Rococo Garden Painswick

Garden Volunteering in 2012

rococogarden — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:52:14 +0000

The Exedra Garden in Spring

The Rococo Garden welcomes garden volunteers. We currently have vacancies for new volunteers to join our existing groups on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays throughout the season. Garden volunteers participate in a wide range of jobs, including:-

Border tidy and upkeep of our established ornamental mixed borders and shrubberies
Care of our 18^th century restored Kitchen Garden
Direct sowing of crops in the Kitchen Garden, and harvesting for use in the Garden’s Restaurant
Pruning of trained fruit (espaliers)
Heritage rose pruning

This list gives an outline of some of the jobs which our present valuable group of garden volunteers contribute. If you are interested in joining this friendly team of volunteers in 2012, please phone Chris Hitchcock on 07922067396 (work mobile) Tuesday – Saturday, or email me on rococohg@hotmail.co.uk for further details.

Chris Hitchcock

(Head Gardener)

Pumpkins, squashes, and gourds

rococogarden — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:49:26 +0000

Pumpkins in the Bothy

We have had a good harvest of pumpkins and their botanical relatives – the squashes. The gourds also did well on our small gourds tunnel in the Kitchen Garden.

Ornamental Gourds

The pumpkins we grew included, Connecticut Field (the traditional American pumpkin), Mammoth, and Halloween. Two of the most attractive were

The French heirloom variety Rouge Vif d’Etampes, a large deeply ribbed pumpkin which developed a deep orange-red colour
A small red onion shaped pumpkin Uchiki Kuri, with a hard skin, it gave us a good return from just a few plants

We also grew several squashes, including Pattison Sunburst hybrids, and Butternut squash.

The pumpkins, squashes and gourds are all on display at the Bothy in the Garden, together with the collection of heritage apples and pears, harvested from the garden, supplemented by historic local apples from the Gloucestershire Orchard Group

Our Autumn Festival at the Garden takes place on Saturday & Sunday 22nd/23rd October, and Saturday & Sunday 29th/30th October (in the Bothy). We will be apple and pear pressing on all of these days. All welcome – usual opening hours.

Chris Hitchcock

(Head Gardener)

Heritage potatoes harvest

rococogarden — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:29:10 +0000

We harvested the main crop heritage potatoes by mid-August, and despite the dry weather for much of the summer, there was a good crop, partly because of our extensive mulching of the ground between the rows.

Gloucester Black Kidney (UK) – tuber skin colour blue, with cream flesh, produced some excellent medium sized kidney shaped tubers, with only limited evidence of scab. Makes a nice baked potato. I hope to save some of the stock to reuse next season

Gloucester Black Kidney

Vitelotte – (France -early 1800s), tuber skin colour black/purple, flesh purple, knobbly potato, producing some amazing shaped tubers. I may look to replenish our stock with some new supplies of Vitelotte next season.
Pink Fir Apple (France/Germany – 1850), produced a wonderful crop of very knobbly potatoes. Great flavour as a salad potato. It is interesting to note that our Anya crop closely resembled the Pink Fir Apple potatoes this season.

Pink Fir Apple

Chris Hitchcock

(Head Gardener)

Green manures in the Kitchen Garden

rococogarden — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:21:43 +0000

We use a range of green manures in the Kitchen Garden during the season to improve the soil structure, and soil fertility, as well as to inhibit weeds and reduce leaching, particularly during the winter period. Some of the green manures which we have used include:

Phacelia tanacetifolia - which has feathery foliage and attractive blue oblong bell-shaped flowers, which are popular with bees. We leave blocks of this green manure to flower to encourage these pollinators, as well as incorporating it before flowering in other areas to benefit the soil structure – good for sowing in early summer

Phacelia tanacetifolia

Mustard – this is quick growing and produces yellow flowers, we dig it in before flowering
Field beans – a valuable nitrogen fixer (member of the pea and bean family). We purchase this green manure in bulk and sow in spare ground after harvesting some of the main vegetables. It can be cut back overwinter to encourage further growth, and then dug in before spring. Field beans are one of the most winter hardy of the green manures, and are easy to sow in rows on prepared ground – they germinate quickly from an August-September sowing.

Chris Hitchcock

(Head Gardener)

Old-fashioned sweet peas

rococogarden — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:14:39 +0000

The sweet pea originated in Malta, where it grew in the wild, before being introduced to Sicily. In 1699, a Sicilian priest Francis Cupani sent some seeds to Dr Uvedale in England. These small highly scented flowers of Lathyrus odoratus ‘Cupani’ were bi-colored with maroon-purple standard and magenta-purple wings. It is thought that ‘Painted Lady’ sweet pea (1723) with its pink and white bi-colored flowers is a sport or ‘mutation’ from the original maroon-purple sweet pea.

