How to Sow Seeds: a Step-by-step Guide

Over the past few weeks the Formal Garden team have mostly been cracking on with the rose pruning, which we finally completed yesterday, hooray! Today we all jumped at the opportunity to work in the glasshouse and do some seed sowing. To sow a fine seed such as _Digitalis purpurea_ 'Munstead White', which we collected from foxgloves growing on the West Rill...

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Hestercombe’s Wildflower meadow - showing evidence of the hot early summer (image: Ben Knight) - By Claire Greenslade_ “It has been such an extraordinary year in so many ways, even weather wise - spring was so hot that half the plants in the Wildflower Meadow germinated quickly, flowered and went to seed in a flash, and the whole site looked a bit burnt...

**Today was the first of the Confident Gardener workshops at Hestercombe and we mastered apple pruning. Although very cold, we had dry weather and met a lovely bunch of people who had come to learn how to prune their trees at home. As with anything I am involved with, this also included a great deal of tea drinking and lots of general chat - about gardening...

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...

meaning that we can overwinter more plants. It is exciting times for us, so to get us fired up and to refresh our memories about glasshouse work, we arranged for a one day course, just for us, at Bicton college. We spent the day in the glasshouse with Janice Hindley, who took us through several propagation techniques, seed sowing, and glasshouse pest and...

**Step by step advice from Hestercombe's Head Gardener Claire Greenslade on the do's and don't's of pruning apples and pears**: - Follow Claire's step by step guide to apple pruning and you could end up with a big punnet of juicy apples like we do at Hestercombe!The first rule of apple pruning is... don’t worry, it’s not that hard and it’s unlikely...

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...

**Out in the gardens, our gardeners have been making the most of wet days by turning the compost heaps. Head Gardener Claire Greenslade tells us more!**: “We have some bark chip to add into our compost heaps as unfortunately we were forced to fell a couple of ash trees which were suffering with ash dieback. However, this really helps add the carbon needed...

Readers, I am after your ideas and thoughts. As you may know we run several half day courses through the year - apple pruning/rose pruning/ seed sowing/cuttings/dry stone walling and charcoal burning etc. What I would like to know from you is, are we missing anything? Is there something horticultural that you wish we could explain to you? Would you like...

The forest kiln in the 1990s Tomorrow is Charcoal Burning Day at Hestercombe. It means an early start for our Gardens Team who will light the kiln at 5am and stay up at the Charcoal Burner’s Camp in the woods until it gets dark and the charcoal is made. We’re also open a little later than usual tomorrow - you can explore the gardens until 8pm and also...

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...

by Claire Greenslade, Hestercombe’s Head Gardener_ **How do you manage a large garden with a furloughed team and locked down volunteers?!** Who knew that this would ever be a question I would have to ask myself. This virus is something that none of us had been able to prepare for. Since March 23rd 2020 Hestercombe has had to close its gates. Really big...

**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...

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**No Mow May ~ can you resist your mower for one month to help insect life in the UK?! Head Gardener Claire Greenslade sets you a challenge...**: **No Mow May** is an initiative set up by Plant Life, a charity that aims to promote the conservation of plants and habitat, and to increase awareness of the value of plants. They're asking for gardeners across...

It has taken hours of hard work but finally we have managed to start work in our glasshouse. We were recently given the opportunity to have two big Victorian glasshouses. Previously we had worked from a small domestic one and a poly tunnel. A lady from a neighboring village needed to sell up and was worried that her glasshouses would just end up being...

This is a picture of the daisy steps - or daisyless steps! Every year we find that the Erigeron karvinskianus struggles to establish at the top of the daisy steps. No matter how many we carefully plant up thay always look thinner at the top than the bottom. And here's why...... some kind of animal - possible badger as there are sets nearby, or possibly...

Key Responsibilities:Supporting an individual/s in your community one-on-one and enabling them to become more activeSupporting them in or outside of their home, including community settings and leisure facilities depending on their preferencesHelping build confidence and trust in physical activity while motivating and boosting self-esteem whilst being...

**We very much welcome people with disabilities, their carers and their assistance dogs ~ we hope you will find the information below useful in planning your visit.**: At Hestercombe you’ll find 50 acres of gardens featuring designs from the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s, a café, and plant centre, and in the historic Hestercombe House, a contemporary art...