June in the Gardens

The plants have gone in below the pond and given time, and enough water this summer, should grow into a very lush shady bank. We finally have a mains water connection to the pond so watering should be easy.

Not so easy for the Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) planted at the Allotments end of the Gardens. It’s very sensitive to drought so a black bucket has been put in the greenery to the left as you go down the steps to the pond in case anyone would care to carry a bucketful of pond water over to it. The Katsura leaves are particularly colourful in autumn and have a scent reminiscent of burnt brown sugar.

The House Martins and the Lesser Horseshoe Bats are back at The Gardeners Hut, their summer maternity roost. The squealing young House Martins can be heard during the day and at dusk the bats can be seen making their tentative forwards and backwards motion just in front of the Hut before setting off to forage, behaviour typical of Lesser Horseshoes.

Hopefully the hardware on the temporary gate placed at the new pavement entry will have been improved by July! Meanwhile The Friends have decided that relocating the old gate is not viable and are seeking designers of new oak gates suitable for that location. We plan to exhibit the design options and then seek funding from suitable sources.

We’ve long thought the Castle would make an ideal backdrop for a dramatic or musical event and this year Alec Collyer is kindly helping the Friends to stage the Picnic in the Gardens. The July edition of the Parish News has a full page advertising the details of the event. Fingers crossed for a fine summers evening!

The second Sunday in the month volunteers have recently cleared out ‘Mother Gum’s Cave’ revealing the stone floor.

There is a very large stone that once acted as a seat beside the stone table, is there any chance we could muster a team of tough volunteers to heave the stone back into position?