Today I worked with Andrew Hemme. Andrew looks after two areas, the fruit house in the west that is one of the original glasshouses and has espaliered fruit trees, figs, grape vines etc... And the children's garden in the east which he has just taken over from Lorie (as she will be taking care of the new green wall outside in the plaza once it is completed).
The morning was spent in the children's garden. First off I got a ladder and tidied up some of the plants in the arches. They have a mixed planting of Doryanthes palmeri, Asparagus sperengii, Neomarica (Walking Iris), various vines, and Ficus pumila climbing up the walls. Its a striking planting combination, but has its disadvantages, mainly being that the arches are quite inaccessible. One of the Neomaricas leaf tips were browning quite extensively, perhaps dues to its proximity to the glass and insufficient water, despite having drip line irrigation. After I was finished with the arches, we removed some older leaves from a Strelitzia nicolai. The clump looks great, but its starting to get a tad large, and it probably wont be too long before it hits the glass and has to be removed... Heres some photos from the childrens garden
After lunch I went to a talk given by Jim Sutton, the principle designer for Longwood. He is in charge the designs for the main conservatory and the brickwalk. Other areas, containers etc are generally designed by the gardeners. It was a interesting talk, and a good chance to get behind the scenes. Jim is an ex gardener who has worked both indoors and outside. That certainly seems to have its advantages, as he has a good idea of what plants work and what plants dont. He talked about the current designs he is working on (which are for 2011, a year in advance. This years were completed last year), chrysanthemum festival, orchid extravaganza, and the brickwalk.
No comments:
Post a Comment