Garden News

Saturday 20th July 2019 – BRITISH PTERIDOLOGICAL SOCIETY- (BPS) Visit.

The East Anglia Group of the British Fern Society have been invited to visit the Danesbury Fernery on Saturday 20th July. Detailed plans are being drawn up and we will announce detailed timings as soon as they have been agreed. Some BPS visitors will be travelling from as far afield as Norfolk.

This is a return for the October 2018 visit that Andrew Beattie organised when a small group of the Friends of Danesbury travelled to Norwich to attend an East Anglian meeting organised by EA Representative Peter Blake and group members.   We will need to be on our toes when they visit us!

Colin has been busy for months labelling many of our specimen ferns, or should that be ‘specimens of our ferns’?

We will see. We have a lot to learn from our BPS visitors.

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Following close on the heels of the success of the Welwyn Festival Open Garden Evening in June we are busy preparing the site once again for judging on Tuesday morning 9th July, this time not by 170+ members of Welwyn’s community, but by the (RHS) judges of the Anglia in Bloom Competition 2019.

The Friends of Danesbury Fernery were very proud to have been awarded the Conservation Prize in 2018, but we are not resting on our laurels, nor our ferns, and we seek further success. This time the Borough Council have grouped our Entry with ‘Welwyn Village’, in a ‘special’ category which will include among other sites, the Parish Allotments, a private garden and Welwyn High Street.

These are exciting times and, just this week, we have been working hard with the help of the Borough Council’s contractors, to further improve planting beds, to re-profile the North East slope, and to contain the North West slope with a heavy membrane to stop further slippage of the chalky bank and allow more planting. Of great significance, particularly with the current run of dry weather, is that we have managed to bury hosepipe extensions so that watering at the North end of the Fernery will now be very much more practical.

The volunteers are putting in an extra Thursday work party on Thursday 4th July to prepare the site for the Anglia in Bloom judges.

Sarah – “We have some new and very exciting plants to put in the Fernery”

This ‘call for action’ was broadcast on our WhatsApp Fernery Gardening Group on 26th March, and a busy team was formed at short notice.

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Following the planting of 5000 x snowdrops ‘in the green’ on the 11th March 2019, (see earlier News item) we were offered another 5000 x plants by the WHBC.

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On a bright morning a small dedicated team of 8x gardeners led by Sarah reached speeds of 2500 s.p.h. and completed the task of planting 5000 snowdrops by mid-day. These plants (in green) had been offered at short notice by the Borough Council and we can now look forward to a splendid showing early in 2020.

The principal planting areas were on the grassy banks near the Entrance, with the bulk being planted on the grass bank on the South side of the path.

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Elevensies were taken as soon as the snowdrops had been planted, and after stoking up their energies, the team turned to the task of weeding the planting beds, and in particular the slope in the gorge where the new bluebells are beginning to come through.

Sarah completed the planting in the Parsons bed, which will look spectacular as it matures.

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A very successful work party was led by Andrew, with 4x other volunteers in support, with 8x scouts and 7x parents in attendance. Tony Cragg from the Welwyn Film Record Society was kept busy too.

Sarah supervised all the plantings, which were performed by small groups of scouts, each with a parent/helper. Sarah had marked out planting places in advance and each group got digging.

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All roots were dusted with Sarah’s magic root powder. Specimen trees were staked and protected with rabbit wire.

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Whips around the perimeter were protected with plastic tubes.

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At the tea-break, John gave a brief introduction to the work in 1859/60 of the original Fernery Gardener, Anthony Parsons, and the rock-work construction by James Pulham & Sons of Broxbourne.

A few of the parents helped further by clearing out the water and debris lying in the dropping well.

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All the scouts enjoyed themselves, and it was a first-time visit to the Fernery for many of the Parents.

The scouts are expected to pick up a hat-full of badges and awards for undertaking this valuable work with the Friends of Danesbury Fernery volunteers.