By Victoria Plum
A coach full of keen Reepham & District Gardening Club members enjoyed a terrific, though very hot, day at Burghley House.
The special feature was a guided tour from Joe Whitehead, head gardener there for just over four years.
He explained the Capability Brown landscape, recent changes and plans for the future, and how the expansion of outdoor attractions have become an important economic necessity for “Treasure Houses”. (Burghley House is part of the independent Treasure Houses heritage consortium, of which Holkham Hall is also a member.)
Above: Joe Whitehead describing the red, white and blue planting for the Platinum Jubilee weekend at Burghley House. Below: One of the features in the Garden of Surprises at Burghley House. Photos: Tina Sutton
Food and clothing are all labelled with their country of origin. Even growing plants now have “passports”. However, not so our supermarket flowers or those on the garage forecourt.
Did you know that many of these are grown in Africa, using scarce water supplies, sprayed with gases to prolong shelf life, flown to the Netherlands and then driven here?
Obviously, they cannot be as fresh as locally grown flowers; think about the resources wasted.
At last month’s meeting of the Reepham gardening club, Gabi Read of Gabriel’s Garden at Gissing gave us a dynamic view into her world of growing cut flowers for her floristry business.
She has developed labour-saving techniques to help her make the most of the specially chosen seeds she grows and propagates, and her acre seems to be a hub where a wealth of flowers and foliage are grown to provide material throughout the year.
She runs courses and holds open garden days; volunteers are welcome, as are foreign students who come to exchange their labour in return for practical growing knowledge.
Organic methods and no-chemical growing are important to her, and she has learnt to “sit tight” when an aphid invasion happens, because she has the experience to know that predators will soon come in to feast on the nuisance creatures. The flowers certainly looked lovely.
Gabi belongs to a membership association called Flowers from the Farm, which champions British seasonal cut flowers, where you can find local growers/florists who are also passionate about what they do and sell wonderful fresh, local flowers.
Nearby, at Edgefield, Ellie Frost of Norfolk Flower Farm has just started a new venture to supply locally grown fresh flowers.
Meanwhile, Eves Hill Veg Co also has freshly picked flowers for sale. This community market garden has just moved to Aylsham and if you’d like an extra dose of sunshine have a look at the website. (You can still order super fresh veg for delivery close to your home).
British Flowers Rock! was started by the delightful Ben Cross of Crosslands Flower Nursery in Sussex.
He works from the family farm, which has been run for four generations, and started when his great-grandfather was given settlement land in the 1930s by the government.
He grows only alstroemeria in huge greenhouses and sells by post. These flowers are a low-impact crop, do not need heat, use little water and last well as a cut flower with many colours available. They are some of my favourites.
I’m looking forward to the Reepham & District Gardening Club talk on Tuesday 21 June at 7.45 pm in Reepham Town Hall by Rosemary Ward on “A Year in the Market Garden”.