This year as part of Royal Harewood celebrations in the House, we are planting our own ‘Dig for Victory’ bed in the Walled Garden. A scaled-down version of the original Dig for Victory beds, this will be a learning resource for school groups and also an opportunity for visitors to look back on the history of the Gardens at Harewood.

The Dig for Victorycampaign was launched at the outbreak of the Second World War. It encouraged people to cultivate their gardens and grow food to support the war effort.

This year at Harewood we are recreatingDig for Victory Leaflet No.1 on this bed (see poster).

We have sourced, where possible, varieties of vegetables that were grown during the war years.

Whilst the bed is not as long as recommended in the poster, we have tried to be as true to the planting plan as possible.

Visit the Walled Garden this Summer, and feel free to ask a gardener for more information!

HRH Princess Mary made Harewood her home thoughout 4 decades and saw many changes in the use of the Gardens at Harewood, especially during the war years. She was also a keen gardener and plantswoman herself, and had a significant impact on the Gardens – the legacy of which is still visible in the Gardens today.

In 2012 we will also be launching a new rose ‘Yorkshire Princess’, a fitting tribute to the Princess who loved roses and had many varieties planted on the Terrace here at Harewood in her time…

Read more about the Gardens on our website…

http://www.harewood.org/grounds/gardens

Work has continued today in the Learning Garden, with the help of Audrey, Trevor and his team.  Today, the focus was clearing the pond area, and preparing the vegetable plot.

After last week’s session, and our battle with the Philadelphus shrub, Trevor and his team were today successful in removing the plant from our pond area.  In addition to this, the team cleared the rest of the pond area, and dug the hole read for the pond to be put in place.

With Trevor’s expertise, the shrub is finally removed from the pond area

Once the pond area was cleared, work then began on the plot in the opposite corner of the garden.  This plot will become our vegetable garden.  Before any planting of vegetables could start, the area needed to be cleared, and Audrey spent the morning raking the leaves and weeding the flower beds, ready for the digging to begin.

The corner of our garden to become our vegetable plot, cleared by Audrey

Next session, we hope to put the pond lining in place, and finish preparing the plot ready to plant some vegetables!

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The Harewood Learning Team.

The Harewood Learning team have this Monday begun work on the Harewood Learning Garden, and have learnt first hand the hard work of gardening!

Our aims of the first gardening session were to clear the corner of the garden ready for our pond area to be built, and begin work on our habitat pile.  The corner of the garden in the picture below is going to be where we dig our pond, so the first job of the day was to clear everything from this corner, before any digging could begin.  After raking leaves up from the area to become our pond, we soon came up against a large barrier in the form of a very troublesome shrub called a Philadelphus.  With very deep roots, this shrub was well and truly rooted in the ground, and consequently delayed our preparation of the pond area, as we were unable to remove it!

The Philadelphus shrub, which needed to be removed before the digging of the pond could begin

All the leaves raked from the area and the Philadelphus shrub still not removed!

After battling with the Philadelphus shrub, our next job in the garden was to rake the many dead leaves that had fallen in the flower beds.  This was a long job, as the piles of leaves were very deep, and we had been told to watch out for toads, who liked the damp piles of dead leaves!

The flowerbeds of the Learning Garden, ready for raking

All the leaves we raked had to be collected, as we would be using them to make our habitat pile, in another area of the garden.

For the habitat pile, we needed to rake all the leaves into a very large mound, in our wilderness garden.  Once the leaves were all in a pile, we gathered lots of branches and twigs from the garden, and laid them on top of the leaf pile, to creat our habitat pile, which we will continue to add to next week.

Further progress on the garden to follow…

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The team at Harewood House are excited to introduce our new project for 2012, our Harewood Learning Garden, based in the garden of our Second Hand Bookshop at Terrace Cottage.

Trevor Nicholson, our Head Gardener here at Harewood will be leading this project, along with Jennifer Auty, Head of Learning,and the team at the Bookshop, fronted by Audrey Kingsnorth.

Using the proceeds from the extremely successful Second Hand Bookshop the team at Harewood will develop a ‘Learning Garden’, with local schools invited to take part in the care and growth of the garden.

The garden will be a focussed biodiversity and wildlife garden used for teaching children about the importance of gardening, wildlife, habitats, insects and plants.

Biodiversity is defined as the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, meaning that different plants and wildlife species will create a multi-layered habitat in the garden.

By combining sustainable practice with planting and features to increase biodiversity, the garden will offer a species-rich habitat for a range of garden insects and mammals. It will also provide a unique and rich learning experience for its visitors. The garden will offer a wealth of habitats for wildlife including:

• Insect boxes
• A pond
• Bee and butterfly friendly plants
• Log shelters/habitat piles
• Compost heap
• Bird boxes
• Bat boxes
• Hedgehog hides

The garden of the Second Hand Bookshop at Terrace Cottage is the site of our new Learning Garden

The garden will be split into two areas –

The ‘formal’ garden behind the bookshop will continue to have a lawned central area, but the borders will become a vegetable plot, herb garden, flower border, mixed shrubs, and a fern and woodland area.

The ‘paddock’ area to the side of the garden, accessed via the wooden gate will become a ‘wilderness’ garden. This will contain compost bays (for leaf mould and general compost), a wormery (potentially suppied by Willyworms), an insect lodge, habitat piles, and willow sculptures and nature themed artwork.

Our Learning Department and Gardening Team will be starting work on the garden from this Monday, to begin our fanatstic new project.

We will keep you updated with all the progress of our garden – subscribe to our blog!

The Harewood Learning Team.

Check out this month’s edition of Living North to read more about Harewood’s award-winning Gardens…

The feature focuses on our Walled Garden and recent developments to see it restored to it’s former glory.

An evocative place, tucked away beyond the lake at Harewood, the Walled Garden is a true hidden gem with a secret doorway into a paradise of cultivation!

You can sample the delights of the Walled Garden in our Courtyard Cafe and Terrace Tea Rooms – check out the menu next time you visit Harewood!

Produce is also available for sale in the Courtyard Shop… bettroot, broad beans, cauliflowers and fennel are all good right now!

Read more about the award-winning Gardens at Harewood here…