Pineapple House Re-Stocked

I’m a member of the glasshouse and Kitchen Garden teams. In the last week, I have been working on re-stocking the pineapple house with 40 new pineapple plants, of the variety ‘British Queen’, which are all already fruiting. The Pinery/Vinery was restored in 2007, to re-introduce pineapple production to Tatton, a traditional feature of the kitchen gardens.

Unfortunately, due to the extreme winter we lost all our previous crop in January and February. We’re hoping we’ll be harvesting some fruit from these new plants by the autumn. This is a good time to crop them because, by then, they will hopefully have reached their full size and will taste at their best.

The plants have been potted up and then plunged into the pineapple pits in the Pinery/Vinery. The bed consists of fermenting oak leaves that provide bottom heat to generate root growth. This is a traditional method – others use ‘tanner’s bark’, but this does generate a lot of heat and can be hard to regulate, whereas oak leaves provide a more uniform heat around the pots.

The idea is to produce good pineapples rather than just growing them. This means, we need to pay attention to watering and ventilation, and ‘damping down’ (sprinkling water across the paths, walls, glass and misting over the top of the pineapples themselves). All three things are important and need to be in balance in order to produce a good fruit. This is something I will be checking on a daily basis during my working days.

John Hoxworth, Craftsman Gardener

A (n)Ice Arrival...

I am a Craftsman Gardener, with responsibility for the Japanese Garden. However, over the last couple of weeks I have been working with the artists installing their artworks for Tatton Park Biennial 2010, which opens on 8 May.

My work has mainly been putting things in place, including helping Jamie Shovlin transport his shed and audio/visual equipment to the corner of Tower Wood and moving the technical equipment and scaffolding for Austin Houldsworth's fossilisation machine. I also transported Jem Finer’s shed and ‘the orb’ – a very fragile globe camera obscura, on the back of the tractor and trailer – every time I hit a bump my heart was in my mouth! I also helped load and unload and transport Fiona Curran’s tree house and pruned some of the lower branches of the Pine tree before they put the tree house into place. I also helped install the small cinema near the Maze, transporting it on the back of the tractor – it was about 3 tonnes in weight, I also needed to go very slowly again!

Last Monday was the most nail-biting experience when the 2 tonne block of glacial ice arrived – this is artist Neville Gabie’s piece. The ice is 10,000 years old and was brought from Greenland, transported by ship, boat and lorry to Tatton. It was then up to me to drive it on the back of the trailer (see picture) down to its position near Golden Brook. This was all whilst the BBC camera crew were filming and I was trying not to shatter it. Again, this was a moment to drive the tractor very carefully! I couldn’t go any faster than slow in very low gear. It then took a very long time, virtually to the end of the day, to try and lift and slide the ice into place. There were about eight pairs of hands trying to fit the ice and the glass surrounding it into the structure. I’ve really enjoyed being involved in the Biennial and am looking forward to seeing everything complete ready for the opening.

For more information about the Biennial visit www.tattonparkbiennial.org

Geoff Horrocks, Craftsman Gardener

Marvellous Marrows!

I’m a Craftsman Gardener who’s been working at Tatton since I left school in 1991. I now work in the kitchen garden and the glasshouses - my main responsibilities are looking after the Fernery, the Showhouse Conservatory and one of the four large beds in the Kitchen Garden.

This week I’ve been working in creating a marrow bed on one of my squares in the kitchen garden. Working with Mark, Daniella, Chris and Bob we’ve prepared a bed just how it used to be done in the olden days. Firstly we’ve dug out a two metre wide trench running the full length of the bed. It’s been dug out two spades deep and the soil has been mounded up on both sides. We’ve then rotivated the bottom of the bed and it will eventually be filled completely with well rotted horse muck. Then the soil piled up on the edges will be turned back on top of the muck to create a ‘raised bed’ approximately three feet high. The whole bed will then be planted up with between 12 and 14 plants of the marrow variety ‘Long, Green Trailing’. These plants are being raised in one of the greenhouses and will be ready to plant out after the threat of frost has disappeared, within the next 3-4 weeks.

Once they have been planted out we will leave the hose pipe running on the bed to soak it right through for 2-3 hours. These will need looking after on a daily basis to check the soil is sufficiently moist. These old–fashioned marrow beds could actually be used as pumpkin beds as they also like lots of horse manure. My aim is to grow a really big pumpkin this year and I’m sourcing the seed from America at the moment. We’re currently growing ‘Atlantic Giant’ and ‘Hundredweight’. These will be grown on a smaller scale than the marrow bed.

Last week I also started preparing the ground for planting peas. I dug a trench a foot wide and deep, filled it with muck and back filled it, then covered the trench with cloches to warm the soil up for a few days, ready for planting next week. We will be planting ‘Early Onwards’ ready for cropping in June.

