Easter comes early this year, but it is still a reminder that we open NGS Garden Ferns Lodge on the 3rd and 4th June 2023 and of the seeming impossibility of being anything like ready! The posters have arrived from the lovely NGS so it must be right! I look at them laid out on the desk in the garden shed with a sense of rising panic as Ghillie snores gently, paws moving as he races after the Easter Bunny in his dreams. Outside the rain patters on the window panes, which has been the case virtually unceasingly for the whole of March. It has been a shocker!
Outside we have fritillaries, daffodils, primroses and camellias all in bloom. The bluebells are well on their way and you can hear the rustle of spring as everything yawns and starts to shoot and grow ready for the new season.
Since I last wrote we have planted our ring of baby holm oaks and our sickly tree is down. 11 tons of sticky brown earth has been delivered to fill in holes in the big garden made by our army of moles, now conquered by our lovely mole man – gosh what a mess they made. We are spreading and seeding and hoping that some day soon the grass lawns will resemble something approaching just that.
Despite the constant rain and living in wellies, the furniture has been painted, paths cleaned and we have chipped for England. The vegetable cage now has carrots, beans, rhubarb, celery and all manner of things either planted or ready to go. Even the early potatoes are planted. I dream of Ferns Lodge vegetables and salad this summer and also of the difference our wonderful new greenhouse will soon make.
The greenhouse wizards at Woodpecker are starting to build him and I am told he will be on schedule. Excitingly there will be cold frames too! In the meantime, the foundations look bare and forlorn as we work to level the ground and make ready for this important new arrival which will transform both human diet and our ability to grow more shrubs and plants at home.
In our massive new bed the shrubs are beginning to grow (as well as the weeds which are a never ending story) and with rose coloured spectacles you see how special it may be one day. Our native hedge is starting to morph from dead stick to plant colour and all is good.
Easter will be a helter skelter of getting things ready for the season – clearing, potting, and chipping (always). We are looking forward to seeing you at our opening and to showing you everything that we have been up to this winter at NGS Garden Ferns Lodge. Happy Easter.
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.
