Garden diary
Phew what a busy few weeks, the rain whilst very welcome, after a dry spell of eight weeks, has increased our weeds tenfold.
We have been busy trimming all our box hedges and box balls. We do this by hand using hedging shears for the box hedges and topiary shears for the box balls.
It is lovely to see the end result, and not just for how tidy it looks, but for our backs too.
The old fashioned roses which have been a glorious riot of scent and colour are now going over and this recent spell of heavy rain has certainly speeded up the process.
However the wonderful perfume of the sweetpeas and the lavender is still perfuming the air. You may well spot our maid or manservant collecting the flowering stalks for drying to make up lavender bags later on in the season.
Our next major task in the garden over the coming weeks will be the pruning of the espalier apples and pears on the east and west walls of the garden.
We prune all new laterals from the main arm 3 leaves above the basal cluster. We shorten side shoots to just one leaf and remove completely any over vigorous growth.
The main apple trees are pruned in winter, which equates to very cold fingers.
Amanda Thackeray
Gardener Wordsworth House