Once a week I happen to inhabit a beautiful two acre garden that I have had the privilege to design and maintain for the last eight years. You can have a glimpse at some images from past seasons here. I have always had a hands-on approach to my garden design business, from shadowing a landscaper in the early days and being involved in the up-keep of a range of garden types. Seventeen years in I still find this element of my job really useful and a great way to keep connected to the spaces that I am designing. There is a natural cycle to gardening work which I love, dictated by the seasons, the needs of the plants and the client’s dreams.
These past few weeks have focused on giving the orchard and wildflower meadow some tlc, to set it up for the new season. Fruit tree pruning is the first job to get underway, older trees still need to be opened up to allow air to circulate more freely around the branches and let more light through. I always tend to err on the side of caution and aim to take out just two or three substantial branches so as not to upset the balance and generate water shoots [they don’t bear fruit or very minimal whilst stealing all the plant’s energy]. Always starting with the classic three D’s, dead, damaged and diseased shoots come out first. Finally the tips are reduced to keep a check on its height. If you are looking for guidance on how to go about pruning your fruit trees check out the RHS advice.
A few year’s ago we discovered Honey Fungus marching its way from adjacent parkland to an old poplar stump. This explained the slow demise of some of the older, weaker apple trees in the orchard. Now there’s not a lot that can be done battling the deadly bootlaces of honey fungus but we are attempting to increase the resilience of the remaining trees in the hope they will remain strong enough to withstand an onslaught. Every year we add mycorrhizal fungi around the roots of the trees and add a fresh layer of home composted mulch. Mychorrhizal fungi are the goodies, they live in symbiosis with plant roots and help to improve the nutrient and water uptake of plants. Giving plants an extra boost nutrient wise should help them become more disease resistant. So far we have not lost any more than what we initially predicted …so watch this space.
We are also at a timely point to be able to add additional wildflowers into the orchard to increase the flower potential for this season. Leucanthemum vulgare freely self seeds in other areas of the garden so we have left them to grow on in situ to be able to re-position them now. In fact any wildflower that self seeds in the borders can be hoicked out and planted in a wilder patch in your garden space eg teasel, achilleas, corn flowers, poppies, burdock, ribwort plantain…