marionsgardenblog

Visit to Burghley House and Burghley Horse Trials

2011-09-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

The first owner of Burghley House was Sir William Cecil who was Queen Elizabeth I Chancellor. It was built for him between 1588 and 1587. Burghley House is a magnificent example of Elizabethan architecture and it was originally built in the shape of the letter 'E' as a tribute to Queen Elizabeth I. When Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was commissioned to landscape the park and gardens the north-west wing of Burghley House was demolished in order to get a better view of the parkland.

The parkland around Burghley House is well worth a visit. Capability Brown created broad avenues across the park which are ideal for horse riding and cycling as well as walking. He also created a very large artificial lake which looks more like a river. Capability Brown also designed the Lion Bridge which straddles the lake. The original lions didn't stand up very well to the elements and they were replaced in 1844. On very cold, frosty winter days the lake freezes and people enjoy standing on the bridge and watching the ducks an moor hens sliding across the ice.

Each year in early September the Burghley Horse Trials are held in the grounds of Burghley House. This is an international event and lasts for four days from Thursday to Sunday - the most exiting being the Saturday, when the Cross Country event is held. The Burghley Horse Trials were first held in 1961 when the owner, the Marquess of Exeter, suggested it as a venue for a three day event when another venue had to pull out and the Cross Country course has been re-designed a number of times. The current designer is Capt. Mark Phillips, former husband of Princess Anne. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Burghley Horse Trials and we can probably expect it to be an extra special event.

Even if you are not really interested in horses the Burghley Horse Trials are a great day out. There will be a large number of shops in the grounds, an entire village seems to appear overnight. Many upmarket London shops will be tempting the visitors and there are always several craft tents where you can find that really unusual Christmas present. Shopping at Burghley Horse Trials is a real experience and you can get anything, from fine foods to Aga cookers, wood burning stoves to the finest leather boots.

While there is plenty of food and drink available many people enjoy bringing a picnic. Once this was a great scramble to find a good place but, if you have remembered to book your tickets early you can book reserved picnic parking and be allocated a pitch with your tickets.

Today is the first day of the 2011 Burghley Horse Trials and, as luck would have it, the weather is glorious and the forecast is good - let the fun begin.

Plum Crazy

2011-08-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

This year we seem to be having an amazing glut of plums which is astonishing, as we have had one of the worst summers I can remember. It seems to have been cold and damp for weeks and as we are now in late August we cannot realistically expect the weather to change for the better.

The fact that we have a fabulous crop of plums is a consolation at least. The humble plum has been somewhat neglected in recent years as people have been able to enjoy an ever extending strawberry season. Strawberries seem to have become an all year round fruit and can even be seen on the shelves at Christmas. I don't know about you but I think imported strawberries out of season are absolutely tasteless and the texture isn't good either.

These days it is extremely difficult to get native plums in the supermarkets, as they seem to favour the imported plums. If you don't have your own plum tree and want to eat native plums you should try your local market or farmers' market who often have several varieties. If you have a good farm shop close by you should be able to get good native plums.

There is definitely some kind of plum revival going on. Pershore in Worcestershire is holding its second Plum Festival over the August Bank Holiday, after having huge success with their first last year. Pershore has had a connection with plums for quite a while, the cooking plum 'Pershore Yellow Egg' was found growing wild there in the early 19th century. If you live locally and can get to the festival it should be well worth it.

If you want to grow plums in your own garden there is a wide choice and what kind of plum tree you get depends on how much space you have in your garden. Old fashioned plum trees are quite large but there are now smaller rootstocks available, making them more suitable for the small garden. You can also fan train a plum tree against a wall or fence. As most plums are self fertile you need only buy one tree.

Plum trees are not difficult to grow and experts say that you should prune in the summer because if you prune in the winter you leave the tree prone to silverleaf. Plum trees can also be prone to aphids and if you don't want to use chemicals you might try spraying with soapy water.

When it comes to choosing the variety it is very much down to your own taste. Greengages have a fantastic flavour and are full of sweetness while the Victoria plum is a really good allrounder. In a warm, sunny summer it is full of flavour and juice and it is also excellent for cooking. I have frozen Victoria plums successfully too, it's real treat to have plums throughout the winter. My absolute favourite for jam making is the Damson - there is nothing like freshly baked scones, clotted cream and Damson jam.

