Sizergh Castle

Today's the day ........................ for a garden walk

Spent a few enjoyable hours today at Sizergh Castle, not far from Kendal.

It's a while since we have walked round the gardens there - and even although we are still in the months of winter, there was plenty to see.  The Stumpery  (see extra) was new to us - a rather odd-looking arrangement of woody material like tree trunks and root wads.  A root wad is a length of felled tree that includes a portion of the trunk and, most importantly, the root mass or ball.  The goal of a stumpery is the creation of habitat especially for ferns.  Prince Charles apparently created a private one at Highgove House in 1980, using sweet chestnut roots, and is the largest public stumpery in the world.

Sizergh holds four of the National Collections of Ferns - Asplenium scolopendrium, Cystopteris, Dryopteris and Osmunda - and they can all be seen in the Stumpery .............................