Garden News | November
Golden hues of autumn
As the golden hues of Autumn continue to dazzle us all throughout the garden, it won’t be long before Jack Frost makes his icy presence felt. Weather dependant, some of the trees I would recommend seeking out in the garden this month while you still can include the Carrya cordiformis down by Waterfall Pond with its mesmerising bright, bright yellow foliage, the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) on the Mansion Lawn as it leaves turn from acid green to mellow yellow and any number of Acers doing their ‘Autumn Rainbow’ thing along Maple Walk. There’s another garden highlight at this time of year that you must experience though and that is the start of the Winter scented shrubs. Plants that flower in Autumn and Winter have to work extra hard to attract the fewer number of pollinating insects and therefore their scent is often stronger and more enticing than most of the Spring or Summer plants. At the moment the smelly star of the show is a group of large Osmanthus shrubs below the Mansion, just as you head down the steps to the Bluebell Bank path. It may look like a very green uninspiring holly during the year, but right now it’s smothered in delicate white scented flowers. You’ll almost smell it before you see it!
Garden team working hard
For the garden team it’s also important that we make the most of any mild, moist weather while we can. As well as taking time to enjoy the amazing Autumnal firework display of leaves, berries and stems, there’s much work to be done in the garden.
Now is a perfect time to be planting Spring bulbs and here in the Grade I listed Leonardslee gardens we’re no different. Bulbs provide some of the earliest and most interesting floral displays in Spring, and planting them now gives them enough time to establish and get ready to come out of dormancy once Winter is over. A good general rule of thumb is to plant a bulb at a depth of three times its height. For example, a daffodil bulb 5cm tall should be planted 15cm deep in the soil if possible. It’s also important to choose your site carefully. Alliums for instance like a sunny, sheltered spot in well-drained soil while some bulbs from a woodland environment such as snowdrops and bluebells can tolerate and thrive in a shadier spot in humus-rich soil. Here at Leonardslee we’ll be busy planting over 25,000 bulbs this Autumn. We’ll be adding white daffodils and a lovely blue Camassia to the banks around the lakes, and filling the beds and borders around the house with a variety of Alliums, such christophii and atropurpureum, and a range of striking Imperial Fritillaries for example. Make sure you come back here again next Spring and early Summer to see the floriferous fruits of our labour!
Autumn colour spectrum
Once the leaves have completed their mesmerising turn through the Autumn colour spectrum, many will of course then fall to the ground. A big part of our work in the garden at this time of the year therefore revolves around leaf clearing and collecting. Some of this we do by hand with rakes and elbow grease but where possible we suck the fallen leaves up with our ride-on tractors, especially on the larger open areas. We make sure we turn this to our benefit though by composting the leaves down in our composting area. If we make sure we keep turning the heaps and keeping them moist, the resulting well-rotted organic matter will provide an invaluable soil conditioner and mulch next year. Recycling at its finest!
Elsewhere in the garden we’ll continue with our seasonal turf care and finishing up the hedge cutting while also making sure we find time to service our garden tools and machinery, tidy up and cut back our herbaceous plants, divide congested perennials, and preparing for the big Illumination event which starts this month. Plenty to be getting on with then!
