The chairman Terry Atherton welcomed members and a guest, David Palin to the November meeting in the Expanse Hotel. He also installed Keith Lowe as a new member. After lunch the chairman introduced the speaker, Andrew Karavics the head gardener at Sledmere House whose presentation was titled “Sledmere Gardens through the Year”.
Andrew was appointed 8 years ago with the remit to develop the garden and draw people in. He is aided in this task by two assistant gardeners. The main feature is the two and a half acre, octagonal shaped walled garden and the remit here was to increase the colour which has been done in Spring by using crocuses, irises, forget-me-nots and tulips with colour schemes that change from year to year. Later in the year these are replaced by 25,000 bedding plants grown from seed in two greenhouses and planted to designs worked out beforehand on paper.
The “Lark Ascending “garden was planted to suit a mood created for Andrew by particular pieces of music. All this information was beautifully illustrated by colourful and interesting slides, the next of which were of the Pottager Garden. In this garden vegetables were grown along with flowers such as marigolds to deter harmful insects. The vegetable produce is sold in the shop, used in the cafe and distributed in the village.
Sledmere House has long been known for its roses and Andrew and his staff have continued their development and there were pictures of ramblers, climbers and hybrid tea roses. The gardeners encourage wildlife in the garden and birds, frogs and toads enable many plants to be unmolested by slugs and snails. One of their themes is that flowers need to be pollen rich to encourage bees and butterflies and insects, which in turn lead to the presence of more birds.
Around the gardens there are plenty of seats to allow visitors to rest and take in the delights that Andrew and his staff have created.
The vote of thanks for an articulate and beautifully illustrated talk was given by Chris Slingsby.
Andrew was appointed 8 years ago with the remit to develop the garden and draw people in. He is aided in this task by two assistant gardeners. The main feature is the two and a half acre, octagonal shaped walled garden and the remit here was to increase the colour which has been done in Spring by using crocuses, irises, forget-me-nots and tulips with colour schemes that change from year to year. Later in the year these are replaced by 25,000 bedding plants grown from seed in two greenhouses and planted to designs worked out beforehand on paper.
The “Lark Ascending “garden was planted to suit a mood created for Andrew by particular pieces of music. All this information was beautifully illustrated by colourful and interesting slides, the next of which were of the Pottager Garden. In this garden vegetables were grown along with flowers such as marigolds to deter harmful insects. The vegetable produce is sold in the shop, used in the cafe and distributed in the village.
Sledmere House has long been known for its roses and Andrew and his staff have continued their development and there were pictures of ramblers, climbers and hybrid tea roses. The gardeners encourage wildlife in the garden and birds, frogs and toads enable many plants to be unmolested by slugs and snails. One of their themes is that flowers need to be pollen rich to encourage bees and butterflies and insects, which in turn lead to the presence of more birds.
Around the gardens there are plenty of seats to allow visitors to rest and take in the delights that Andrew and his staff have created.
The vote of thanks for an articulate and beautifully illustrated talk was given by Chris Slingsby.