Walled Garden Volunteers' Blog June 2023
/You may have noticed the Dye Garden, a small patch in a raised bed by the vegetables in the Walled Garden, where we grow woad, weld, madder, camomile, and golden rod, along with French marigolds. Gardener Ruth tends this patch; over the last few years she has learned to make ‘inks’ from the dye plants and others in the Garden, to paint pictures.
Recently Ruth and other Gardeners (who are members of the Stroudwater Textile Trust, too) delivered a ‘Natural Dyes’ workshop for Gloucestershire WIs.
Meanwhile, our irises were a joy to see in the sunny borders. The Sarah Price Garden at Chelsea this year featured eight blooms from the Benton Collection, seven of which were in full flower here in our Walled Garden, carefully labelled by Penny and Sue.
The hot June weather means…watering! This year, we have decided to water only the vegetables and the largest flower border, the ‘Bonkers Border. Most of the perennials have been in the ground for a few years now, and we put down a deep mulch late last year, so, fingers crossed our flowers will cope with the heat. We have ‘spot-watered’ the most vulnerable plants …and had totally emptied our new, tall water-butt towers! Then came the big thunderstorm, so we have rainwater in stock again!
The flowers are doing well… The white Wisteria and the white Camassias looked fabulous (pictured)!
And the meadow (pictured) is colourful and teeming with insects.
Last year, David (pictured) rescued a pyramidal orchid from the lawn of a house in Stroud and carefully positioned it in the Walled Garden lawn. Success! “Our’ orchid has flowered again, in the protected patch we reserved for it. Here he is with this year’s flower.
Also pictured is gardener Helen, planting a grape vine taken from a cutting a year or so ago and nurtured by several gardeners. The vine grew in the garden of Dame Margaret Weston (former Chair of the Museum’s Cowle Trust). One day, we shall be enjoying her delicious, sweet grapes!
In the same patch, we are attempting to grow Dipsacus pilosus, the teasel variety once used in the local mills to raise the nap on woollen cloth, it being a tougher variety than the ordinary wild teasels. Not only a nod to our local heritage, the teasel heads are also now needed by the Stroudwater Textile Trust for use in their gigg at Dunkirk, and we look forward to being able to assist with this project.
Finally, we are maximising the potential of vegetable-growing at the Walled Garden pergola, with broad beans, shallots, peas, runner beans, lettuces and orach (a warm-season alternative to spinach)…not to mention the raised beds! But more on this in the next Blog!
