It has been a busy, busy summer for our Horticulture Team around Kenton Park Estate’s gardens and vineyard! We have really enjoyed showing so many of you around what has proven to be the hugely bountiful Kitchen Garden, behind the scenes in our revamped Herb Garden and explaining the background and benefits of our planting across the Vineyard Borders. There have been many events to keep us on our toes in addition to various border make-overs and new planting projects. We are delighted so many of you have told us how much you have enjoyed our floral displays, including a long and highly successful season from our new Dahlia bed. Dahlia ‘Copper Boy’ just keeps on giving. What a star!
There was much excitement and a little tension behind the scenes as our team spruced up the gardens before our annual festival, ‘Sundowners’. Final touches to the new curvy Parkland Drive with its Mediterranean inspired borders featuring Gaura, Agapanthus, Lavender, Echium and Stripa tenuissima. Giant bespoke woven mushrooms were positioned to inspire curiosity in our newly installed mushroom propagation house, beautiful vegetables and flowers from the Estate adorned the festival hotspots, lawns were clipped to an inch of their lives and additional plantings of gorgeous Heather's calluna and daboecia added a final zing.
With a nod of thanks to our many cyclists who visit us for a cup of coffee
on tour, a vintage Pashley Cycle - purists will know these have been hand made in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1926 – was purchased to take centre-stage on our vineyard viewing terrace. Our Pashley arrived just in the nick of time on the preceding Friday afternoon, by a very excited delivery man.
“I’ve never been asked to deliver one of these” he enthusiastically exalted, whilst we breathed a huge sigh of relief! ‘Penelope’ Pashley was duly bedecked with our own hand-plaited garland of Estate-grown ‘Hercules’ onions and flowers.
Throughout the Sundowners festival, Barbara enjoyed guiding many of you around the Kitchen and Herb gardens. It was rewarding for us to share our passion for the edible gardens created to supply the restaurant, and fantastic to meet many of the restaurant regulars who had not visited these areas of the Estate before. When you next visit please just ask one of the Motley Cru to point out the way to the Kitchen Garden, we always
enjoy showing you around!
New to this year, the Vine Walks Garden Tour has proven very popular with customers! We find there is always so much to talk about, often overrunning on time, consumed in discussion. The Mediterranean-inspired borders of the Vineyard introduce vibrancy amongst the ‘sea of green vines’. Plant design at Kenton Park Estate focuses on plants for purpose.
Lavender, African rosemary, lemon balm and other fragrant botanicals act as companion plants for the vines (insect repellent to pests). Herbs such as thyme, rosemary, lavender, sage, chamomile, and mint are used in the restaurant for dishes, cocktails, herbal teas, infused oils and vinegars. We harvest and dry botanicals in early autumn, to later make Tisanes for the vines (herbal teas), benefiting pest management, mildew prevention and
nutrition.
After the Garden Tour, guests have enjoyed lunch in the calm of the new Kitchen Garden Safari hut, along with a tasting of the Estate wines and fragrant herbal tisanes. There has been very positive feedback on the lunch Connie and the restaurant team serve - very beautiful vegetable platters and summer rolls, with freshly picked vegetables, herbs and
edible flowers from our gardens!
It was a bit of a slow start for the Kitchen Garden with cool June temperatures, but by August, the courgettes, tomatoes, peppers, chillis, cucumbers, French beans and edible flowers have been profuse and delivered daily to our chefs! Look out for our produce also on sale at the new Pop-up Pantry, as you enter the Winery.
The summer equinox is the start of our team’s planning and planting for the year ahead. We are excited about the many new features and projects in the planning and underway… we will be revealing more on this soon!
That's it until next time,
Cheers!
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