COLUMN - Melton In Bloom with Marie Walters

It really has been a challenge for us, with so many gardening sessions cancelled due to the weather.

As we hope for a few more sunny days, one of the major jobs to tackle on our ‘to do’ list, was to remove all the box plants (Buxus sempervirens) in the Sensory Garden.

They were completely destroyed by box moth caterpillars before we could even start preventative measures.

Fortunately, we had an offer of help from the Melton Building Society, and several of their volunteers joined us last week, to assist with the task.

The bushes were a very valuable asset to the Sensory Garden, with being evergreen and forming lovely rounded shapes.

We now need to think about suitable replacements.

One bush, which was quite large and the central focus of a border, has left a huge gap, which I think we will replace with a holly; Ilex J C Van Tol would be a good one, as it is self-fertile, glossy-leaved with few spines, and produces masses of lovely bright red berries.

Easily kept pruned to shape, it will make a lovely winter feature.

Whilst it is growing, we can surround it with lots of colourful wallflowers.

To fill gaps where the smaller specimens had been, we could use the Japanese holly – Ilex crenata Convexa.

With similar evergreen leaves to box, it would be a good substitute; it doesn’t grow too large and is easily pruned as well.

We did manage to halt damage to box plants at St Mary’s Church and in the Heritage Garden, but these will need to be closely monitored, and treated at the appropriate times.

Our sincerest thanks go to the team from Melton Building Society (as pictured with our volunteers in the photograph on this page) for their fantastic enthusiasm and hard work.

We look forward to working with them again in due course.

In the meantime, we will press on, catching up with our other projects.