{"id":652,"date":"2013-10-12T14:14:12","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T14:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foxrockgardenclub.com\/cms\/?p=652"},"modified":"2018-01-22T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T18:17:07","slug":"the-orchard-garden-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxrockgardenclub.com\/the-orchard-garden-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orchard Garden in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had such a glorious sunny summer in 2013 that we tend to forget what a slow start there was to the growing season. When we started back at the beginning of March all one could see were big expanses of bare compacted earth with no signs of new growth.<\/p>\n

Fortunately we had a little money in the kitty and Mary Toomey asked Jason and a friend of his to dig over the garden. Jason works for club member Adrian Eggers, who owns a garden design business called Living Designs. Adrian has helped us so much in the Orchard Garden, doing much more than he has been contracted to do, and always with good humour!The first thing we did was to walk around the garden and make notes about what needed to be tackled.<\/p>\n

We all agreed that the large patio area that the service users both sit in and look out on from their \u201chobby room\u201d was very dull especially in the winter months.We bought 6 large blue pots which we first filled with polyanthus: later for the summer months we planted them up with stock and cosmos. We are in the process of buying more permanent plants which would be drought tolerant. We still have plans to do more in this area.<\/p>\n

It was very obvious that we needed to put in structural plants in various parts of the garden and Mary\u201d hit\u201d the garden centres. Here are some of the trees she chose, which we planted last spring:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
Hoheria sexstylosa
\nViburnum x burkwoodii ‘Anne Russell’
\nMagnolia grandiflora
\nMagnolia stellata
\nHydrangea quercifolia
\nArbutus unedo<\/td>\n		Hamamelis mollis
\nCercis chinensis
\nCedrus atlantica ‘Pendula’
\nCaryopteris x clandonensis
\nCornus alternifolia ‘Argentea’<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

Open Day – June 2013<\/h3>\n

We also decided it was time to have an open day in the garden and show it off to the public. We wanted also to raise some much needed funds both for the Alzheimer Society and to buy new structures and plants for the garden. We also were very anxious that people would see and understand the therapeutic value of a garden like this.<\/p>\n

We have tried to make it a garden with all year round interest. Another very important element is the sensory aspect of the plants.<\/p>\n\n\t\t