Another marathon seed sowing session today in the potting shed. Cucurbits this week - including pumpkins, squashes, courgettes, and cucumbers. Also in other categories some runner beans, kale, basil, sweetcorn, and spinach, as well as a few flowers including Ammi, tagetes and zinnia. Phew! 😮‍💨 🫘 🌱

Yellow and gold tulip-ness last week. 😍👍 #gardening #tulips #gardener

Spotted my first swallows of the year whizzing over the gardens at work today. Beautiful 😍

Tulips looking HOT in the Column Garden this week! 😍🔥🌷 #gardening #tulips #tulipa

We had the big guns and the small guns out for scarifying the lawns today. Big guns involved a PTO driven scarifier behind our tractor, and then a ride-on mower to suck up the mess. Small guns involved a petrol pedestrian scarifier and a good old rake to grab the mess!

Dicentra … known as the Bleeding Heart plant. I spotted this specimen, not in a garden, but by the side of a streamside footpath locally to where I live. It was near enough to a house that it may once have been part of their garden, but seemed to be finding its own way elsewhere. ☺️

Kerria japonica - Japanese Kerria or Japanese Rose. Merrily and sunnily rambling away in the grotto at the moment to add a splash of spring colour. #kerriajaponica #garden #gardening

The March / April seed sowing marathon is go! Pretty much did 8 hours of seed sowing today, including compost mixing and watering. 🌱 A range of flowers and veg including these shiny beans of the Dwarf French Bean ‘Cobra’. 🫘 One of my favourite gardening jobs! #gardening #gardener #seedsowing

I had a quiet word with the Crown Imperial Fritillaries last week, to ask them to make sure they were out for the forthcoming NGS Open Day on Sunday and they listened 🤣 • Fritillaria imperialis • #fritillariaimperialis #garden #gardening

Mostly mowing to R.E.M today … in the cold 🥶 This was the long slow trip to the compost and back to empty out the ride-on. 🙄 R.E.M really stands for ‘Really Exquisite Mowing’ … Michael Stipe was quite the gardener you know! 🤣😉 #gardener #mowing #wednesday

This coming Sunday, we’re open to the public in aid of the National Garden Scheme (Overbury Court isn’t ordinarily open to the public). If anyone is local-ish and fancies a day out in the Cotswolds, we’re located in between Tewkesbury and Evesham. #gardening #opengardens #nationalgardenscheme

Uh-oh … so, yesterday we had to give our sweet pea supports some skirts to try to protect the plants from the partridge that had been nibbling things overnight! 🤦🏻‍♂️ #gardening #gardener #kitchengarden

Full on hellebore love … such beautiful flowers. You just need to get down to their level to look - actually a little lower, below their nodding heads. 😆 #hellebore #gardening #gardener

Scout knots from 40 years ago came in handy for building sweet pea supports yesterday. 😆 Made from hazel sticks sourced on the estate. Planted the rest of the sweet peas this afternoon - looking forward to the colour and scent of the summer. #sweetpeas #gardening #gardener

Wonderful peach blossom started popping last week in the Old Kitchen Garden. Hopefully the pollinators will be busy to help give some lovely fruit this summer. #gardening #peachblossom #spring

Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’ … what do you think? Yay or nay? I’m a bit ‘nay’ … a little too punky, trying to be the new spiky haired cool kid on the block. Although, it was first introduced commercially in 1884, so not really a new kid. 🤷🏻‍♂️ #narcissus #daffodil #gardening

Pricking out and potting on of seedlings coming along a treat at the moment. Heading into a busy time in the potting shed and greenhouse 😊 #gardening

I just found out that Neil Sedaka’s ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ and Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ were recorded at the same place, Strawberry Studios in Stockport, seven years apart. (Thanks Mark Diacono)

Beautiful Snakeshead Fritillary - Fritillaria meleagris - now in flower on our west bank in Overbury Court. That delicate checkerboard pattern is just gorgeous 😍 #fritillaria #gardening #springbulbs

You know it’s spring when you have to open the greenhouse doors during the day for some airflow 😊👍☀️ #gardener #greenhouse #gardening

Helping the farm team out again this morning, checking and replacing failed trees in the agroforestry areas up above Conderton. Not a bad workplace for a Thursday morning. 🌅 #estategardener #estatework #cotswolds

First mowing day of the year … under blue skies and sunshine. Yay 🙌 #mowing #gardener #gardening

Motivatin’ rotivatin’ yesterday and today. Prepping some beds for a new planting scheme this spring. 💪👍🌱🌱🌱 #rotivating #gardening #gardener

Prime time pricking out time in the potting shed this morning! 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱 Made sure to get out in the sun this afternoon … loving March and meteorological spring so far … more of that please. 🙏 #spring #hellomarch #prickingout

