Martin Duncan - Arundel Castle Head Gardener

Within the Collector Earl’s Garden we have a wide range of late flowering Salvia Indigo spires, which are towering over our Musa Basjoo (bananas).

The brightly coloured Bishop of Llandaff and Auckland Dahlia’s are looking striking next to our Eryngium pandanifolium and the Tropaeolum - commonly known as nasturtiums are still cascading down throughout the tropical borders.

We will soon need to remove these so they don’t self-seed and take over the whole gardens, the flowers are quite tasty and look stunning in a salad.

The English Herbaceous borders have much softer colours at the moment which includes the pink and white Lavatera, the late flowering Foxgloves (a surprise at this time of year) stunning creamy white Dahlia Mocca, pink and white Cosmos and a range of blue salvias leads you through to the flourishing organic kitchen garden with all its abundance of fruit and veg which will be a talking point over the Arundel Food Festival this week.

For further information or booking a festival garden tour contact us here at Arundel Castle, www.arundelcastle.org or telephone 01903 882173.

As soon as there’s a sign of frost on the horizon the castle garden team will be lifting and storing most of the Dahlias, except for the David Howard variety which we will cut back and put mulch over the top as we have found these to be quite hardy.

At the Fitzalan Chapel we have a white garden, within which the small parterre sections are being planted up with around 800 ivory white Wallflowers which will be under planted with 1,000 white Mount Tacoma Tulips and 100 white Carnage Hyacinths ensuring that this tranquil area will have an early scent from April through to the end of May next year.

The chapel is the burial place for the Earls of Arundel and Dukes of Norfolk and has been a place of worship for centuries.

The overall effect of this garden is one of serenity that is highlighted by the contrasting green foliage that leads you through to the chapel door.

The castle and gardens close for the winter on Sunday October 30, we have had a fantastic season and the garden and castle team would like to thank you for all your great comments this season.

Tips from the castle garden team:

Plant winter and spring bedding.

Lift and divide overgrown clumps of perennials, you can reuse elsewhere in the garden or pot some up and give to a friend.

This is a good time to plant new herbaceous perennials, best to plant in groups of three or more, preferably in odd numbers.

It’s a good time to prune climbing roses, to ensure high winds don’t damage them.

Plant spring cabbage, if there’s any space in your veg patch.

Happy Gardening!