The numbers are in. Yes, March was indeed the wettest month. In fact the wettest for 8 years.
Our Education Officer Ann Brookman has been keeping records and sharing the readings with our school visitors for a while now. Her figures certainly bear out our own gut (wellboot) feelings that its been a drearily damp month.
This March we had a whopping 92mm. The driest year was way back in 2012 with a mere 14.5 millimetres
No doubt some of those extra millimetres come from this year’s snow melt but, even so, the hike
from the previous high (60mm in 2013) is pretty spectacular.
Our grass has certainly suffered this month too. The gardeners have been spending this week
tamping down and reseeding some of the paths that have been churned up by traffic in the snow
and rain.
The lovely new stretch tent (from Tentickle) on the lawn, while providing us and the public some good shelter, has been rather too efficiently gathering the water into little swimming pools on the roof. Good job it’s stretchy.
Ah well… April showers to come…..
here is quite a lot of information out there on the web but we thought we would share a guide made by one of our helpful commercial partners, 
Last year the talented artists from the Society sat in the Garden, the greenhouse, the visitor centre whichever was the most comfortable, and drew together, once a month.
The fruit is said to be edible, although not very tasty, which may be hinted at in it’s Latin name ‘unedo‘; coming from unum edo ‘I eat one’ – meaning after you have eaten one you wouldn’t want another one? Having not yet tried one I couldn’t say! Which is good news for the birds, leaving plenty of fruit for them to feast on during the colder months.
At this time of year a lot of plants are starting to go to seed, so it is a good time to go around and collect some of them so we can grow new plants for next year. Some can be sown straight away (as we are doing so in the greenhouses), others can be stored to be sown in the spring. We are also taking cuttings of some of the plants in the garden, and hopefully by next spring we will have lots of lovely plants to sell or plant back out in the garden.
We are trying seeds collected from plants including Alcea (hollyhock), Lychnis (rose campion), Lupin, Astrantia, Galega (Goat’s Rue), Poppy and Phlomis. Some, such as Lychnis, have already germinated, others we are still eagerly awaiting for signs of life! The interesting thing about seeds is the genetic variation that can occur, so often the resulting plants will show some variation from the parent, especially in the case of the hollyhocks, where the colour of the flowers on each plant will be a surprise!
Cuttings taken include Lavender, Rosemary, Jasmine and Philadelphus. These are all semi-ripe cuttings taken from this year’s growth, so the base is firm but with soft growth still on the tips. They are put in pots together, and then when roots start to show at the base of the pot, they will be separated and given their own pot to grow on. Unlike seeds, cuttings create clones of the parent plant, so you know exactly what you are going to get.
Like many fruit growers we’ve had a mixed year.
Our large veg plot – in 18th century ‘stylee’ the Batty Langley,usually provides a good crop of Cardoons, Artichokes, Squashes and Rhubarb. This year our younger visitors also planted up a runner bean tunnel …their effort have been rewarded with a great crop.
Early potato varieties, reputedly planted by local hero Sir Matthew Boulton, were re-introduced in the Garden but we have yet to test the taste of the tiny Yam and Congo varieties..
