Day 102 - In a hurry

The smaller garden was a relatively straightforward task, although it was still in need of considerable revitalising, and was by no means a small job. Fortunately, there was, in the shape of the only gardener on a regular contract at the time of my arrival, a person with wide knowledge of the plants and the history of the garden. I was confident that if I could restore morale the place would be in safe hands and would only require direction from me.

The scope was quite limited. As far as I remember the area was slightly over two acres, the bulk of which was the orchard. There was a small scruffy woodland section which attracted nobody, and then the dried flower borders, which were quite compact in scale and were situated close to the shop. They looked like this when I first started the job -

Different views give an idea of the size of this feature. It was not big, and did not change substantially over the course of my time there -

From the other end of the path, looking back -

And that was it. Obviously the division of herbaceous plants that we undertook to provide material to grow in the other garden for cutting, rejuvenated the borders and created space, so after that first winter they looked more like this, but the layout did not alter at all -

The dividing of the plants was a task which had to wait till I had taken on my new team, as was the job of pruning the orchard. The fruit trees were desperately in need of work, and had become over-tall and congested -

There was a crowded feel to the planting, and visitors had to duck to pass in some places -

Also, some of the trees were on their last legs, with scarcely the energy to put out foliage -

Because the concrete wall in the picture above was part of the town's public toilets and belonged to the council and not to us, we couldn't train anything up it, so in a misguided attempt to disguise it, someone had come up with the idea of planting a border of grasses, which were a complete joke -

All it really would have required would have been a few more fruit trees planted close to and the wall would have disappeared from view, so I had the grasses removed.

The pruning task was addressed the first winter, and much to the chagrin of our volunteer who knew about these things, I had them treated severely. I had no time to wait  for a more leisurely, considered approach, even though at that time I thought I was in the job for the long haul. By the following spring the trees were much more accessible, having been reduced in height, and were more open in the centres, allowing light and disease-free air to pass through. Obviously, this winter pruning would stimulate a lot of growth, but I had that covered. I felt invincible, and confident that we would be able to manage the necessary summer pruning which would then restrict the vigour and bring the task back to manageable proportions once more. In March, before growth started, the orchard looked considerably more spacious than before, helped by the absence of leaves, I must admit -

It was even possible at that stage to get a good clear view of the Abbey through the trees. By June in full growth, it was still obvious that the work had contributed considerably to the feeling of space within the garden -

I went back last year and was pleased to see that the pruning seemed to have continued over the last ten years, and some work had been done in the woodland area, although neither garden had had major investment of the kind I had been hoping for during my time there.

Tomorrow I shall put up a short post with a couple of examples of the dried flower work we did, which was a curious departure from anything I had ever been involved with before.