Shugborough 20 March 2011

Five volunteers met up at Styal and car shared down to Shugborough - where we met up with one of the gardeners.

A new metal edge had been installed along the edges of some of the paths in the autumn, and the gardeners were hoping for some help tidying up the results. This involves...

Taking off a strip of turf,
Leveling off topping up and packing down the soil
Replacing the turf along the edge - creating a gap further back
Filling the gap with more fresh soil
The gap can then be reseeded with an appropriate grass mix.

This process has two advantages over simply filling the gap behind the new edge and seeding it - The turf is tougher than loose soil so it forms a more stable edge, and it easier to avoid planting fresh grass seed on the path! We split into two groups - on taking up and replacing the turf, the second filling the gap with fresh soil. Unfortunately the soil supply was rather stony - and anything bigger than roughly 1/2" had to be fished out as we went along.

Still - the gardeners should be pleased that they haven't had to do it all themselves. The photographs show the intermediate stage, and the end of the day ready for the seed, the second photo was taken from further back and shows a longer length of path.

or in Daniels words...
Five of us went down the M6 today to work in the garden at Shugborough. We spent the day working with gardener Jim edging a footpath. The job involved moving established turf up against the metal path edge and then filling in the gap left behind with topsoil ready for seeding in a few weeks. The topsoil was very stony and we had to pick out the stones and larger pebbles. The photo attached shows the general result. We did approximately 150 metres and Jim reckoned there was a mile in all to do – plenty to keep him busy all summer!

Spring had arrived in the garden and the lawns by the riverbank where we had lunch were covered in clusters of daffodils. After lunch the gardens were full of people, some of whom ventured over the river to the new arboretum. The sculpture trail - new in 2010 I think – caught our imagination. The highlight was this mosaic newt – as big as a Komodo dragon - which all the passersby were commenting on!

Joe Hawkins, head gardener, completed his Thomas Wright-inspired fundraising walk from Durham to Shugborough last autumn and has written all about it in his blog:

www.thelandscapedisciple.blogspot.com