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.