After a fabulous and memorable hot summer...

After a fabulous and memorable hot summer with endless blue skies we are moving into shorter days and some rainfall at Fullers Mill.

This means it’s a great time for our staff and volunteers to start putting more plants into the garden. These include Clerodendrum trichotomum (harlequin glorybower), Acer griseum (Paperbark bark), a Wollemi nobilis (Wollemi pine) and Hydrangea quercifolia 'Jetstream' (oak-leaved hydrangea), some of which have been donated.

The garden staff and volunteers spend many hours raking up the leaves that have changed colours on the trees to bright reds and yellows, these have been photographed frequently and star on many Instagram pages. The leaves are put into our leaf mould bins and once they decompose they are put back into the garden.

This is something you can do at home, collect up the leaves, put them in a heavy-duty sack – recycling sack, rubble sack or similar - and leave for a year. Open the bag and you have leaf mould to use in your own garden.

We are often asked if the gardeners have the winter off as there is 'nothing' to do in the garden, far from it - there is planting, pruning, cutting back herbaceous perennials, replacing broken log edging, improving paths and endless mulching, to name a few tasks.

The autumn crocus have finished flowering but the many groups of Sternbergia (winter daffodil) light up the beds with their vibrant yellow flowers.

Towards the end of the season, garden visitors were delighted to find patches of snowdrops nestled in the beds. These are the autumn flowering Galanthus reginae-olgae (Queen Olga’s snowdrop) which heralds the start of the gardens long snowdrop season, which reaches it's peak in February.

With over 180 snowdrop varieties throughout the garden, we will be open every Wednesday and Friday in February to greet galanthophiles. Our gift shop will also be stocked with snowdrop themed cards and souvenirs to provide you with a memento of your visit.

We look forward to welcoming you.