Village Gardeners
We have had two excellent talks in the last two months. The first in March was
given by Mr George Thorpe who's Head gardener at Trinity College. With his
obvious considerable knowledge on climate change and global warming he gave his
talk on this and the associated planting.
With the aid of his slides he illustrated what he can experiment with at Trinity, by way of planting and micro climates, provided by the great variation of gardens within the bounds of the college. This was particularly with plants that flourished in hot dry conditions-and yes, there really were banana palms amongst the geraniums!
All the evidence suggests that over the next century, summers will get hotter and drier and winters will be wetter and milder. There will be double the amount of CO2 in the air - a third currently coming from forest burning and from places like China , where there is a huge rise in the number of coal fired power stations being built. Methane in the atmosphere will also increase from landfill sites and from the gradual thawing of the frozen Tundra.
With the warmer weather there will be a rise in pests and plant diseases, such as Honey fungus and weeds, the great chancers in the plant world, will certainly take advantage of the warmer weather. Extreme events such as flooding , hurricanes and frequent temperatures over 30c may well increase too.
BUT - it's not all bad news-there are things we can do! Compost and
composting were top of his list. It holds moisture, it adds organic matter to
the soil and it improves the soil infiltration rate. Trinity makes alot of
their own but also use the stuff from the Denarbon depot on the A10 - it's
good and cheap. Increase the use of water butts and other water collection
methods. It need not be painful changing what you plant; use plants that are
naturally hardy, that like dry conditions and that are drought resistant-
including trees hedges and shrubs. They will all have a longer growing season.
Plant long term shelter to protect plants from high winds and storms and create
shade and ground cover when planting. Last but not least- have a pond that will
benefit wildlife. So you see there is still hope!
Our speaker in April, was Mr Richard Eyres-the retired head gardener from Anglesey Abbey, although the "retirement" bit turned out to be a bit of a misnomer. He seemed to be al ot busier than when he "worked" - involved in the creation of the new garden (from fields) at Kirtling Towers, for the present owners, Lord and Lady Fairhaven; in the restoration and management of the Gibberd garden at Harlow - originally owned by the late Sir Frederick Gibberd, who was the inspiration behind Harlow new town; and also in the creation of his own small but beautiful colourful garden in Lode-which will be open with others in June and July for Lode "open gardens".
His father was head gardener at Anglesey Abbey during the forties and fifties and he started working there in 1956, when he was offered a 50% pay rise to leave the Fen farm where he was. This meant a weekly wage of £5.00 - an offer not to be refused. He took us on a brief photographic tour of this 98 acre estate with it's 104 statues. He still clearly loves it and is very proud especially of the winter garden that he created-despite the fact that the National Trust were very sceptical about anyone wanting to visit a garden in winter.
He is still in retirement so obviously creative and continues to love a gardening challenge.
Our next meeting is on 20th May when Janet Hall from Reach is going to give us a gardening (probably difficult!) quiz. Every one welcome
We still have some tickets for our outing to Beth Ctatto's garden on June 7th. Contact Roger Connan if you are interested.