Started the day leaf blowing John's areas including model gardens Witten Street, which is a series of designed model gardens for smaller town house spaces. Model gardens are a nice idea but these seems a bit neglected, I am not sure why they were placed underneath a row of Monterey pines - Pinus radiata, as the pine needles are falling over them affecting the aesthetic of them too. Matthew Pottage mentioned in his talk to us earlier on that they might be a bit dated - I wondered if he meant this about the architecture and that because of this sets them to a certain time period. The gardens are also closed off and only to be viewed from outside like the display gardens in the Chelsea Flower Show, and I wonder if it would be better if visitors were able to interact with them more and walk within them, like the ones near the driveway to our staffroom.
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| Photo 1: Jubilee Rose Garden |
After I helped Alex with the Jubilee Rose Garden (Photo 1), this is probably one of the most labour intense areas. At this time of year leaves are raked out from the gully edges of the rose beds. This is only the first wave of fallen leaves, with the large rust coloured oak leaves still intact nearby, there will be more to come and to remove. After this all the mulch is removed, this is the only area I have come across where this happens, as a mono rose garden is so prone to diseases. Then fresh mulch will be laid down. This will be of bracken as this has low nutrients, this makes it easier to control the feeding of the roses. I didn't even get through half of the beds and the day was gone. I have to say that I am not fond of the monoculture of rose gardens, it is a long standing British obsession, but it seems like a highly impractical way to garden especially with the knowledge & awareness we have of them, and when roses are mix planted with everything else it can look just as lovely. Albeit with modern cultivars of roses they don't flower all in June and then are just sticks for the rest of the year (in fact a lot of these roses will keep going on until the first hard frosts), but it still seems like a lot of work for a short moment of seeing these plants at their best.