(Message delivered to the volunteers in The Fernery at our Xmas 23 Working Party) Happy Christmas everyone Well this year has whizzed by! I just want to say a few words before the Christmas munching and drinking begins. First and foremost is to thank you all for your hard work and commitment to volunteering here […]
News
Anglia in Bloom 2023 – A Gold Award
We have more success to announce. The Friends of Danesbury Fernery were Gold Award Winners in the Category Historic Parks and Gardens on 20th September at the 2023 Annual Anglia in Bloom (RHS) Presentation Awards Ceremony in Huntingdon. This is further recognition of all the work by many volunteers from Danesbury, Sherrardspark and Mardley Heath […]
National Garden Scheme – Success
The two Open Days of 8th and 10th June were a resounding success. Huge praise goes to all the volunteers who worked especially hard preparing the site to the high standards expected of NGS Gardens, and those who manned the service points, and the refreshments and Plant Sales stands during both evenings. Visitors expressed their […]
Fernery Video 2023
This video was made in June 2023 when the Fernery was just about ready for the National Garden Scheme Opening. Pete Stevens @ creative empathy
National Garden Scheme (NGS) – Open Days 2023
We announced at our delayed 2022 Christmas gathering, that the Friends of Danesbury Fernery (FODF) had been invited to open the Danesbury Fernery as part of the National Garden Scheme (NGS) on Thursday 8th and Saturday 10th June 2023 from 5.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. Considering the relatively short time that it has taken (since […]
Garden Maintenance continues in earnest
The Tuesday working parties in The Fernery are putting in extra hours in preparation for the forthcoming summer! For the first time on 2nd May 2023 we were able to use an industrial sized shredder to start to get to work on the many fallen branches and prunings that had been gathered over the past […]
The Tanked Bed created by Anthony Parsons for Royal ferns
A Problem for Parsons Although expert as a fern cultivator, Anthony Parsons had his frustrations developing the Danesbury Fernery. In particular, he could not get one family of native ferns ‘the Royals’ to grow to their best advantage. He grew these large ferns “at a fair distance apart” and was not going to rest easy […]
Goodbye to 2022 and Welcome to 2023
Report of the 19th January 2023 Working Parties. All volunteers at today’s Local Nature Reserve and Fernery Gardening Group working parties gathered together in the Danesbury Fernery at 11 a.m. for a ‘2022 Xmas Celebration’, delayed from 15th December 22 when heavy rain cancelled the original programme. Where Paul’s Mulled Wine (in Christine’s insulated container) […]
Oct 2022 – Restoring South Bank Steps
Early 19th Century gardening journals told us that steps existed from near the entrance down to the grotto but we had not been able to establish the location to any degree of certainty. There were two or three slopes that might have provided a route that matched the description but in January 2018 Ann and […]
July 2022 – Reflections on the 2022 Open Day
The team worked so hard. Once again we were having an Open Day on Thursday 30th June under the Welwyn Festival Banner. The beds had been watered well for two days as there had been very little rain for so long. We had weeded, added more gravel to the paths, and the grotto rockwork had […]