Hurrah! After a busy NGS Garden Ferns Lodge opening in June and six private viewings by all sorts of lovely people—U3A, WI, and the amazing Woodlands Gardening Group—we have closed our top gate and baked our last scone for 2024! We have raised an amazing £3,400 and change for the National Garden Scheme. How cool is that?
Despite an indifferent summer as far as weather is concerned, we have been lucky with our openings. A few spits of rain a couple of times—but we’re British, so no matter!
We can now all relax and settle back into the rhythm of gardening and projects. Grass edging plummets down the priority list, and shaggier grass is now de rigueur! Despite the openings, we have managed to continue with our projects.
We managed to get 10 tons of earth into the cleared area by the bottom meadow, and the grass has now been seeded. Sadly, the lovely lorry driver who brought it missed his bearings on the way out, so a further ton of earth has been deployed to fill the unlovely crater he left behind, along with other bumps and damage.
Our new and challenging meadow has just started to look like it might one day become a true meadow. Our next job is to add more earth to fill the craters left by stump removal and to rotavate much of the area for wildflowers, which we will bring on in trays in the greenhouse this winter.
Probably the most exciting news is about our bees…
We now have a lovely cornflower-coloured hive filled with 14,000 friendly bees who, next year, we hope will share some of their honey with us. Harry is in charge, incompetently assisted by me, and we are learning about queen excluders, supers, and all the mysteries of beekeeping. Once we’ve learned more, look out for a shocking pink hive, which will be our project for 2025…
The top garden looks lovely, and the terrace is a special place. However, it is now mid-August, and autumn is not far away. After clearing away the foxgloves, we will move seamlessly to the Ferns Lodge fall—and with dry weather and high winds, it has already begun.
Ghillie and Caterpillar have hung out in the garden all summer, snoozing under the trees or sleeping on my lovely pink yarrow (which doesn’t like it one bit!). They look forward to winter when the supply of sticks will be more plentiful, but of course, Caterpillar, who still goes everywhere, will get even muddier.
This winter, there is much to do: clearing back, keeping the leaves at bay, potting up for next year, and working on new projects in the planning stage—one of which involves sedum and is VERY exciting…
We have loved welcoming so many people to the garden this summer and now look forward to the gardening adventures that lie ahead, which I will write about in future blogs…
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.