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Glorious autumn ...       Our gardens have developed over the last 9 years with the help of our fantastic volunteers and via the many training projects run here at HCGC. It is a wonderful place to work, to relax, to learn and to share ideas. Come and visit us and see for yourself.   As you enter the gardens, you pass underneath a 10 metre long willow arch. We grow fruit trees and bushes, espaliers, and have several beds with successful examples of companion planting. There is a large herb bed, another herbaceous bed, mature trees with bird boxes, a little forest garden with ferns and arum lilies, and carpeted with bluebells in the spring. There's a gigantic leaf compost box and bug hotels as well as a wildlife habitat area. The pond is surrounded with a variety of slow growing evergreen and moisture loving plants and flowers, for security there is a beech hedge and a gate, and last year we had magnificent water lilies along with several hundred frogs. It was rather noisy to the delight of the kids.   From the pond we have a few veg beds and these lead to a pergola area with climbers and a may pole with a sundial mosaic pattern made by a local artist. Then you enter a sitting area with raised beds which was built for the 2004 Tatton Park Royal Horticultural Society show (see Something to Shout about page). We won a bronze medal for best urban garden and Monty Don spent some time sitting in it reflecting on the planting of herbs, vegetables and flowers on display. We have several tunnels, one is a workshop area where our residents scarecrows Alfred and Gladis hibernate for the winter. There are 6 planting beds, usually for our kiwi, melons and the couple of Musa Basjoo. There's also a wormery and we're experimenting with a straw, feather and manure hotbed. Every day is a new day with new colours and textures. Come in, relax and take a slow stroll ... |
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