Have you seen the sensational display of flowers along the Vineyard Estate borders this season? Take a walk around the Alleyways and Avenues of the Vineyard when you are next here to admire the colourful themed border displays emerging in the summer sunshine. A current favourite is Lavandula ‘Hidcote Pink’ on Bacchus Avenue and California poppies on Solaris Alleyway. The fantastic Estate display of Alliums is almost over, but you can still enjoy Allium ‘Sphaerocephalum’ (drumsticks) bobbing in the breeze above the grasses as you enter down Distillery Drive.
The flower borders not only provide colour and vibrancy amongst the ‘sea of green’ vines, but many serve additional purposes to deter vineyard pests. The lavender and botanicals act as an insect repellent for the vines, whilst pollinator friendly planting provide increased biodiversity for a more balanced ecosystem (moving away from the challenges ofmonoculture). The herbs are also used in dishes, drinks,infused oils and vinegars served up in the restaurant! The additional Vineyard cover crops Ben is introducing this year,will further boost the biofumigant companion plants for the vines, whilst improving the soil biome.
The below photo shows all our Horticulture Team in action(Simon, Barbara and myself, Anna), with an additional member clearing the lake… Welcome back Bailey, who some of you may have met here last summer. After finishing his Aerospace Engineering degree, he is back multitasking all jobs onsite. Not only does he work in the garden, but you will also see him in serving in the restaurant, making cocktails behind the bar, working on handyman jobs, pruning the vines, or flying overhead - after just obtaining his Microlight pilot’s license!
Reading back on our previous blog, we berated the endless cold weather, rain, weeds and the hungry rabbits eating our seedlings. Now in true British style, we wish for more rain, spending our mornings routinely running around with our watering cans. Most of the planting at Kenton Park Estate are botanicals and drought tolerant prairie style planting, which prefer the dry sandy soil of the vineyard. Watering is limitedto newly planted borders, pots and vegetable beds. For these areas, we use water pumped from the Estate’s bore hole (you will see the installed irrigation system of taps around the Vineyard).
Barbara has reinvigorated the Herb Garden planting schemethis season, alongside Chef Michael, to make sure there is an abundance of fresh herbs for the restaurant (including French tarragon, chervil, Italian parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano,and varieties of basil). The herb garden is a sheltered sunny warm enclave, ideal for the Mediterranean herbs and citrus trees which thrive in the space. Some of you may already know it well as the location for the Gin Tours.
We are currently trialling Herbal Tea infusion workshops in the Herb Garden, which you can sample as part of the Vine Walks Garden Tour! Customers can pick and mix recommended herbs to make their own invigorating, relaxing, and medicinal tisanes. The herb garden offers a wonderful selection of mints, lemon verbena, chamomile, sage and thyme, alongside some less known herbal tea combinations with scented pelargoniums, damask rose, and valerian.
The new Vine Walk and Garden Tours have been a great success, with Customers providing us encouraging feedback. They have enjoyed hearing the reasoning behind the planting decisions on the estate, alongside gaining inspiration for gardens back home. Please do book to join us! We are very keen to show more people around, including the Estate gardens behind the scenes.
The Vineyard Estate Kitchen Garden has been rolling out the produce, with a memorable large harvest of broad beans which featured on the menu for several weeks. The pretty edible flowers of nasturtium and calendula you may also have seen served up with your salad or desert. We have several new raised vegetable beds this spring to fill, which as you might know from home is always a challenge! We incorporated the Vineyard Italian Alder tree branch pruningsat the base, topsoil from onsite, and several truckloads of municipal compost. To help moisture retention we also addmushroom compost onto the top layer before planting.
The chickens on the estate unfortunately have been all too keen to fly up onto the vegetable beds to help dig and mix in the soil (and new seedlings!), have a nice chat with us, then find the most obscure locations in our tool shed to lay their eggs!
A highlight to the spring was our trip to Chelsea Flower Show! We enjoyed listening to talks including renown herb expert Jekka, who supported the botanicals design inspiration for the Kenton Park Estate back in 2019, and Sarah Raven’s talk which inspired us with dahlias. We are excited to see how our new dahlia border in the herb garden turns out with the blooms about to pop. We were captivated by an interesting flora display from the South African Cape, lots of exciting inspiration for next year!
Until next time,
Cheers!
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