Found this pair of love bugs whilst cutting back grasses in the garden today … sweeeeet! 🐞🐞😊 #ladybirds #gardening

Fab day at RAF Cosford museum yesterday. Rare to see all three V-Bombers under one roof, as well as the TSR-2 strike aircraft prototype (only two ever built)

Dramatic skies over the kitchen garden at the end of last week. Blue at least. ☁️ #clouds #skies #gardeninglife

Took part in the @gamewildlifeconservationtrust Big Farmland Bird Count as part of our work duties this morning. Wow, what a morning for it after all this terrible weather! #bigfarmlandbirdcount #overbury #estategardener

Full rainbow over the Court this afternoon. Shame that wherever I take a photo in the kitchen garden, there’s always that bloomin’ telegraph wire in shot! 🤦🏻‍♂️ 🌈 . #rainbow #overbury #gardeninglife

A little walk to our local nuclear power station and back this morning 😆 It’s decommissioned, or in the long process of being decommissioned. Right on the edge of the Severn Estuary, with great views.

Well, it didn’t help that next door’s cat turned up to try and catch its breakfast half way through my RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 🤦🏻‍♂️ Had a pair of Goldfinches at one point, but otherwise, fairly standard stuff - sparrows, blue tits, starlings, wood pigeon. #biggardenbirdwatch

Helping the farm team out today. Checking over the trees in the agroforestry area that we planted a year ago … and replacing any fatalities. There were a fair few - it was a long hot summer! 😳 #agroforestry #estategardening #cotswolds

Working in the comparative shelter of the grotto this afternoon. Mostly dry, apart from when I got too close to the waterfall … and welly wading in the stream to access waterside ferns 😆 #gardener #grotto #shadeplanting

Sun splashed snowdrops in the grotto at work earlier this afternoon. #snowdrops #galanthus #garden

Hibernating ladybirds 😍 Found while fruit tree pruning this afternoon … we left them where they were. ☺️ #ladybirds #gardening #hibernation

Tree planting this morning in woodlands on the wider estate. A mix of Hornbeam, Beech and Birch. 🪏 🌳 🪏 🌳 #treeplanting #estategardener #estatemanagement

Busy sowing sweet peas this morning. There’s lots of methods talked about sweet pea sowing - soaking the seeds, nicking them with a knife, sanding them, placing them on damp tissue to germinate. I’m sowing directly in seed compost, watering and covering with propagator lids. What’s your method?

Refreshing tree circles and pruning fruit trees in the Old Kitchen Garden this afternoon … in beautiful sunshine no less 😊☀️ Lovely mix of trees including apples, pears, cherries, plums and medlars. #gardening #treepruning #fruittrees

Got away pretty lightly with Storm Goretti at work. Awful drive home in the rain last night, but only a smattering of snow at work in the Cotswolds this morning. #stormgoretti #gardener #gardening

Some clearance work around estate farm buildings yesterday. Lots of bramble and self-seeded trees growing in the wrong places. 🤦🏻‍♂️ #estategardener #gardening #january

Winter Wisteria pruning in the sun yesterday. ✂️ ☀️ #gardener #pruning #wisteria

A chilly but beautiful return to work and the kitchen garden this morning. 🥶 ☀️ ❄️ #gardener #backtowork #januaryvibes

Up above the mist and in glorious sunshine on a North Nibley New Year’s Eve walk this morning. Nice to get some sunshine at last, instead of the grey cloud drab we seem to have been under most of the festive season. #walk #blueskies #northnibleymonument

Decent sunrise this morning on my last working day of the year ☺️ Season’s greetings folks - hope you have happy times over the next couple of weeks. #estategardener #seasonsgreetings #sunrise

Wonderful light with this morning’s sunrise at work … and even a cheeky rainbow to top it all. 😊 #rainbow #sunlight #estategardener

Final pre-Christmas tidy of the kitchen garden today. He’s good at camouflaging himself, but the keen-eyed may be able to find a lesser spotted Jon working away. 😆 #kitchengardening #gardening #gardener

Great work by the garden team this week, making Christmas wreaths. Now up and around the Court and Old Village Shop. 🎄🎅🏼 #christmaswreaths #gardening #wreathmaking

Head gardener Harry cutting the Christmas tree for the Overbury Enterprises estate office last week. Doesn’t get fresher than that - probably took longer to decorate! 🌲 ➡️ 🎄 #gardening #christmastree #overbury

Up on Bredon Hill earlier this afternoon, foraging for Christmas wreath material (don’t tell the forestry department! 🤫 🤣) #estategardener #bredonhill #cotswolds

Reflecting on a beautiful day whilst mulching in the gardens today. 😆 #reflection #reflections #gardener