On Sunday 29th October after remembering to put the clocks back, nine volunteers met at Biddulph Grange Gardens.
Upon meeting in the carpark at Biddulph we met up with Gardener Leslie and apprentice Holly. Leslie asked us if any of us had forgotten about the hour changing we were able to inform her that no we hadn't, she had!
After a talk through of the Risk Assessment we headed into the gardens. We knew what our task would be but because we weren't all experts Leslie talked us through it. It was a task I had never done before and seemed pretty straight forward. Cut the dahlia stems, take out the stake holding them up, dig out the remaining dahlias and get rid of as much soil as possible and tie them up with the name label attached with string. There were a lot to get through. I started with the cutting of the stems. If there were any flowers still in bloom and looking good we could pick them to make a bunch of flowers which Jenny did.
The Gardens were very busy with visitors and there were lots of families with small children. The children wearing wellies enjoyed jumping in the puddles and some of the adults stopped to speak to us or ask Leslie questions about dahlias or gardening in general.
At 11 we stopped for elevenses and had Jenny's delicious Bakewell Tart and Ally's very gooey Millionaire Shortbread. They both went down a treat. After the cake Jean unfortunately had to retire home due to an ongoing injury.
After elevenses we carried on our task and got most of the dahlias and stakes out. The stakes were ones we had put in back in June. It is a task we have done for a number of years so I was keen to see what it was all about. Lunchtime was called and Leslie had lined up a treat for us ... RANGERS TAKE NOTE ... she provided us with a table and chairs to sit round, very posh for us when we are used to eating sitting on the floor or on a rock!
After lunch we finished tying up the last of the dahlias and turned over the beds for our next task tulip bulb planting! Just before we started on this task Sue B arrived to say hello and to see me as I have not seen her for at least a year. She partook in a small amount of bulb planting. Biddulph had 5,000 bulbs to plant in different locations around the gardens. Where we were there were five beds to be filled.
The way to plant the tulip bulbs was to throw handfuls of them from an allocated box, each bed having a a different box. After they had been thrown they then had to be buried under the soil using trowels. The planting was an important task if a little tedious. We managed to get two and half beds done and then decided to call it a day. It was starting to get dark and we were all tired. We had a group photo and headed for home. Leslie was very pleased with what we had done and is looking forward to our next visit there.
It was a fantastic day and it didn’t rain. It lovely to see you all. Here's to next time.
The advice I will take away from this day is tulips don’t need to be planted a particular way up so just plant them any which way you like.
Ally
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