Gardener’s Blog – October 2019

There’s nothing nicer than settling down with a gardening catalogue, flicking through the pages to see what bedding plants you could try out next year. We’re enjoying having a look through and drawing up wishlists, so if you haven’t started planning your spring and summer 2020 garden, now’s the time to do so!

This month, we’ll be planting no fewer than 4,000 winter bedding plants, which have all been growing in the nursery since late summer. We’ve been carefully tending them until they are ready to go in. Once all the summer bedding has lost its lustre and is looking worse for wear, we’ll be digging it all up and replacing it with some fantastic winter colour.

This year, we’ll be planting the Terrace with red and yellow polyanthus – adding welcome splashes of colour – and these hardy flowers will be dotted about the Gardens, too, including the bandstand and around the glasshouses. We’ll also be adding heucherella Alabama Sunrise, a lovely perennial flowering plant that is sure to brighten up the borders. We hope our planting schemes help to inspire your own outdoor spaces.

Before we get on with planting the borders, we have to make sure they are weed free. It’s the one task we have to keep on top of for most of the year, so we’ll be clearing as much as we can.

Now the Butterfly House is closed down for the winter, we’ll start to move the tender plants, including Canna, salvia and dahlias, so that they are protected for the coldest months. If you have similar plants in your own garden, it’s a good idea to do what you can to ensure they are protected as much as possible when the temperatures get really cold.

We’ve just completed work in the Growing For Schools garden area. We’ve rebuilt the raised beds in the vegetable garden and added gravel pathways. It’ll make a big impact when next year when we start to plant it up again. We’ve also given the herb garden a really good tidy up, which has really opened it up.

If you’re coming to the Gardens this month, let us know what your favourite area is: we love to hear from visitors about their horticultural experiences.