Sam Branson, Eve Branson and me, David Lewis planting trees. Courtesy of Woodland Trust

It was great to be able to help Eve Branson and Sam Branson plant trees here at The Roof Gardens. We don’t normally get Sir Richard Branson’s family to help out in the gardens but this was a special occasion. As part of the Woodland Trust’s Jubilee Woods campaign to plant 6 million trees this year to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. You can see the video of the day here.

We all got stuck in and it really didn’t take that long. They planted a plum tree and an apple tree . The apple I chose was ‘James Grieve’. It is a good regular cropper and so great if you want to plant one apple in your garden. Check there are trees in neighbour’s gardens to that yours gets pollinated.

Eve was glad to hear that we already have a Cox’s Orange Pippin in the garden. This is a really tasty and distinctive Apple and our tree is in the Tudor garden. Read More

We had a wonderful day at The Roof Gardens last Wednesday when two local schools, Golborne Children’s Centre and Barlby Road Primary School, arranged for some of their children to get their fingers muddy and pot bulbs that had been recommended to us by the Flower Council of Holland. The children from the two schools were able to demonstrate you are never too young to start gardening! 

On hand to help were Chris Collins the Blue Peter Gardener and myself.  It was great fun as you can see from these pictures and a big thanks to everyone who helped organise it!

On Sunday 29th January, (this Sunday just gone) we were able to honour the man who designed the gardens.  We unveiled a plaque to Ralph Hancock.  The planning and negotiations for this have taken over 7 years and so it was a delight to see the Hancock family together here at The Roof Gardens while the plaque was revealed, and I was so pleased that Angela Hancock, his granddaughter, was the one to pull the glitter curtain down. 

I was very glad to see how many of the Gardening Club members and guests were here at the gardens to celebrate the talent of Ralph Hancock and even Sir Richard Branson sent us a message for the ceremony.

“Ralph Hancock was a true visionary. I’m sure his family will agree that he probably had no idea back in 1936 that he was about to create such an iconic garden and I’m sure if he was here today he’d be very proud to see it still standing strong and looking so beautiful.”

The Gardening Club here at The Roof Gardens is growing every meeting.  We are now at nearly 100 people attending and that is wonderful!

David

Head Gardener David Lewis saying a few words

The English Woodland bridge this time last year

I think I’ve mentioned before that a lot of people do quite well out of writing articles in December/January about the wonders of seed catalogues and how they seem to spend the whole of the winter reading them and planning next years propagation.  If only! While there has been a bit of seed buying (mostly sweet peas but some vegetables as well) there are so many other jobs to get done in the garden at this time of year. Not least when there are so many people enjoying the gardens throughout the Christmas party and winter wedding seasons.

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It seems quite a while ago when I first came to The Roof Gardens for a birthday party, but it was around 1990.  I loved the gardens straight away and over the years I came to events here most years.  By then, Sir Richard Branson – just plain Richard then – was the owner of  The Roof Gardens for only 9 years.  I won’t go into the story of how it happened, it is well documented in Sir Richard’s autobiography.  It seems crazy that for 30 years Virgin has seen the Roof Gardens follow or lead the fashion for nightclubs, music, restaurants and food with the one constant of the gardens all the way through. Read More

Spring is in the air…Not least because of all the bulbs that are starting to flower in the gardens. The varieties this year are far more than before because in the Autumn we planted 7,000 new bulbs around the gardens (to be honest Claire and Lee the gardeners did almost all of the planting!). This has made a big difference to The Woodland Garden.  We have had the snowdrops, and the daffodils are starting to come in. If you still want to see Snowdrops, go to Cambo House on the Cambo Estate near St.Andrews in Scotland. I went this weekend and it was wonderful.  Not only great banks of woodland filled with snowdrops but also many unusual varieties. I can’t boast the same range of forms but the far bank of the stream has been a picture. Read More