Lathyrus odoratus 'Cupani'

Our method of growing old fashioned sweet peas

We save seed each year, but also purchase trade packets of 10gms of ‘Cupani’ and ‘Painted Lady’
The seeds are cold sown (in winter) after ‘chipping’ a small section of the outer seed coat. We sow 5 seeds to a 9cm pot. After germination the seedlings are grown on (protect against vermin like mice), before being transplanted to Clematis pots and supported with a wig-wam of small hazel sticks
The pots are planted out in late April-May, around wig-wams of hazels. Usually I mass plant at least 10 pots of five plants around each structure – in both the Kitchen Garden and the Exedra Garden
In good sweet pea growing conditions – mixture of rain and sunshine – they should easily cover the framework
Keep cutting the wonderfully scented flowers. We use them on the tables in the Restaurant and in a vase in the Bothy to give the rooms a special fragrance
Sweet peas on wigwams in Kitchen Garden

Old Garden Roses

rococogarden — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:13:51 +0000

The highly scented old garden roses are starting to flower in the Exedra Garden. We have Gallicas, Damasks, Moss Roses and Albas, and there is a species list/plan in the Exedra Garden which identifies the location of all the roses.

Two of my favourite ancient roses are:-

Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’(1794) also known as Rosa Mundi, which is loaded with its attractive striped crimson and white flowers

Rosa gallica 'Versicolor'

Rosa ‘Celsiana’ (1750), a Damask rose which has very fragrant blush pink flowers which cover the shrub for up to 3 weeks – though only flowering once each season.

Rosa 'Celsiana'

Method of supporting roses

We support our old shrub roses on a post and lath framework, which helps to accentuate the form and fragrance of these attractive plants in the borders.

Pruning

I usually prune back the growth by a third of their length after flowering (in July). Additional structural pruning takes place in winter to remove dead material and to generally clean up and reshape the shrub roses.

Chris Hitchcock (Head Gardener)

The beauty of Tulips

rococogarden — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:31:45 +0000

The tulip has become one of the most popular spring flowering bulbs of our 21^st century borders, perhaps replicating the fascination of the great tulip era of the 17^th century – Tulipomania- without its financial speculation.

This season we currently have an attractive display of Viridiflora, and Rembrandt tulips. The Lily flower tulips, which have single flowers with elegantly pointed petals, look particularly good in amongst the emerging herbaceous plants in the Exedra Garden.

Lily flowered tulip Claudia

Tulipa acuminata (Turkish tulip) a species tulip is one of my favourites. It is an old hybrid tulip with slender red and yellow spidery flowers. We grow ours on a sunny dry site on one of the 18^th century Herb Tumps in the Kitchen Garden. The surface layer of hoggin (sand and gravel) helps to suppress weeds and improves the drainage

Tulipa acuminata

Chris Hitchcock (Head Gardener)

Period plants in the Garden – March 2011

rococogarden — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:08:46 +0000

Two of the fascinating period plants currently in flower in the Exedra Garden are:

Hermodactylus tuberosus (Snake’s Head Iris/Widow Iris) - before 1600

Its triangular pointed leaves emerge early in the year. Our first iris-like flowers appeared at the beginning of March. They are green, with curved falls of deep purple. The flowers are scented. We grow the plants in a border, which is slightly sheltered, and like many native Mediterranean plants they tend to prefer good drainage. We cover the soil surface with hoggin to help this (as a mulch layer). They associated well with snowdrops, which we grow along the perimeter of the border.

Widow Iris in flower in the Exedra Garden

Fritillaria meleagris – Snake’s Head Fritillary – recorded since 1519 (British wildflower)

Linear grey-green leaves are followed in early spring by nodding heads of flowers. Ours are the most common ones with a delicate chequerboard pattern in shades of purple. In the Exedra Gardens they are scattered along the fringes of borders, but can look impressive when naturalised in grass.

Snake's Head Fritillary in the Exedra Garden

HERITAGE POTATOES – 2011

rococogarden — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:48:31 +0000

After a successful potato harvest in 2010, with limited evidence of blight, we have chosen some different heritage potatoes as an addition to some of our regular favourites. These will all be grown in the Kitchen Garden, in a border set aside for these old varieties of potato. We are currently ‘chitting’ the potatoes in the Bothy, where they are on display. They will be planted out in April.

Heritage Potato List

Red Duke of York – first early (1942), tuber skin colour: red
Beauty of Bute – second early (UK), tuber skin colour: part red
Flourball – second early (UK), 1895, tuber skin colour: red
Edgecote Purple – second early (UK), 1916, tuber skin colour: blue
International Kidney – early maincrop (UK), 1879, tuber skin colour: white to yellow
Gloucester Black Kidney – main crop (UK), tuber skin colour: blue
Vitelotte – main crop (France), early 1800s, tuber skin colour: black/purple

Vitelotte potatoes

Garden Volunteering in 2011

rococogarden — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:08:21 +0000

Volunteer sowing green manures

The Rococo Garden welcomes garden volunteers throughout the season. Volunteers can come along on any day of the week, including week-ends. We are particularly interested in anyone who can spare a few hours on a Saturday morning/afternoon to join our Head Gardener (Chris Hitchcock), in looking after the flower borders and the Kitchen Garden. We have a good group of regular volunteers who contribute their much appreciated spare hours. Our volunteers enjoy meeting other volunteers to exchange gardening knowledge and to develop a sense of team unity.

If you are interested in learning new gardening skills we can give you the opportunity to work alongside the gardens staff, in the setting of a heritage landscape garden. The Rococo Garden has attractive mixed borders, a large organic Kitchen Garden, trained fruit trees (espalier apples and pears) and the facilities for propagating many plants from seeds and cuttings.

Please ring the Rococo Garden on 01452 813204 or email: painsgard@aol.com for further details.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Chris Hitchcock (Head Gardener)