After the initial thrill of a lot of snow, the white stuff turned out to be rather annoying, and hung around for two weeks making carrying out any meaningful work difficult. This was never a problem whilst studying at Hadlow College as a classroom was not far away, where some work on theory could be completed; life for a full time gardener is different. Hestercombe does not have much of a greenhouse area to speak of either (this will be changing very soon) so there was not even much indoor work that could be done.

Fortunately, life as a gardener has now returned to normal - and with spring just around the corner, there is plenty of work to be getting on with.

The Hestercombe estate covers a wide area which is well cared for by the two hardworking teams of gardeners - but we do get some extra assistance each week. The local community has a big input as Hestercombe has substantial numbers of volunteers who turn up weekly to give a day - or a few hours - of their time in the garden. This extra workforce can make a long job turn into a less than a day's work!  An example from each garden:

As mentioned in a previous blog, the formal garden has masses of lawn edges, all of which need a weekly trim in the summer. This can take all day, but when the volunteers are helping us, the gardeners can then focus on doing a good job with the actual lawns whilst the volunteers look after the edges. This means only one day has to be spent on lawn care and other areas of the garden can receive extra attention.

A regular task in the landscape garden is the constant battle of removing encroaching brambles and pruning the masses of laurel shrubs. In both cases, there are large areas of this work to be done - frankly, it would take the gardeners all year to do. But on a Thursday usually at least 8 volunteers turn up at 10 am and work until 4pm; in this time a huge area is always cleared making a noticeable difference to the surrounding area.

Before starting work at Hestercombe I never realised to what extent the work of a group of dedicated volunteers can have on a garden!

(Some of the volunteers preparing a dry stone wall for repair)