29th May 2022

Lots to see in the Vegetable Gardens with the climbing beans, peas etc all scrambling up. With the welcome rain the smaller salad crops got their drink but hopefully the straw protected the strawberries and the sun will make them ripen.

We grow tomato Maskotko in the milk churns outside:  but Marmande and Tomande in the Greenhouse.

In the Dell look up to see the tall white dead tree trunk with a hole where the lesser spotted woodpecker is feeding the young.

Ducks have taken over the swans nest in the Bog garden and the swans have moved to the Fish Ponds. We have just put 40 grass carp into the Moat to eat the weed but sadly numbers get denuded by the daily visit from the `Heron.

The beautiful rose on the walls at the front of the Hall is Albertine. Short flowering season but what a stunner. It has a scent but it is the bed of rose de rescht at the base of the wall whose scent will overwhelm you as you cross the bridge.

The West lawn is a riot of colour in the beds and the roses seem to be early this year.

At the back of the Hall, by the Paeonia, high up in the Rambling Rector is a nest of Spotted fly catchers.

We are certainly not going the way of the Chelsea judges “best in show “choice…but you might be forgiven for thinking so having read about our wildlife!!

Stay healthy and Good gardening

Lynda Tucker