Top Stumps

It’s the start of February.  Most gardeners would have put their tools away in the shed a couple of months of go, settled in front of the fire and patiently waited for spring to arrive.  At Five Acre Barn we don’t have that luxury – we have a garden to create.

When we first arrived (about 3 1/2 years ago) we had a large number of towering conifers that just had to go. They were far too tall – we couldn’t see anything – and were downright ugly and well a bit suburban.  Bruce – aka ‘man of stihl’ – despatched them pretty quickly.

We managed to get rid of most of the small branches but the bigger pieces proved a bit more of a challenge.  Had we thought about it we would have asked our builders to bury them.  We didn’t, so we tried to get burn the stumps – but try as we might the buggers wouldn’t burn!! We were therefore left with a number of charred stumps.  So what to do….. build a stumpery!

Stumperies are oddities from the nineteenth century gardens which became popular as ferns became fashionable and hundreds of new species arrived in Britain from around the world. The first stumpery was built, at  Biddulph Grange with an arguably more famous modern version at Prince Charles’ home at Highgrove House. Apparently Prince Phillip’s verdict when he first saw his son’s effort was “When are you going to set fire to this lot?”.  The Duke of Edinburgh would love our effort then!

The largest stumpery is in the US with around 95 separate tree stumps.  Ours is on a more modest scale – with five and a couple of trunks that were too heavy to move. Most stumperies are located in shady areas (hence the ferns) – whereas ours in out in the middle of the ornamental grass garden.  That’s where we tried to burn them and they are simply too heavy to move.  I have to say that I quite like the fact that they are charred but it is doesn’t work out then they will soon be surrounded by grasses!

Unfortunately when we started we first had to remove the nettles that had settled in over the last couple of years.  Ouch. We also had to excavate considerable amounts of building rubble – not the best basis for planting. 

 That’s now gone and the first few plants have been added.  Many are traditional – hellebores, hostas and (sun-loving) ferns – but also the less obvious acanthus, hakonechloa macra (Japanese forest grass) and even edelweiss.  We will let you know how we get on……