologise for the lateness of this newsletter. A holiday in the sun and the Platinum Jubilee got the better of me!
May was certainly a busy month in the Bell House garden, with plenty of work being carried out across our three gardening days each week. Here’s a few highlights of what we achieved:
Let’s start at the front of Bell House. The ha-ha certainly had a lot of love in early May. Any brambles that were starting to set up home were dug out, as were a number of Horse Chestnut seedlings. The ha-ha is a lovely location for bluebells and they have been a success this year, brightening up all of our days when we arrive at Bell House. More bluebells will be planted out in the ha-ha, along with geraniums.
Over in the House Garden, we let the grass grow for “No Mow May” except for a mower-wide strip around the edge of the lawn. A couple of gardening sessions were spent weeding the Rose Garden and also creating a new path across the bed close to the entrance to the Rose Garden (right next to the bird feeder). The Bog Garden planting has been a great success. Everything is growing well and looking fabulous…the photo below is my best effort but doesn’t really do it justice! Another success has been the planting of forget-me-nots under the Hornbeam, these are looking beautiful along with their iris neighbours.
In the Walled Garden, we had an exciting discovery when we were moving the compost bins around – a bumblebee nest. We’ve protected the area so we don’t disturb them, and all groups still managed to sieve lots of compost ready for the vegetable beds. Already we are getting some lovely produce including broad beans and lettuces. Courgettes have been potted on as have some of our cutting flowers - cosmos and morning glory.
Towards the end of May, many of our gardeners were able to make the first group outing together. The first order of business was lunch - a delicious picnic lunch was shared in our very own sunny Bell House garden. An NGS garden at 5 Burbage Road was then visited, where the gardeners explored the beautiful plot to gather inspiration and met the creator, the lovely Rosemary. The trip was a roaring success and we hope it is the first of many. Thank you to Ellie for organising the visit. A fruit tree expert also visited the Bell House garden in May and suggested apple, pear and soft fruit trees that we could grow. A return visit will be made in the autumn to offer fruit growing workshops for our gardening group. Definitely something to look forward to .
Finally, for those who love a few numbers, 86 gardening sessions have been completed to date this year and we have 56 volunteer gardeners. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, as always, for your continued hard work in the Bell House garden.
Gaynor