Marching into spring at Arundel Castle Gardens
Spring has come early at Arundel Castle due to the very wet and warm start to 2024 with the castle team gearing up to open its gates this Thursday 28th March in time for our Easter Medieval Festival, where our knights will yet again be marching in to welcome our visitors!
Judging by the current weather our Tulip Festival may well be announced earlier than expected, check out our website and social media for its launch on www.arundelcastle.org
This is our Tulip Festivals 10th anniversary here at the castle, the garden team have planted an astonishing 1.2 million spring bulbs during this time including camassia, snake’s head fritillaries, hyacinth, narcissus, allium, leucojum, snowdrops and of course the endless tulips, with 75,000 planted last November through to December! New this year we have created six tiered displays of mixed tulips in the wildflower garden which will be surrounded by thousands of white thalia narcissus which will be in flower for Easter, we are all getting very excited as the tulips are well ahead of schedule.
The garden team have been working extra hard in the Rose Garden, which has undergone a further transformation over the winter months, we have removed all our box hedging, and replanted this with lovely Lavender augustifolia, as it is heavily scented, excellent as a low hedging plant, will look very attractive alongside the flowering roses in late May and June. To give further structure to the Rose Garden we added Yew Cones and Balls enhancing its formality this works well with the existing Gothic Archways, covered with the pretty Adelaide d’orléans white climbing rose, along with the backdrop of the castle and the Gothic seating and gates. Lavender attracts bees and beneficial insects like ladybirds that feed off aphids so together its nature’s perfect synergy for any rose garden! Along with these changes we have planted 350 new roses, the best time to visit the Rose Garden is in late May and June.
In the kitchen garden the potatoes are being planted out, with varieties such as Pentland Jardin a heavy yielding potato, Swift an extra first early potato which is resistant to bruising, blackleg, scab and eelworm, Lady Christl which has a creamy buttery taste and delicious boiled, Pink Fir Apple, Cara, Rocket and Maris Peer an ideal cooking potato. Our fruit and vegetables go up to the castle and any surplus we put out for our visitors with an honesty box.
Keeping one step ahead with sowing and pricking out is essential at this time of the year, the early brassicas are growing on in modules to give them the best start and the shallots have been planted out with just their noses above the soil to prevent the birds tweaking them out.
Tips from the castle garden team:
Last chance to lift and divide your snowdrops.
If you haven’t done your top dressing do this as soon as possible on your borders and beds, we use well-rotted organic manure which helps lower our high PH, it adds structure and nutrients to our soil and retains moisture throughout the hot summer months.
This is a good time to prune your Dogwoods, such as Cornus and Salix to ensure you have lovely coloured stems for winter months.
Throughout gardens weeds will be growing faster than plants, weed them out and keep on top of them, good luck!
It’s a good time to divide large clumps of herbaceous perennials; you can replant or pot them up and give them to friends for their gardens.
Order your summer bulbs, such as your Gladioli, Lilies and Dahlias. Within the Tropical Borders we use the hardier Dahlias such as Bishop of Llandaff and David Howard as we can leave them in the ground over the winter months.
This is a good month to prune your shrub and bush roses; but do your climbing roses in autumn. We have given our roses a dressing of farmyard manure which they thrive on.
Within your borders your herbaceous plants will begin to grow rapidly, therefore it’s good to stake and support the plants by the end of the month using pea sticks etc.
In the organic vegetable garden, seeds are sown both out in the open soil, in modules and seed beds. This gives the plants a helping hand earlier in life. A strong healthy young plant has a greater ability to fight pest and disease.
Brassicas can be sown in seed beds or pots for pricking out into modules later on.
A late sowing of beetroot in modules will give young delicious small beets in May.
Happy Gardening!