the orchard

In Winter 2023 we planted out the orchard with bare-rooted trees sourced from Rob and his team at Heritage Fruit Trees in Beaufort.

We wanted to create a space that would enable the trees to grow naturally and to spread their branches. We know this means we will ultimately share our fruit with the local bird-life but this is another example of the balance we are striving for of functional and aesthetic value. The orchard is situated on the north-eastern part of the garden so it receives sun all day during the growing season and the direct heat of the western afternoon sun in Summer. The trees will provide some much sought after shade when grown.

The local wild-life are a daily joy with so many different species of birds. We quickly realised that we needed to download an app in order to keep track of them all and have identified more than 50 different species.

Unfortunately, the beautiful eastern grey kangaroos took a particular penchant for the new fruit trees and regularly tip pruned and, in some instances, snipped them clean off. We had planned to install some fencing around the potager and orchard, but their nightly marauding made us bring this project forward.