Pricking Out and Calibrating

The Wallflower seeds sown on the 29th July are now ready to be pricked out into plugs trays and Callum, under Ali's guidance, pricks out 160 seedlings. With all the plug plants now received from Ball Colegrave and potted up into larger plug trays, they have all moved into the cold frames until they have grown larger and are ready to be potted up into individual pots.

Whilst Callum and Ali work in the greenhouse, Joss is recalibrating his sprayer on the quad lawn. A new selective herbicide, Trafalgar, is going to be used on the quad and as the dose rate is different from the previously used weedkiller, a trial run, using water, needs to be completed.

Once the correct amount of water to millilitre of chemical has been worked out for the area of the lawn, the correct spray nozzle needs to be chosen to allow the tank to be emptied over the entire quad. The pace at which Joss walks is also important as he doesn't want to reach the end of the lawn with some spray mix left in the tank. Having made all the adjustments to the nozzles and his walking pace, Joss is ready to spray the quad tomorrow, weather permitting.

Pointing and Hedging

For the last three days Simon, Kieron and Callum have been repairing the york stone path in the provost's rose garden. First they removed all the old pointing, then replaced the cracked stones with new ones, finally re pointing the entire path.

Over by the car park, Joss starts to cut the tallest hedge that runs along the provost's drive, a few more days will be needed to complete this hedge.

Plugs

As Graham and Ali cleared up the wood from the fruit trees, a delivery of plug plants arrived from Ball Colegrave. The second, and last delivery, contained 360 plugs of Viola Sorbet Mixed Halloween and 84 plugs of Ivy, all needing to be potted up into larger sized plug trays. A few hours later 444 plugs had been potted up and it's back to clearing up wood for Graham and Ali.

Cracked

With fruit a plenty on the trees in the orchard, their weight has resulted in a few cracked branches. The early plum lost a large branch a month ago, now it is the turn of the greengage tree and one of the apple trees.

Graham and Ali made the trees safe by cutting the branches off and removing the wood to the chipping pile, lets hope we don't lose any more before we get to pick all the fruit.

Tug of War

This afternoon was the annual staff sports day and bbq. One of the many different sports, and new this year, was the Tug of War. Split into two teams, the gardeners joined up with the groundsmen and a few other staff competing against the maintenance team, who were joined by office staff and scouts. Out pulled by the opposition, our team lost 2 pulls to 1, better luck, and perhaps technique, next year.

In The Pouring Rain

After three days of heat the rain has come to cool us all down and give the plants a well needed drink.
Graham started the day in the greenhouse potting up 240 plug plants into larger plug trays, Viola 'Avalanche Yellow Golden'.

Joss put on his thick rain coat and went outside to work in the wet. He spent the morning spiking the main quad lawn, the rain providing the perfect condition to do this, but not so good for Joss.

Ali started the day with Simon, helping to choose the bubs needed for the college spring display, Tulips and Daffodils for the tubs and borders. Once the decisions had been made, Ali moved into the greenhouse to scrub down the aluminium staging frames, the wooden slatted tops and the floor. The weeds were then sprayed with a weedkiller, all that remains to be done, in the next few weeks, is the cleaning of the propagation mist unit and power washing all the glass.

Not deterred by the rain, Ady and Callum headed down to an outside property garden in desperate need of renovation. The picture above and below were taken back in May when we went to visit the garden to assess the work that would be required. As you can see, it was more like a jungle than a back garden and would require some time to bring it back to order, well today was the day to start that task.

By the end of the day an incredible amount of progress had been made, joined by Graham during the day, the overgrown tangle of shrubs and weeds had been cut down, all in the pouring rain.

It's Hot Up There

Three days of hot, muggy weather and the gardeners are wilting along with the flowers in the garden.
Ady, Callum and Graham have spent the last few days in The Secret Garden continuing the work started back at the beginning of March, see blog entries 'The Secret Garden' and 'Longer Than Expected'. A south facing garden, in full sun, more shrubs have have been cut back, weeds cleared, new soil added to borders and sown with grass seed to make it easier to maintain, it's hot in there.

Joss, exchanging his mower for a hedge trimmer, has been cutting one of the three hedges surrounding the car park, it's hot there too.

Having finished clearing the rubbish out from The Secret Garden, Graham joined Ali to cut back the wispy growth of the Wisteria. Now that it has finished flowering all its energy has been put into growth and has climbed up the roof of the cottages twinning up drain pipes and roof tiles, south facing and at the top of a ladder, you've guessed it, it's hot up there too!