Coronavirus Update – Monday March 23rd 2020 Helmsley Walled Garden will now not be opening on Saturday 28th March as planned. We are saddened to have to do this but the health of all our staff, volunteers, visitors and supporters is the most important thing to us right now. This is a difficult time and… Continue Reading
March 2020 – Put that mower away and help bees
You’d need to have your fingers in your ears and over your eyes simultaneously, (never an easy feat) not to know that bees and other insects are having a hard time of it right now. Some pretty bleak statistics show what they are up against. One-third of the UK’s bee population has disappeared over the past decade… Continue Reading
February 2020 – More about the winter garden
I still can’t stop thinking about planning for the winter garden even though there are only a few weeks left of winter as I write. I’ve been thinking mostly about scent which is a valuable asset to a garden in any season but it seems particularly important in winter when there is less in the… Continue Reading
The Secret Garden
The latest film adaptation of The Secret Garden will be in cinemas nationwide from April 17th 2020. Helmsley Walled Garden was one of a number of locations in and around Helmsley and we are looking forward to seeing the Garden on ‘the big screen’. The Secret Garden Weekend May 29th… Continue Reading
January 2020 – Planning a Winter Garden
Last month I was at an RHS gardeners’ networking day down at Hyde Hall, their garden in Essex. They built a winter garden about four years ago and so it was a chance to see how it had developed and learn from the people who designed and built it. Winter is the season of short,… Continue Reading
December 2019 – Flowers to tell a story
Ladies and gentlemen let me take you on a little time travel as we go back to the middle ages and the time when plants were the only form of medicine and linked with myth and legend. In an age when only wealthy people could read and church services were in Latin, people learnt the… Continue Reading
November 2019 – Dahlias
Dear readers I have a terrible confession to make this month. I used to think dahlias were a frou-frou waste of time and effort. I know. I can see you all stern faced, lips pressed tight in disapproval at this scandalous attitude. But fear not I have turned my back on my former louche behaviour.… Continue Reading
October 2019 – The busyness of October
In the days of my extreme youth when people would say “ooh hasn’t the year gone by quickly” I was filled with scepticism and disbelief that these older people really knew what they were talking about. How could the year go by faster? All days and months are the same length every year? Reader, I… Continue Reading
September 2019 – Bringing in the Harvest
It has been something of a topsy-turvey summer with the weather cracking the flags one minute and rain of positively Biblical proportions the next. I’ve noticed a big difference in our apple crop this year. There are a lot less for a start. One reason for that is last year was a bumper crop and… Continue Reading
