The Arboretum- Garden Insights From Our Head Gardener

In the arboretum we've tended to leave the grass much longer over the last, well, 21 years since I've been here. Originally when I started, and indeed was the case with most arboretums, you'd keep the grass short and you'd keep it short for the trees, your specimen trees that you were showing off. In recent years a lot of arboretums, as with a lot of gardens, have allowed areas grass to grow longer and over that period of time here at the Bishop's Palace we've found that a number of orchids have come in. So orchids like the pyramid orchid, such as we've got here, we've got a fair few of those now appearing, and also the bee orchids around the site as well. The bee orchids are quite difficult to spot because of the colour, but last year we spent some time and we did find a fair few around this area of the arboretum. The pyramid orchid's much easier to find of course because they're a much brighter colour and there's a fair few of those as well. The other good thing is leaving the grass long is more particularly the insect life, so throughout all this long grass there's lots of different, well particularly lots of bumblebees that like to make it their home, and lots of other little animals and insects too.