The Life Of A Wisley Intern - Part 2.

What a week that was! The staff at the RHS Wisley Gardens are a truly amazing and inspirational bunch and I cant thank them enough for another wonderful time at the gardens!

My last 3 days were a very varied time, working with most of the staff members on the Formal Ornamental department, This post covers Wednesday;

Wednesday.
Today I finished up the work that was started behind the walled garden by weeding, hoeing, mulching and raking over the climber beds.

The main task however was to weed, and tidy through the annual borders adjacent to the new rose garden. This is an area of the Wisley Gardens that are earmarked for developments in the future and so are used as trial, or experimentation, beds where different techniques and designs can be tried out to see how effective they are.

This year the design for the annual borders is "The Jumblies" by Edward Lear, designed by one of the Formal Ornamental team members, and features the colours mentioned in the poem and structures created using willow frames that resemble objects and text from the poem. More information on the poem, and deign can be found HERE. (RHS blog by the designer, Lucie Ponsford)

The Annual Beds Before Weeding
Commenced.

The annual beds started earlier on in the year, where drills were used to create troughs within the soil in which the annual seeds could be sown. This is an old, but effective, method of creating intricate patterns that can be used to tell a story as demonstrated in these borders.

The Annual Bed Around 50% Weeded.

The task today was to weed, using a normal hoe, though the intricate patterns to remove weeds that are crowding out the bedding which is beginning to germinate and to improve the aesthetics of the site. This was a really fun job, and I enjoyed tracing the patterns to remove the weeds, it certainly requires a skill of hoeing! But it was all worth it as you can see from the pictures!

Preparing the planting area.
Setting Out The Vines.

After the weeding had been completed I helped to plant Cobaea scandens (cup & saucer vine) around the arch walkway which will provide a stunning show in the summer as well as allowing for young children to play inside it and get up close the plants.

It was a fantastic day, with lots for me to learn about!

View Part 1 HERE. View Part 3 HERE (Coming Soon).

The finished arch walkway, with all vines planted.