The pumpkin tree returns!

Last week it was wheelbarrows at the ready for Tatton Park’s garden team - as they brought in the autumn harvest for the half term 'Get Squashed' event. With more than 2.5 acres of walled kitchen gardens, that’s a lot of tasty gourds, marrows and squashes - not forgetting some corking courgettes.

The annual 'Get Squashed' event is now back in the gardens until Sunday, October 30. This event is a great opportunity for the gardeners to dig deep for creative inspiration and make a fantastic display of the autumn harvest. Our visitors have been arriving  to see, smell, touch (but not quite taste - that would ruin the display) some wonderful fare from the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.

Look closely for the pumpkins!

Our younger visitors have been taking part in a pumpkin poetry trail, which leads them around the gardens in search of ingredients for a ‘magical spell’finally leading them to the marvellous ‘pumpkin tree’. See left!!

The gardens are looking particularly beautiful now, especially the maples in the historic Japanese garden, which celebrates its centenary this year. Here's a photo of it this lunch time  - burnished in its gorgeous autumn colour. 

If you’re looking for other frightfully fun events this half term, visit the horrendously haunted Old Hall at Tatton Park from until Sunday, October 30. Prepare to be petrified as you wander through the haunted Tudor building - fast gaining a reputation as one of the spookiest film locations in the North West. 

And don't forget the fabulously peculiar Skin and Bones event in the mansion - exploring Tatton's wonderful natural history collection of taxidermy, fossils, shells and ethnographic curios.  This event takes place until Sunday October 30.

Happy half term!

Eleanor Gorsuch, Marketing

Still covered with a blanket of snow, with frost still picking out the beautiful tracery of the tree skeletons, Tatton Park is getting ready for spring. Under the snow, our Pinetum is transformed into a magical winter wonderland, giving many of our magnificent specimens a taste of their true homes: Bhutan, China, Japan and North America. It was originally the only way people could experience the four corners of the globe and even still, it has lost none of its charm and magic to see stately pines, laden with snow sparkling under a low winter sun.
With a thaw slowly taking place another special experience awaits the visitor at Tatton. The sweet delicate perfumes of winter shrubs start to fill the air. As you walk out of the Tower Garden, through Tower Wood, the spidery petals of the Witch Hazels are starting to give out their smell. Both Hammamellis mollis and intermedia will be at their very best in a week or two. Wafting through the air also is the smell of Mahonia x media, a sweet and strong smell so loved by the hardiest of bees.
Another cracking small shrub for this time of year is the sweet-smelling Sarcocca hookeriana, whose tiny white flowers with pink anthers pack a heady punch on these still, frosty days. I couldn't not mention Calicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion' whose steely violet berries leap out of our L border for visitors who, along with all the other berries and fruits in the garden, maintains a great deal of winter interest around the garden. And finally, don't miss all the wonderful bark colours and textures around the garden, including the ghostly white Betula ermanii and the knarled, twisted shapes of the Dawn Redwoods.
Tatton, more than any other garden has so much all season interest. There is as much to see as you want, whatever the time of year and we are always busy maintaining the garden for your next visit.

Simon Tetlow, Garden Team Leader
www.tattonpark.org.uk