Well, in some respects she had a point. In our first summer we had increased visitor numbers by 40%, and she was still operating her little tea-room from an old trestle-table and two Baby Burco boilers. I knew that was wrong. I didn't need to dedicate eight hours a week to hearing about it. It was just that there was no money available to deal with it. I now had the figures to back up my next application for funds, though. 25,000 visitors over six months, and only three and a half hours per afternoon, four days a week to serve them. At times this was quite intense, and it was only going to worsen over time as we attracted even more support. Fortunately, the logic of this was inescapable, and some basic improvements were made during the winter, including the provision of a proper counter and till. We didn't yet have the wherewithal to install a professional water boiling system. That would come a little further down the line, after the management were finally convinced that these increasing visitor numbers were not a one-off. I'm not sure if we fitted a dishwasher that winter or not. I hope we did, because I have very strong memories of that first open season in the stifling heat of the kitchen, with my sleeves rolled up, washing dishes till my skin shrivelled.
Interestingly, despite the heavier footfall round the garden, our turf paths ended the season in better condition than when I had come to them the previous autumn, mainly due to the more intensive treatment and better feeding regime we were giving them. The arrival of the scarifier and slitter in time for the autumn cycle of grass maintenance would help still further. As would the autumn feed. Seaweed. It's marvellous stuff.
What a relief it was for me, as a gardener, to be able to relax into the closed season, with only horticultural matters to worry about. There were other considerations, of course, such as the next check of the inventories of contents within the house, the planning for the coming year's opening, supervising the tea-room improvements, getting the signs repainted and so on, but these did not take place every day. I was able for a time to stand back from all that and think horticultural thoughts. This was when all the planning took place for the coming improvements I have already shown you. The bedding schemes, the topiary, the lawn maintenance, all that. And it was also when I could address new aspects that I hadn't had time to concern myself with the previous winter. What about the climbers on the house walls? What about the evergreen backdrop to all the borders? What about that hideously-maintained lime tree screen behind the tennis court? What about that neglected former chalk pit that lay on the far east side of the garden?
The first two had already been started the previous year, but I had a major difficulty with them. Climbers and tall overgrown evergreens - I had an idea what I wanted to do with them, but I couldn't do it myself. For some reason, without noticing, I had lost my head for heights. I would go up a yew tree to take out the top to encourage it to bush, so it would properly screen one area from another, and find that near the top I got the shakes and had to send the boys up to finish the job off. As for the climbers on the house, they were in a terrible state, as we lacked the equipment to tackle the job safely, and previously we had also lacked the expertise to know what the plants needed to bring them back under control. I watched our senior man struggle with his triple-extending ladder, bouncing precariously amongst the slack, resigned overgrowth of thirty-year old shrubs thirty-five feet tall. I watched him hacking bits off them, apparently at random and letting them drop to the ground, and knew I had to intervene. Each time I tried, I got no more than six rungs up the ladder and got the jitters. Over time, I trained myself to get right to the top, increasing my height one rung at a time, till I could take over the pruning myself. I never lost my terror fully, but I managed to master it. God, I needed to. Either side of the front door we had plantings of Hydrangea petiolaris and Pyracantha up to parapet height, all of which reached at least six feet out from the wall and looked out of control. Closer investigation revealed that the Pyracanthas consisted of three thick main stems each, from which hung suspended side-shoot growths fifteen feet long, overlaid on one another so that the bush in some places was hanging eight feet out from the wall it was attached to. It looked ugly, harboured all manner of dust, abandoned nests, pigeon-guano with its ammoniacal stench, dead inflammable wood and believe it or not, mountaineering snails, content at 10 metres above ground. And it restricted the light within the house.
I had discussions with the gardens adviser about this. I suggested taking all the growth back to bare stems, keeping only the three main trunks, much as we had done with the yew trees the previous year. The Gardens Adviser was convinced that this would lead to all the growth springing from the very top, that is, thirty-odd feet up, and nothing regenerating lower down. My experience of Pyracanthas was that they throw out buds at all levels regardless of how they are treated, so I reckoned it would work. Besides, I reasoned, if all the growth did emerge at the top, then the next year, recognising our mistake, we could just cut them down to ground level and start again. Have another look - they needed it. Some of those are sticking out nearly as far as the entrance portico, which in itself is a design fault, being too big for its boots.
In the end, I just went for it. Lo! and behold! regrowth at all levels of the plants, and in a couple of years,berries from top to toe, on shrubs reaching the parapet, but only a compact foot out from the wall. By the time I was able to climb the height necessary, we had reached the point where I could even go up in the summer and prune back the side shoots that grow after the flowers have formed, and in so doing reveal in their full glory the curtain of red berries that resulted. They looked a picture, and the job was so much easier as a result of the plants now being firmer to rest the ladder against.
In a couple of years we had achieved this -
or alternatively, this -
And just look what we got it to a couple of years later -
A further six years on and it was still looking good -
but I am sorry to say, that I neglected to take any pictures of the Pyracanthas in full berry, which was a sight to behold. I don't blame you for being disappointed in me. In my defence, I would counter that it was always more important for me to be doing the job than documenting it. And let's face it, at the time I didn't even have a computer, let alone know what a blog might be.
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