Plants that attract Bees and Butterflies

2011-08-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone has read in the Press that bees and butterflies have been struggling of late and here in the UK there has been a nationwide butterfly survey which has resulted in making gardeners aware that our butterflies need a bit of help. Very often it is only a minor change in our behaviour that can make a huge difference. When doing some research at Kew Gardens into the decline of the holly blue butterfly it was discovered that the holly blue likes to hibernate in dead holly leaves. Kew Gardens, being a very tidy place, the leaves were raked up regularly, leaving the holly blue without anywhere to hibernate and there was a sharp drop in numbers. As soon as Kew Gardens became aware of this they left the dead holly leaves on the ground and there was a steep increase in the holly blue butterfly population.

Butterflies are quite fussy and have a liking for plants that are rich in sugar. This is very important for them as they need to top up with sugars before hibernation. Plants such as buddleia and Michaelmas daisies have a high sugar content and are good plants to grow if you want to attract butterflies. If you are not sure what plants to put in your garden so that the butterflies have plenty of food try one of the number of butterfly flower seed mixes that are being sold in packs at most nurseries and garden centres.

The reduction in the bee population is quite scary - if there are no bees plants won't get pollinated and there will be a distinct lack of flowers, vegetables, wheat etc. - the consequences are too horrible to contemplate. We can all do our bit by growing plants that will attract bees and provide them with plenty of nectar for most of the year. People often assume that bees are only active when it is relatively warm but they will actually fly when it is as cool as 12C (54F) which can take us into November in a mild year, certainly in my part of the country.

This means that we should take care when doing our planting plan for beds and borders and we should make sure that there are enough flowers and plants for the bees to feed on later in the year. Buddleias are a great favourite with bees and their long flower stems will provide much needed food. If you can delay pruning your buddleias until early March you will provide food for the bees when there is not much else around. Sedum Autumn Joy is a fantastic plant to have in the garden and on late, sunny autumn days you can hear the buzzing of the bees as they are busy extracting the nectar.

Some of the honeysuckles carry on blooming until the first frosts, especially if they are in a sheltered spot against a sunny wall or fence and they are always a great favourite with the bees. Earlier in the year the bees will like lavender, Phlox, Foxgloves, Cornflowers and Allium, among others. We should also remember that a number of the plants we consider to be weeds and are usually busy getting rid of are very popular among the bees, namely thistles and nettles - the bees love the flowers. I appreciate that in a small garden you might not want large clumps of thistles and nettles as it would soon look an untidy mess but if you have a larger garden, especially in the country, you might be able to keep a bit of a rough patch with thistles and nettles to help feed the bees.

We have all become a bit obsessive with the tidiness of our gardens and this is very much tied to the lifestyle concept where the garden has become 'another room' rather than a bit of nature outside the back door. Over time insects and animals have suffered loss of habitat and if we can all do a little bit to restore some of this we should be able to co-habit side by side quite comfortably.

The Mixed Border in Late Summer and Early Autumn

2011-08-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

August can be a tricky time for the mixed boarders. A lot of herbaceous plants are well past their best and start getting leggy and looking bedraggled. I can never quite decide whether to keep the 'summer' look going for as long as possible or whether to cut my losses and go full into autumn colours.

The summer border is probably my favourite - I adore old fashioned roses with their heady scent. The David Austin roses with their big, blousy heads that also look fantastic arranged in a vase with other summer flowers like Delphiniums, Lupins and Foxgloves. The colours ranging from pale cream through various shades of pink to deep purple just spell high summer to me.

As I was walking around my local garden centre at lunchtime today it was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, but there was already a feel of late summer in the air. You just know that in another two or three weeks, once the August Bank Holiday is over, the weather could turn colder, although we've had a lovely Indian summer for the last couple of years.

