by caroline | Jan 21, 2020 | Blog
Nothing creates the vision of an English garden more than a wild rose, tumbling and billowing and generously spirited. Keen to encourage floriferous vigor, Forde Abbey head gardener, Joshua Sparkes bends the stems, gently coaxing them into shapes and patterns. It...
by caroline | Nov 11, 2019 | Blog
The tinker lab in the garden is at full tilt with fermented brews made from fish bones and food scraps, and not for the faint-hearted with words like ’emulsion’ and ‘sludge’ frequently cropping up. At the heart of it lies a back-to-basics...
by caroline | Oct 18, 2019 | Blog
October and the mind is already racing. Beyond the clocks going back and the darker side of the year and head long into the first flush of Spring, when new beginnings will cast off the mantle of a Winter scape. A tapestry of bulbs to burst onto the scene after the...
by caroline | Sep 12, 2019 | Blog
After the marathon of July and August, the pace of September has slowed to a jog. A slow winding down end of season drowsiness that comes with its very own colour palette of feuille morte; of burnished and rusted yellowish browns and brownish oranges. Now is the time...
by caroline | Jul 29, 2019 | Blog
Late July and there’s rows of neatly sown pots in the glass house. Biennials for next year, an ideal job for the middle of the day, when the heat these past few weeks has been relentless. Buoyed by this year’s display, we’ll be growing even more for...
by caroline | Jul 15, 2019 | Blog
The old proverb of ‘making hay’ kicks into gear come July, with tractors trundling up and down the fields and doing just that. It’s the time when some of the meadows at Forde Abbey are given their annual hair cut, but not all, as head gardener Joshua...
by caroline | Jul 8, 2019 | Blog
It’s time to say goodbye to the meadows and put them to bed until next year. Their texture and form has taken many stages through the season, and by July the tufted grasses are the colour of burnt sugar with a caramel brown tinge to them. There’s black grasses,...
by caroline | Jun 19, 2019 | Blog
There’s usually a gap in June, or so the theory goes, when the efforts of Spring have been and gone and Summer is yet to get going. But never has a ‘June dip’ been more frothy and abundant, a baton relay of hesperis and lunaria, alliums and foxgloves – each...
by caroline | Jun 17, 2019 | Blog
Barely had the kettle switch been flicked, and questions started flowing forth about Josh’s botanising in Armenia – what else would a plantaholic do whilst on holiday, after all, but study and take inspiration from flowers in the wild; taking notes on what...
by caroline | May 30, 2019 | Blog
Towards the end of May, a snaking pathway up through the rhododendrons on The Mount is lined with the boldest and most luminous of blues. The turn of the meconopsis poppies, a slice of the Himalayan wilds recreated on a hillside in Somerset. They seem to thrive under...
by caroline | Apr 24, 2019 | Blog
British oaks from the Forde Abbey estate could contribute towards the rebuilding of Notre Dame cathedral, following a joint effort from members of Historic Houses, the association for independently owned historic houses and gardens. So far more than one hundred donor...
by caroline | Mar 29, 2019 | Blog
Welcome to April at Forde Abbey…. With less than a week of undiluted sunshine and the garden has burst into life. From creamy cups to pink-tinged goblets, a full spectrum of magnolias and a canopy of blossom is in bloom. The tapestry of Spring bulbs won’t...
by caroline | Mar 18, 2019 | Blog
It feels like a tipping point in the season. A surge of energy gathering momentum. Pink-cheeked magnolias keeping company with stellata, more spools of ribbon blowing in the breeze, but Joshua Sparkes has already got his feet firmly planted in the next season. Not so...
by caroline | Mar 8, 2019 | Blog
Nature never stands still. Not for a moment. A restless twitching of energy framed by the seasons and textured by the very best of British weather in all it various humours, both light and dark. It’s what makes the mornings endlessly nuanced, and chasing light such a...
by caroline | Feb 20, 2019 | Blog
First it was the snowdrops, softening the edges of February, then came the shoots and unfurlings. The wisps of pale mauve tommasinianus, before the full palette of purple crocus came bursting forth, with magnolia, hammamilis and the first flush of daffodils. An energy...
by caroline | Jan 24, 2019 | Blog
Here at Forde Abbey, we’re going to be making our first ever compost heap. In previous years, it was put in a pile and used on the farm as silage and the garden predominantly ran on masses of leaf mould. This year, we’re keen to get a compost system up and running...
