January in the Garden 

January has been a challenging month for the garden team.  Aside from our normal tasks – pruning the roses, clearing the final herbaceous borders and pruning over 50 apple trees in the Millenium Parterre we had extremes of weather to deal with as well.  

Storm Eowyn hit the Estate but compared with some gardens we were relatively lucky and suffered minor losses.  However, escaping that meant the weather gods had another fate for us in mind and it was devastating.  Our Glasshouse heating system failed on the coldest night of the year so far and we arrived to find 3 out of our 4 glasshouses completely iced up inside.  Literally all our plants had been killed overnight. Some varieties have been bred from heritage species and others had been cultivated by and created by our Head Gardener Simon. Many had been grown from seed and had reached maturity and sizes impossible to replace on a like for like basis.  We estimate having lost £25,000 worth of plants at least. 

However-despite a few days of grief we have looked for the positives: 

We can repair the glasshouse benches, paint and refurbish the houses and get them back into tip top condition. 

We can look to not only replace what we lost but enhance our collection as well – choosing new varieties and species of plants to grow. 

We can make sure that we build in safeguards to this never happens again. 

We can make our glasshouses even more beautiful for our visitors to enjoy later this year.  

Because of the destruction, some of the glasshouses are closed to the public but luckily our Hot House heating didn’t fail, so we still have our beloved Stephanotis, Bird of Paradise, some Cacti and tropical plants thriving.  Our peaches and grapes are also unscathed!  

Some before and after pictures are below but we will be back soon with our gorgeous Glasshouses restored!