Once the weather turns colder and the days get shorter it seems somehow appropriate to plant hotter colours, almost as if we were trying to compensate for the fact that the temperature is dropping. Among my favourite late summer and autumn flowers are dahlias. They come in so many different shapes and colours that there really is something for everyone. I love the single varieties and especially the deep red and orange ones. Probably the best known of the single red dahlias is 'Bishop of Llandaff'. The lovely red flowers are offset by the beautiful bronze foliage. It is very popular and sells out quickly. If you miss out there are other dahlias in the 'Bishop' range. 'Bishop of Dover' is single flowered and almost white, 'Bishop of Oxford' is bright orange and 'Bishop of York' is a very pale orange.

If your taste is for something a bit more dramatic you might want to try some of the cactus dahlias which come in an amazing variety of size and colour. Dahlia Nuit d'ete has fantastic blackish red flowers and look stunning in a mixed border, especially in a group of about five. The white Playa Blanca and Yellow Star are also superb.

Now is the time to plan your dahlias for next year and it pays to buy early as the popular varieties sell out quickly. If you can't find your favourites in your local nursery or garden centre try mail order or the internet. If you have some gaping spaces in your border you could still enjoy some dahlias this year - the single varieties do well in pots and you can buy them now in many garden centres already planted up. Simply place the pots in the gaps in your border and you have an instant injection of colour in your borders.

If you would like to see dahlias in bloom before you make up your mind which varieties to plant and you are within striking distance of Cambridge, England I can recommend a trip to Anglesey Abbey, which is owned by the National Trust. They have an amazing collection of dahlias in the formal gardens and they also have a dedicated dahlia garden where a display of 80 different varieties can be seen from August to November.

Dahlias are by no means the only flowers to be enjoyed in the late summer and autumn border. There are many varieties of gladioli, glorious sedums, Autumn Joy being among my favourites, Rubeckias ranging from buttery yellows to burnt orange, Physalis alkekengi, better known as Chinese Lanterns and the wonderful Verbena bonariensis, which seems to go on and on.

As we go into late Summer

2011-08-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

Suddenly we are in the middle of August and I don't know about you, but I usually begin to panic around this time of year about all the jobs I had planned to do and havn't even started. Let's be realistic - quite a number of them won't get done and will be put on the 'to do' list for next year.

Whatever has been left undone as we go into late summer there are one or two things we should concentrate on. The soil is still warm enough to sow quick growing salads and oriental vegetables, this means we will have fresh, home-grown salad crops well into autumn. Now is also the time to plant onion sets to overwinter for early onions next year. Varieties such as 'Shakespeare', 'Troy' and 'Senshuy' should do well and 'Jermor' shallots are also very good.

Keep feeding and watering your containers and hanging baskets and they will be flowering until the first frost. The roses are now well past their best and many of them will have formed hips, which can look very attractive and are also useful for drying and using for Christmas decorations. If you have constantly deadheaded your roses they will have produced new growth and you will often be rewarded with another flush in early autumn.

If you have grown beautiful fuchsias this year now is the time to take cuttings. Take strong, non-flowering shoots of new growth about 10-14cm long. Remove the lower leaves and slit the base of the stem, dip in hormone rooting powder and plant in a mixture of perlite with seed compost, about three cuttings to a small pot. Cover with a clear plastic bag and leave in a warm, bright place.

As we move into late summer it is time to clear up the vegetable plot and make room for more crops. Get rid of any lettuces that have bolted and pull out the old broad bean stalks. In their place sow rocket, pak choi and mizuna and you will be eating fresh, homegrown crops well into autumn. If you invest in some cloches to cover your veg and salad crops once the weather turns colder you can extend your growing season even further.

If you have any empty beds in your veg plot sow green manure such as red clover or Italian ryegrass to feed the soil for next year.

If you like growing your own garlic you should do this in late autumn - try varieties like 'Early Purple Wight' and 'Wight Cristo'. By just putting in a little effort in late summer you will be rewarded with delicious tender veg and salad crops well into autumn and even early winter.

Visiting Beautiful Gardens

2011-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have the good fortune to be living within striking distance of a number of amazing stately homes and castles with beautiful gardens that are open to the public. A number of those are owned by the National Trust and English Heritage. For those readers who are not from the UK the National Trust and English Heritage own a large number of English castles and stately homes. You can sign up for membership and for an annual fee you have access to all the properties owned by either English Heritage or the National Trust.

