VII
GARDENS
What a difference a year makes. Spring 2017 was the driest for decades but spring 2018 the wettest. As I sit writing this article in late June it is some five weeks since we have seen a drop of rain in Cambridge. The garden team have almost gone insane with the seemingly endless deployment of hoses throughout College, endeavouring to keep alive borders and trees planted in the last couple of seasons, as well as several thousand bedding plants!
The garden team at work in First Court in Oct 2017 (photo: Matt Moon)
As ever, nature rolls her dice and the trees and plants respond. The tulips in First Court put on a wonderful display rising above the wallflowers, due to the high rainfall, as did the daffodils and fritillaries in the Fellows’ Garden. The saturated ground and lack of spring warmth delayed many of the early flowering shrubs and trees, but they were nevertheless floriferous as ever. As the heat of May and June parched the lawns and turned them into something akin to a field of hay, the Wisterias throughout College did something I have never seen before; a magnificent second flush of flower. The damp spring, in tandem with judicious feeding and spraying, ensured the roses throughout College put on their best display I have seen in my six years at Magdalene.
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