Gardeners Blog January 2023

Looking good on even the coldest, greyest winter’s day

• Winter aconites – bright yellow petals with a ruff of green leaves beneath
• Emerging jade green tips of bluebells and daffodils
• Delicate golden crocus and snowdrops
• New lime -green and pinky-coloured leaves shooting from the stems of pruned roses
• Bright yellow stems of dogwood
• Rosettes of crinkly leaves where primroses will bloom soon
• White spotted leaves and pinky-blue flowers of pulmonaria

Winter gardening jobs

Our gardeners have been busy in December and January when the hard frosts and wet weather has allowed. Here is what they have been up to:

• Maintenance on all the paths in the Cloister Garth to neaten the lawn edges and re-establish straight lines
• Path weeding and levelling ready for top-dressing with new crushed gravel
• Collecting leaves and storing them to break down into leaf-mulch compost
• Spreading organic, composted farm manure onto the Cutting Garden to reinvigorate the soil
• Digging in green manure crops grown over the autumn, which also enriches the soil
• Planting bare-root hedging around the new bark-chipped picnic area
• Pruning the roses
• Removing ivy from the old walls where it is safe to do so

Winter Wildlife in the Gardens   Keep an eye out for all the creatures we share this space with but please do not disturb them.

• Robins, several pairs are already paired up for nesting later in spring
• Jays, magpies and blackbirds pecking the grass in the Cloister Garth for grubs and seeds
• Ducks, swans and moorhens on the river
• Grey squirrels (and all the little holes they’ve made) digging for buried food stores
• Blue tits and great tits foraging in the ivy
• Frogs and toads sheltering under logs and leaf piles
• Violet ground beetles among the leaves and on the soil looking for tasty young slugs

Tracey & Robert

The Gardeners