Things lost, things gained

Betley Court Gardens today, under a perfect sky photo: Su Hurrell

The weather we’re enjoying at Betley Court Gardens is extraordinarily nice at the moment. We’re getting lots of jobs done, both on the house and gardens. Down in the dingle, a wonderful repurposed fence (made from packing crates that once parceled the timber for the visitors’ hub) is taking shape along the edge of the dam. It’s perfect – it means we’re not sending wood to landfill, and we have a barrier between our land and our neigbours. Win-win, in my book! I only wish it had been my idea, but instead, credit must go to our handymen Shane and Melvyn’s. Just can’t wait for it to be finished.

Over at the main house, our building contractors are repairing flat roofs on the two flats that escaped damage during last August’s fire. This will be, I’m sure, a great relief to the residents in those flats, and they will be heading into next winter with watertight roofs.

Down by the new visitors’ hub, I’m delighted to see that the seeds I spent days preparing the ground for have germinated nice and quickly. My only problem now (and I hate to call it a problem with all this lovely weather around when everyone is still in lockdown!) is making sure the little plants stay moist enough during the sunny days to keep growing. Cue: the extra-long garden hose plus sprinkler attachment.

Wildflower seedlings

Grass seedlings germinating

The Japanese maples I moved from the Peace Garden-cum-contractors’ yard are hanging on, although there’s been a little die-back on one. To be expected, I suppose. Pruning and pampering will sort that one out.

Back at the main house, Nigel and I, and our son had one final session over the weekend, checking through the kitchen in the main house for any sentimental items that might have escaped the fire. It was a sobering and sad experience.

Sifting through he kitchen

We found a few dinner plates, a little frog ornament, a Wedgwood vase c. 1971 and my mother-in-law’s sewing box. Not much to show for our collective family life at Betley Court. Disappointingly, a set of bone-handled knives that my sister-in-law was particularly fond of was lost in the fire. “It’s bizarre, Mum. Its as if they’ve completely atomically disassociated. There’s NOTHING left of them!!” announced my son as he emerged from the rubble. It was far too dangerous to do too much digging, and given how little we got out, we resigned ourselves to letting the contractors remove the debris, so we can move on from this unfortunate chapter in our lives.

Rubble from the house fire

Finally, I had another ‘first’ this week, that is being filmed. A local film student wanted to make a two-minute video about the gardens.  All I was required to do was to draft a script, from which she would devise a shooting schedule.

Whilst the sprinklers keep the seedlings allowed, I worked on a script for the filmmaker.

Then I had to sit in front of a camera and regurgitate the script without deviation, hesitation or repetition (to paraphrase a BBC Radio 4 quiz show). It is A LOT easier than it sounds. We filmed an ‘A’ roll first, that is, me, chatting about the gardens, and why I liked gardening, camera full in face. Then there was a ‘B’ roll. This included pretty scenes of the garden, cute close ups on flowers and footage of me ‘doing things’ in the garden. It was a very strange experience. I now have a completely altered perspective on what I view on Gardeners World every Friday. Every time a lorry rumbled past on the main road, or a plane flew overhead, we had to pause. And just two minutes screen time took several hours to shoot. Good grief! And how many times did I mess up my lines? I got grounded on the phrase, ‘an historic garden’. Is it ‘an nistoric’ or ‘a historic’? Say it ten times and it makes no sense whatsoever! Luckily, my ‘director’ was patience personified, and was very kind and encouraging every time I fluffed my lines. I was asked to ‘have a sip of water’ or ‘breathe’ at regular intervals. Crikey, what a palaver! Monty Don, I take my hat off to you!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su