The Dark Lady

In May I went over to Horne in Holland to meet students from Clusius College. Over the last 12 years Clusius horticultural students have come over to Tatton every other year to work in the gardens for a fortnight and then build their own garden for the annual RHS Flower Show. In recent years it’s been my responsibility to manage and look after the students and the garden. By the way, the college was named after the first person who took tulips to Holland (Carolus Clusius)!

This year the design of the garden was based on a story from Gawsworth Hall, about the ‘Dark Lady’. Mary Fitton, from the Gawsworth family, is often believed to have been an inspiration for the ‘dark lady’ from Shakespeare’s sonnets.

The students’ back to back garden included a wall for vertical planting, with black and white panels to represent the tudor construction of the hall. In the centre of a decorative pond was a dark red David Austin rose called ‘the dark lady.’ The roses used are now going to be planted in the rose garden at Gawsworth.

The students had a great time when they were here. They got a silver medal for their garden, and enjoyed some great local experiences including walking in Derbyshire, and trips to Liverpool, Manchester and Old Trafford stadium – and of course, time working in Tatton’s gardens. it’s been great fun to host students for another year and we look forward to the next batch in two years’ time!

Pete Lofthouse, Craftsman Gardener

Late Flowering Season

Over the past few weeks I have also been working on the Italian Terrace parterre (see The Italian Job below!)

This week we have finally finished installing all the metalwork. The blacksmiths, Broadbents, came in for a couple of days to help us weld all the internal pieces into place. This was a really intricate job as each piece had to be welded in separately and then welded on to the next piece.

The next job is to fill the central metal sections with soil and compost ready for planting the Armeria, commonly known as ‘Thrift’. This is a pink flower often found on coastal areas and is also used on the lower Italian Terrace area. The next job will be to put ‘Mipex’ down; this is a sheet which keeps the soil and gravel separate – we’ll be starting this next week, ready for the 10 tonnes of gravel arriving shortly. This means all the hard structure will be ready for Easter and the red Geraniums and white Alyssum etc will then be planted early June. Normally I look after Charlotte’s Garden and the Rose Garden so it’s been great to work in a different area and in this project to reinstate a parterre.

We are unfortunately three weeks late with the bulbs this year, due to the icy and frosty weather. Normally by now we would have quite a lot of daffodils in the garden and none have appeared as yet! Also none of the camellias in Tower Wood (near the Tower Garden) have flowered yet - in the past, some may be half way through flowering by now. Camellias flower one flower on each branch at a time and then when that dies or is frosted, the next bloom will open. As yet, we’ve seen none!

In three weeks time, possibly around Easter if the weather stays nice we should get a real blaze of colour from the early Rhododendrons, daffodils, camellias, the Iris reticulata and Magnolias – so it’s definitely worth planning a visit around that time. (As a taster - here's an illustration from our archives - pics of Camellias in bloom to follow!)



Pete Lofthouse
Craftsman Gardener