Simon Kellett
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

Super Scarecrows

The past fortnight has been really busy with preparing the scarecrows for our annual half term Scarecrow Festival. It’s very much a team effort for mainly the glasshouse staff (as there’s still plenty to do in the grounds for the other staff, still working hard on the Italian Terrace parterre). It’s been great fun thinking up characters and a welcome change to the day to day jobs. My normal responsibility is looking after the large collection of orchids in the Orchid House and working in the veg garden and orchard. Thankfully the snow and bad weather has given us plenty time to concentrate on the scarecrows. Look out for the tiger in the Fernery and the jester at Garden Entrance (those are mine).

Lots of other jobs this last week or so, one of which has been working in the Vinery. We’ve scraped all the bark off the vines with a cutting knife as the barks harbours mealybugs and other unwanted pests. After the bark’s been scraped off the vines are blasted with a jet wash. This is a time-consuming job but well worth it – it really helps the vines to thrive.

I’ve also been mucking the borders in the orchard and the raspberry beds. This has been sourced from a local farmer, as our farm horses don’t produce enough for our needs! Putting the muck downs adds feed to the soil and helps keep the weeds down – and looks nice too!

I’ve also been sowing seed in trays in the greenhouse: cabbage, cauliflower and sweet pea. Geraniums have been potted on, put into bigger pots ready to be planted out for the summer. The variety we’re using is ‘Caroline Schmidt’, an old nineteenth century German variety which is planted at Tatton every year, using cuttings from last year’s plants.

Another job this past week has been chitting potatoes – about eight different varieties. These are put in the onion loft in the dark until ready to plant out in the veg garden. This morning we’ve also been pricking out Schizanthus (Poor Man’s Orchid) for the Show House, the glass house next to the Fernery.

Mark Blomeley
Craftsman Gardener

The Italian Job

Since Christmas myself, Alan and Pete have been working on reinstating a feature of the Italian Garden, which is the usual area I’m responsible for. We’re working on reintroducing a parterre situated to the left of the Mansion (looking up from the Italian Terrace). The parterre was turfed over, we believe, some time around World War Two – due to reduced staffing levels.

Although the Italian Garden was restored in 1982 this area was not completed due to a lack of funds. This project has now been funded by the National Trust raffle – thanks to visitors for purchasing these! In December we started work on marking out the site, although work had to be halted for a short period due to the snow. We’ve started again after Christmas and are making great progress.

After measuring out the 20m X 10m bed we started to lift the turf (this will be re-used in other projects). We then dug down to about 12cm depth – excavating over 20 tonnes of soil in the process. This was dug out by hand and then moved by tractor and trailer, where it will be re-used somewhere else in the gardens.

When we excavated the area we found some of the original pre-1945 red and white gravel. This was fantastic as it confirmed what we thought the colours of the original gravel were – as we were only going from black and white photos and could see they were a contrasting colour. We think that the original colour scheme included blue plants so the bed would have a patriotic theme (which would have been perfectly viewed from Lord Egerton’s apartments).

Also this week we’ve started to fix the metalwork in place which holds in the edges and gives definition to the shape of the bed. The metalwork has been made locally by Broadbents of Mobberley. We can now really start to visualise what it will look like. We hope to have finished this by high season at the end of March. Watch this space!

Jamie Jackson
Craftsman Gardener

Spring Cleaning

Now the snow has melted away, leaving Tatton’s gardens looking fresh and green again, we’ve been continuing with our winter programme.

The glasshouses have had a thorough spring-clean. We have eleven glasshouses to clean each year and make them free of bugs and fungal diseases for our tender plants. A blast with a power-washer is followed with a more traditional method (always best) of a bucket of water and some soap. We also use a traditional round Turk’s Head brush; its long bristles reach into all those tricky corners.

One glasshouse in particular has been getting some special attention. This year we've been delighted to have purchased a Begonia Rex collection from Terry and Shirley Tasker of Southport. Over a number of years, the couple have built up a fabulous collection of these special plants. 151 types of begonias will now be housed in one of Tatton’s glasshouses and open to the public to enjoy from the high season at the end of March.

Amongst these 151 varieties are 21 from the original collection of the Begonia enthusiast, Mac Mcintyre. McIntyre was born in Edinburgh in 1905 and, on his death in 1983, his collection of Begonias was bequeathed to Glasgow Botanic Gardens. Interestingly, he actually lived in Knutsford for a while! It’s great for us to be able to make that direct link with this important Begonia champion and also to be able to reintroduce a Begonia collection to Tatton Park. In the past, these plants were kept in the Fernery; we have some black and white photographs in the archive from c.1891 where you can clearly see Begonias amongst the tree ferns.

We are currently re-flagging the York stone paths in the new Begonia glasshouse and will be putting in the traditional decorative iron staging – crafted by the local Mobberley blacksmith Dave Broadbent. I can’t wait to see it in situ!

Another job this week has been to put forcing bells (clay pots) over the rhubarb in the kitchen gardens. This will keep the ground warm and hopefully bring on some early rhubarb for us this spring.

And finally.. the photo shows us at the annual Gordale Orchid Show on the Wirral on the weekend of 16th and 17th January. We love taking part in this event; it’s a great opportunity for us to display our own fantastic orchid collection, swap some plants, meet old friends and make some new ones.

Bob Buckley
Glasshouse and Kitchen Garden Supervisor