My entire summer holiday is spent at Stonefields, and what better place to relax and enjoy my precious time off from my hectic schedule of work. As mentioned in my last blog the garden is full bloom with all the borders luxurious with the flowerings, and after all the rain we have had, including 50mm over New Year, the hedges are experiencing another flush of almost spring green.
My first task over the holiday was to remove the manhood from the young bulls. This was the first time l undertook such a task and l did so with much hesitation. To my surprise the simple elastic ring seemed to cause them no pain or discomfort and the whole procedure went without a hitch. My once proud young bulls are now simple Steers. Watch out for these over the year as they enjoy the ample feed with have in the paddocks.
Our big job for the summer is the construction of the Bell Tower, which l am using as a visual anchor point at the end of the herb garden. My vision for the property was always based on an Italian Hill Villa. These commonly consist of a collection of buildings, usually the main villa and then a series of more utilitarian buildings, these create layers of history, usage, patina and visual points of interest, and l guess they usually developed over great periods of time through the motivation of necessity. My Bell tower, although strictly not necessary, will provide me with one such layer with hopefully many more to come. It will help balance the mass of the main villa to a side of the garden that is lacking in detail and mass, and will also serve as a vechile on which to grow a vine. It is to be 5m tall and will infact house a bronze bell. So if any one knows where l can purchase a bell please let me know y emailing me at paulbangay@paulbangay.com.
The garden and house is featuring in the current issue of Belle Magazine, and l just finished filming it for Better Homes and Gardens, which will appear sometime this year. Watch out for it in these publications, l also hope to open it again in 2011.
Bye for now Paul
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