The price of the membership is well worth it if you are interested in history or beautiful gardens or both. I can remember many wonderful days out when my children were young at very little cost, as we were able to get access for free. We would take a picnic and the most expensive part of the day would be ice cream for the children.

One of the National Trust properties close to us is Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire which has been described as the perfect English Country House estate. Be that as it may, I can remember my young son enjoying the very fine adventure playground which had been created in the grounds and he spent many a happy hour there. The gardens and park are wonderful and there is a very fine Orangery which is well worth a visit. Belton House has been used on a number of occasions in film and TV. If you have seen the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, it was used to represent 'Rosings' Lady Catherine's home. The interiors of Belton House were also used for the BBC Pride and Prejudice, note the shots of Elizabeth playing the piano and Darcy going up the staircase after Elizabeth rejects his proposal.

Another great stately home close to us is Burghley House in Stamford, Lincolnshire which was built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I Lord High Treasurer. Burghley is owned privately and parts of the house are open to the public. The magnificent park is open to the public all year round free of charge. In September each year the Burgley Horse Trials are held here - a three day event very popular and attracting many visitors. Even if cross country and jumping isn't your kind of thing there are many stalls and exhibitions giving this event a real country fair atmosphere.

Burghley House has also been used in the recent film of Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth. This time it served as 'Rosings' with Judy Dench in residence, as Lady Catherine.

A Sunny Sunday Morning

2011-08-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

It's wonderful to wake up to a sunny Sunday morning, we've not had that many this summer. It is also quite warm, so a good opportunity to get on with some gardening jobs. One of my major projects at the moment is to completely re-plant a bed which was cleared late last year. It is right in front of a large window and had become completely overgrown. The bed is the first thing you see when you come up the drive so, ideally, it should look good all year round which is not always easy to achieve.

I'm currently wrestling with design ideas thinking I should probably use at least a couple of evergreens for structure and I'm toying with the idea of some lavender for edging, although lavender can look a bit bleak once it has stopped flowering. For summer interest I'm thinking of hydrengeas, because they have a long flowering period and the heads still look good when they have dried up. Then maybe some verbena bonariensis as they give height without density - the bed is north facing and quite shady, one of the reasons why I'm not considering roses.

For Spring interest I'll plant bulbs - no daffofils though, once they have finished blooming they look horrible. This is fine if you can hid them in the middle of a bed or border but in this bed they're not really feasible. The smaller bulbs should look lovely - snowdrops, always welcome as the harbingers of Spring, little blue grape hyathinth and some of the small anenomies. Some Lily of the Valley for scent and some Iris, they come in so many beautiful colours.

It's looking good in my mind's eye - fingers crossed that it will look as good once the bed is planted up. I'll post some photos here so you can check the progress. As always, of course, it will depend what's available at the local garden centres and nurseries.

The Tail End of Summer

2011-08-13T03:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I think the summer of 2011 has been one of the worst I can remember. It never really got going - we had two wonderful weeks in April when we were enjoying afternoon tea and balmy evenings in the garden. Everyone got excited about the long, hot summer that was coming. Plans were made for picnics and barbecues and then reality hit. As April moved into May and May into June the weather was cold and windy. Initially there was little rain and the ground was so dry that it was beginning to crack. Then, in June the rain came, as always, just in time to ruin the best blooms on my Albertine Rose.

Here we are now in the middle of August and things are not looking any better. I remember a lovely warm weekend at the beginning of July, Wimbledon finals weekend, but other than that definitely not a memorable summer.

My home grown veg are a disaster this year. Having been very busy in early Spring I decided that I would not grow everything from seed and bought young tomato plants at my local Garden Centre. Not a good move - out of six plants five got some sort of blight and look very sorry for themselves. My only decent tomato plants are the ones my Dad grew from seed. The two yellow courgette plants I bought at my local Garden Centre turned out to be green and are the worst tasting courgettes I've ever had.

I did try to get ahead of the game early in the year and bought a whole batch of veg seed from an internet company. Fired up with enthusiasm I got four different sorts of beans. Out of 48 climbing Borlotti beans not one came up! That's got to be a bad batch rather than me, especially as I've always grown beans sucessfully. The lack of beans was the last straw and I decided I would cut my losses on the veg this year and start again next year, having made a proper planting plan and making enough time for early sowing in the cold frame.