We’ve been planting up the Fruit Mount this week.  Following the excavations for the Glasshouse Lake the spoil was used to enlarge this popular feature.  We’ve already put in place new railings with step-over cordon apples – very pretty.  Starting from the top of the Mount with 'Court Pendu Plat', introduced circa 1200 AD (although it possibly dates back to Roman times), they descend in order of age of the cultivar with the most recent introductions at the bottom, and with room to add new ones. 

We are in the process of planting up the sloping sides of the Fruit Mount.  We had to decide on the best way to do this.  The angles vary from 25 to 45 degrees.  So we have chosen to use a ground cover material to pin into the soil to keep the weeds suppressed and through this we’re planting a dwarf myrtle, Myrtus communis subsp. tarentina AGM.  It has a compact form with dainty leaves and small white flowers in summer followed by white fruits and in total we need about 8,000 plants to cover the whole surface.  We’ll be finishing the planting in the autumn

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Wisley has welcomed some willow sculptures. 

Since early April some new and interesting additions have arrived in the garden.  A 6ft high pear, a 5ft giant apple sliced in two, and a 7ft tall mushroom accompanied by smaller ones to make a fairy ring.  And outside the Model Vegetable Garden are 10ft high inverted roots arching over the entrances

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Last Thursday 10^th April we had the official opening of the new Alpine Display House, sponsored by Alitex, after a lot of hard work by staff in many departments to ensure everything was ready in time.   I was joined by our President Peter Buckley and the mother of Alitex CEO Tom Hall for the official ribbon cutting ceremony.  But we had no ribbon.  Instead the currently-resident willow weaver Tom Hare had enlisted the help of children to create a linked chain made of willow.  Find out more about our willow weaving next week…. 

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Here is an instance where we are inviting you NOT to copy our lead. Despite what it may look like, we have not been using a radical new method to prune our climbing roses on the Weather Hill Rose Garden. Instead, we've been chopping them back to make their removal easier.

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This week we have welcomed two large pieces of Chinese sculpture to Wisley. These striking pieces are here until 25^th June as part of CHINA NOW, the UK's largest ever festival of Chinese culture. (Visit www.chinanow.org.uk for more details).

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A couple of weeks ago we set about preparing to sow our 3m x 3m plots in the Model Vegetable Garden.  Last year, our Grow Your Own Veg campaign proved immensely popular, especially with the supporting book by Carol Klein and BBC series, as well as our own on-line micro-site and garden activities. 

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