December

How do you write an interesting post about weeding? I’m not sure that you can, (even when you’re weeding on Tresco) so I will keep this one relatively short.

Carrying on from last month, we continued to work as a team, sweeping through large areas of the garden, tidying and cutting back. Work was concentrated in the lower part of the garden, moving progressively from West to East along and around the Long Walk throughout the month. Our weeding ‘wanted list’ mainly consisted of Aristea capitata (Blue Sceptre), Crocosmia sp. (Montbretia), Carex pendula (Pendular Sedge) and Luma (Chilean Myrtle), Pittosporum and Myrsine seedlings, which self seed profusely throughout the garden. With the exception of Carex, we are happy to keep all of the above in the garden, providing they are in the right place. However, sweeping through areas like this and removing everything keeps the garden looking fresh and the removed plants will gradually spread back over the next few years.

Every year, the gardeners harvest seed from a wide variety of plants for sale in the garden shop and to produce an Index Seminum, (a catalogue that gardens use to share their seed with other botanical institutions). Thankfully, this gave us plenty to do on the wettest days, which we spent sheltering in the tractor shed, removing the seed from dried seed heads that had been collected throughout the year. 

On a couple of occasions in December the working week was broken up as all of the gardeners were called to take part in the shoots that are held on the island every winter. Having dressed in our oldest and most thornproof clothing, we worked as beaters, rummaging through the undergrowth to flush out Partridges, Pheasants and Woodcocks, driving them towards the guns.