Sunday, November 04, 2007

Progress in the garden


Garden progress
The garden is still looking very pretty, with lots of winter chrysanthemums and red hot pokers to brighten the view, and the marigold borders still clinging on. Over the next week they will be replaced with wallflowers ready for spring. On the veg front the purple kale, chards and beetroot give a lush red tinge, and the garden doesn’t yet look as though it has closed down for winter. The lemon trees have been put away in one of the greenhouses for the winter.

The main greenhouse still looks very lush. We have brought all the pumpkins and squashes under cover there, the chilli peppers are still bright and shiny, the aubergines keep growing, and we have had home-grown melons for the last two months of picnics. The water melon was particularly delicious. The green pineapple melon, a heritage variety, proved why some varieties deserve to be heritage…

Planning application for Chiswick House and Gardens
The results are now due out in mid-December. As far as the walled gardens are concerned, the application showed that the southern garden is indeed to be a Kitchen Garden with ¾ for horticultural provision and one quarter set aside for lawn. The northern garden is to be a grassy orchard with occasional parking. We hope, of course, that the parking will be very occasional. We have helped to select the trees to be planted in both walled gardens. Although not our ideal solution, we felt it was an acceptable compromise.