Restoration work and a headless statue

 We are now into October and the weather has been a mixed bag of sunshine and showers.  The rain has not stopped us from continuing with our restoration work on the hotel gardens.  

The Secret Garden has been very tricky the past few weeks with its out of control brambles which are rather prickly!!!  

Here is a photo of the secret garden - we have been clearing the area to ground level and trying to reach the very tall conifer behind. 

Interestingly,  we  could see a statue lying on the floor which was buried beneath the brambles - it took all week to reach the statue and turned out to be very funny and disappointing that it didn't have a head!  

So the mission was on, who was going to find the head of the statue?  Had to be here somewhere.

We found the head, yay!!  Welcome fun when the brambles are very miserable and slow to get through.  Shame the statue isn't very happy.  I wonder what her story is?

So here's the same area cleared (almost) which reveals the tall conifer and all its beauty. 

 

We've also been working on the side garden around the hotel which needed clearing of old plants and trees.  We thought it had a woodland feel to the area and the large trees above give lots of shade to the floor.  Ferns, bluebells and wood anemones would thrive in this area - something for our wish list of plants for the future. 

And finally, some students have planted loads of daffodil bulbs which we are looking forward to in spring.  Here we are cleaning our tools after a long day of digging and planting the bulbs.