This year for the first time Arduaine Garden will be closed to visitors over the winter months. The garden will close at 4pm on September the 30th and reopen on April 1st, 2022.
During the next 6 months the remaining Japanese Larch within the garden will be removed to comply with a Statutory Plant Health Notice which expires in March 2022. Closure will allow us to carry out this last stage efficiently and safely and we hope to make up for being a year behind in both felling and clear up due to staffing shortages, and the loss of volunteering groups due to Covid. We have just over 400 trees to remove and to help us complete the task we are now going to bring in a forestry harvester to work on the strip on the Southern boundary which will remove 280 trees. The remaining Larch will be removed by time consuming climbing and rigging techniques to protect the plant collection beneath.
During the next 6 months the remaining Japanese Larch within the garden will be removed to comply with a Statutory Plant Health Notice which expires in March 2022. Closure will allow us to carry out this last stage efficiently and safely and we hope to make up for being a year behind in both felling and clear up due to staffing shortages, and the loss of volunteering groups due to Covid. We have just over 400 trees to remove and to help us complete the task we are now going to bring in a forestry harvester to work on the strip on the Southern boundary which will remove 280 trees. The remaining Larch will be removed by time consuming climbing and rigging techniques to protect the plant collection beneath.
Arborist dismantling wind damaged Robinia hispida in lower garden.
During the summer we managed to continue with project work at the same time as normal garden maintenance. Previous work has opened the garden up to wind damage and we are beginning to see the effects of this. Recently we have had damage to a large Griselinia littoralis which loomed over our reception building. The whole tree had to be cut down and it will be left to regrow as a low pollard.
Newly exposed frontage of reception building after removal of damaged Griselinia littoralis.
Some trees which were already weak were inspected and removed as a precaution. A large Norway Maple at the garden house was removed because it had been weakened by disease and rot and could have fallen without the protection of the surrounding Larch. In the lower garden a previously wind damaged Robinia hispida was removed as it was vulnerable to strong winds and situated over a main path.
During the summer, staff carried out further identification work on our Rhododendron collection, spending 4 days surveying and verifying with experts David Chamberlain and Ian Sinclair. This work is continuing into next year and will be useful when we begin replanting the woodland garden next year as we make decisions on which Rhododendrons we will propagate and improve the collection.
I am looking forward to the end of the felling stage of the Shelterbelt Renewal Project. It will be good to move on to replanting and improving the garden once again. Material for replanting will be sourced and ordered early next year and replanting will begin in the winter of 2022/23. By opening in Spring next year, the garden will look very different and will be much more open and less protected from the wind. To counter this in the short term we will be building lath windbreaks to protect against low level winds until the new shelter belt establishes. Construction of these new windbreaks will begin this year and will be completed in 2022.
We will have help in this from our new apprentice gardener Rebecca, who started at the beginning of September. Over the next two years Rebecca will be learning about our important plant collection and will receive practical on the job training from our experienced team as well as attending college. She has come at an important time in the garden’s development, and I am glad that she can be here to be a part of that.
Gregor Anderson
During the summer, staff carried out further identification work on our Rhododendron collection, spending 4 days surveying and verifying with experts David Chamberlain and Ian Sinclair. This work is continuing into next year and will be useful when we begin replanting the woodland garden next year as we make decisions on which Rhododendrons we will propagate and improve the collection.
I am looking forward to the end of the felling stage of the Shelterbelt Renewal Project. It will be good to move on to replanting and improving the garden once again. Material for replanting will be sourced and ordered early next year and replanting will begin in the winter of 2022/23. By opening in Spring next year, the garden will look very different and will be much more open and less protected from the wind. To counter this in the short term we will be building lath windbreaks to protect against low level winds until the new shelter belt establishes. Construction of these new windbreaks will begin this year and will be completed in 2022.
We will have help in this from our new apprentice gardener Rebecca, who started at the beginning of September. Over the next two years Rebecca will be learning about our important plant collection and will receive practical on the job training from our experienced team as well as attending college. She has come at an important time in the garden’s development, and I am glad that she can be here to be a part of that.
Gregor Anderson
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