Well after a huge effort we are making some progress with our winter jobs list, if not quite as quickly as we would have liked! The soft fruit is now pruned and we are well into winter pruning on the apple orchard. If we could just get a non windy day we would be up the ladder doing the tops of them!

The bed at the entrance next to the donations cairn is being cleared to be re-planted with plants that will mark the transition between gentleman’s arboretum and formal walled garden. In order to fund the planting that we would like to do throughout the gardens we are in the process of fundraising to buy new trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs to increase spring interest in the garden and stimulate your sense of smell. We have managed to raise funds for a small amount of bulb planting this year and have added winter aconites, cyclamen coum, iris reticulata and anemone blanda to the garden.

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The original plantings of daffodils in the gardens are now coming out. We are hoping to identify the names of the historical daffodil varieties as they come out this year, particularly under the lime walk. We think the following delightful double daffodil may be ‘Telamonius Plenus’ one of the oldest daffodil in cultivation.

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On Monday the garden will be closed as we continue to clear the overgrown laurel and self seeded ash trees at the main entrance. We will also be chipping the brush pile and the chippings will be used to resurface the play area. We will retain a small amount of laurel to screen the road, but we hope to open up views to the stream and Grade II listed bridge. You will also be able to see the snowdrops hiding under brambles and overgrowth and we have added more spring bulbs to this area to make the garden a more inviting place to enter!

Anyone who has visited the pond recently will have seen the mass of frogspawn in the pond and the rill too. Birds are begining to nest and the Red Kites have been seen carrying nesting material to their favourite tree too.

We have been fortunate to arrange a plant swap with the lovely people at Stackpole Walled Garden near Pembroke this week so we will be broadening the range of plants within the garden this way too.

This summer looks set to be the scene of big changes in our little garden with a huge amount of clearing and replanting being done. A big thankyou to our loyal band of volunteers who come in and help me to keep chipping away at our workload. We are always looking for new volunteers in the garden so please get in touch if you are interested.

Don’t forget to start sowing your seeds, we have sweet peas growing away ready to go in now and are beginning to sow the rest of the flowers and vegetables we hope to grow (rabbits permitting) next year.

We have also secured funding to purchase some new benches for the garden and we are currently looking at using recylced plastic ones which would avoid the rot problem we have with the garden being damp due to it being surrounded by water on three sides.

Look forward to seeing the visitor numbers increase as the weather improves and we hope you will notice the changes we have all worked so hard to make!