The very first bulb to appear ever year within the first few days of January is Iris histrioides var. sophenensis from Northern Turkey. This plucky little bulb comes out in the depths of winter, kindly treating us to a delicate flush of azure purple when all other colour has faded and before all other has begun. It brings so much joy and is a timely reminder that spring is coming and a reminder to me that winter too has its own gems.

Fruit tree pruning is due. The expert gardener and highly knowledgeable Mark Todd Hunter helped with this last year, but this year we are keeping it in-house. We have a mix of soft, hard and stone fruit trees in the Plant Library. Tom and Sue are particularly partial to the Comice pear, it is delicious. Tom has even taken to stewing large batches of the conference pears for lunch time dessert in the studio – we are all big fans of this!

Becky our Project Coordinator has brilliantly this summer been to get our apple and pear harvest pressed and so the aforementioned Serge Project Apple and Pear juice was born. 

Most of the trees in the orchard were planted by Tom many years ago. We sadly opted to remove a couple of green gages as they were running too much into the beds. We have two mulberries that we tend to crown lift ever so slightly every year to allow more to grow underneath. There is a mature Egremont Russet apple tree that is always generous with its crop. 

We have a couple of damsons and the studio members enjoy devouring them every year leaving work on an evening with weighty bags full of fruit. Owing to studio member Victoire we have had the pleasure of jam! Thank you Victoire, it was delicious. 

Ahead with planning for this growing season and building the Plant Library database, we are very grateful to the 30 people who have already signed up to help with data collection. It's going to be a great year!