Pollination Tips: What to Plant in Your Garden to

About the RoleThis Ecological Garden Manager position is an exciting opportunity to contribute to Spark-A-Change Foundation's mission of transforming public spaces across Somerset. As an integral member of our team, you will be responsible for designing, managing, and maintaining community gardens that showcase innovative landscaping and ecological...

There’s little better than a butterfly fluttering past, a bee buzzing by or a dragonfly darting through when you’re pottering in the garden. You can make those chance encounters more likely by embracing wildlife gardening. Luckily, finding the balance between a wildlife garden and beautiful planting is easier than you might think. Here, we suggest five...

**If you are visiting Hestercombe over the next couple of weeks (and you must) then make sure you head to the rotunda in the formal garden to 'smell spring'. The walls of the rotunda are covered in a deciduous shrub called Chimonanthus praecox, also known as Wintersweet. At this time of year it produces these small waxy flowers that look rather like a 1930's...

We are recruiting for a seasonal plant area assistant to work at Otter Garden Centre, Taunton. You will be working as part of our plant area team, maintaining our high standards of plant care, and helping with general customer enquiries. Please note this is a manual role and does include heavy lifting, and working in an outdoor environment. **Duties will...

A bunch of homegrown flowers is hard to beat **In the run up to our new event: Spring bouquet workshop (24 April), local grower and florist, JW Blooms, gives some top tips on growing your own...** With spring in the air, now is the perfect time to think about growing some flowers for the house. It doesn’t matter if you have enough space for a dedicated...

**Winter Gardening Ideas: How To Look After Your Garden**: As the chilly nights draw-in make sure you follow these top tips on how to look after your garden over the winter with winter gardening ideas from Head Gardener **Claire Greenslade**. Cannas looking totally tropical on the Great Plat this summer **1. Lift tender plants**: Many tender species need...

Looking after the new hives at Hestercombe **We’re welcoming bees into a new home at Hestercombe, with the delivery of six hives for these humble honey makers.** Ian Stiby and Rosie Ellis, who are beekeeping partners at Three Bridges Apriary, have brought the new colony to the orchards of Hestercombe so we can produce our own special Hestercombe Honey....

Mindfulness appears to be all the rage these days — and for good reason. University of Oxford professor Willem Kuyken shares that this practice is about developing a greater sense of awareness that ultimately teaches one to be present in the moment with curiosity, kindness, and care. Many people practise mindfulness by doing a yoga session or listening to...

**What a summer! I have never known such a prolonged drought in my 15 years of working at Hestercombe. I’m surprised, and pleased, that not only have the plants survived, but the team has too.**: **Very early on we took the decision not to water the lawns. Water is such a valuable commodity and as a public garden it’s important that we show a different...

So the late spring has in fact had quite an amazing affect on the garden as everything seems to have come at once. It's an awesome time in terms of colour and it's rare to admire irises, paeonies, roses, wisteria and cistus at the same time - I love it! It is like 3 months condensed into one. Gertrude Jekyll was a great colourist, it was one of her many...

We all downed tools and went on a garden visit yesterday. Some may consider this a jolly but I think I have convinced everyone that it is a vital educational trip! And it is - we can all get a bit bogged down with whats going on in our own gardens and forget to look around us at our colleagues and competitors. So we boarded the mini bus and went to Prior...

Lets face it, we all do it every year. We sow the whole packet of seeds 'just in case' and then end up with far to many seedlings that we don't know what to do with. Normally with me it's tomto plants. At home I really only have room for 2 or 3 plants but I still think I'd better sow the whole lot! And if you are careful and only sow what you need then you...

Too many books taking up room in your house?! Our second hand bookshop has been very popular but to make sure it stays in tip top condition we need to keep a constant rotation of books. If you've got any books you've read and don't have space for bring them along! We'd appreciate all types of books but especially fiction, cookery, gardening and...

Enhanced by serene scenery, first-class hospitality and an abundance of comfortable accommodation, St Audries Park offers all the charm you would expect from a beautiful country manor wedding venue in Somerset. With our beautiful Orangery and extensive grounds, our country house is the first choice for many wanting a coastal wedding. Our beautiful wedding...

Our client based in Taunton is looking for an experienced Gardener with skillset on maintaining gardens, including mowing lawns, strimming, hedge cutting, weeding etc. The role may also include laying turf, plantings shrubs, flowers. Horticultural knowledge is preferred. A valid UK driving licence is desired but not essential as you might be driving company...

**With autumn in full swing now we are certainly finding plenty to do in the gardens! Apart from the seemingly never ending task of leaf blowing and raking we have been chopping back all the Mexican daisies that grow in the walls. This reveals the beautiful stone work underneath and shows off the intricate structure of the Formal Garden. We also have some...

Regular visitors to Hestercombe may have noticed some hazel structures popping up around the Formal Garden. These are actually our way of staking some of the herbaceous plants that are likely to flop over if not supported. Hazel staking offers an attractive alternative to metal link stakes, plus it is also a lot of fun to do! The hazel (_Corylus avellana_)...

**Have you ever been scared to start a project in the garden because of the enormity of it? It happens to all of us, especially when deciding on the size of the flower beds.**: - By _Claire Greenslade_, Head Gardener_ "Have you ever been scared to start a project in the garden because of the enormity of it? It happens to all of us, especially when deciding...

**Head Gardener, Claire Greenslade, on how we can adjust our garden planting to better suit long, dry spells**: The recent heatwave and ongoing extreme weather is very hard for our garden plants to respond to. Most plants like consistency and are adapted to specific climates, temperatures, topography, soil types and weather types. They respond to circadian...

There are a few last minute spaces on the Apple Pruning workshop with our Head Gardener Claire Reid next Wednesday. The course is a busy morning full of hints and tips from Claire plus hands-on practice in the gardens.