The time is rattling past and we are looking forward to welcoming you to NGS garden Ferns Lodge on the last weekend of May.
We have been rushing around with the last of the planting for the new centre area of the garden. We only started to plant after the deer fencing was put up at the beginning of March, so the planting is super new. Below is a reminder of what the centre of the Big Garden looked like before…
Plants are a big subject, and we hope that you will want to buy some of the lovely things that we have raised for you at Ferns Lodge, from rudbeckia to salvia to cosmos. The plant team looks forward to seeing you. Also on sale are some amazing chutneys and excellent marmalade, all made by Barbara, who will see you when you visit.
The bees have swarmed, giving us an amazing amount of head-scratching to do, and ensuring that there is much reading of bee books, looking on YouTube, and generally trying to get inside their heads. Despite all the worry, the one thing that they have done is to provide lots of wonderful Ferns Lodge honey, which will all be on sale during the opening. Rather like expectant and indulgent parents, Harry, Corine and I have been plotting their next move all spring – and they always go for the unexpected.
Then, of course, there is tea… there is cake, there are scones and jam and clotted cream, and lashings of tea, coffee or soft drinks as you like.
As the centre of the Big Garden has changed, we have also been working on all the other parts of the garden. There is more seating and more plants to see, and the existing planting has matured. We so hope that you will enjoy looking at our cottage garden around the Lodge House and the woodland garden below. Some jobs just didn’t make the opening deadline, but there are plans afoot for chickens, and in time there will be water… The latter is particularly important for the Lymington Scow, CANDIDA, built for my grandmother some 50 years ago and waiting to go afloat; she is waiting patiently here at Ferns Lodge for us to get on with it!
100% of the proceeds go to the NGS to support nursing and health charities, which is an amazingly worthwhile cause. Amongst these are Carers Trust, Hospice UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Parkinson’s UK, and The Queen’s Nursing Institute, to name but a few.
We look forward to seeing you soon.
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.
