Maize maze

On Saturday to revisit the Spa Hotel at Tunbridge Wells to check that the lower water lily ponds were doing OK, which they were. The semi-wild lilies in the large semi-wild ponds looked very well in the bright morning sunlight. They also put our lilies in a large tub to shame, just not big enough, even if we managed to find a small lily (which we thought, wrongly, we had when we bought the one we have now). There was also the plus of the flash of a kingfisher, maybe the fifth lifetime sighting now.

Being in the area, we also thought to take in the maize maze at Penshurst Place (http://www.penshurstplace.com/), one of the stately homes which remains in the hands of the family, which last has been there since the time of the Tudors and which first was built, two hundred years earlier, in the middle of the 14th century. Illustrious family, once including the Earls of Leicester and still including the Lords de L'Isle. And the Sir Philip Sydney whose dying line on the field of Zutphen - 'Thy necessity is yet greater than mine' - we learned about at school. For some years before the Sidney family got it for services rendered, it was part of the royal estate, with Henry VIII having chopped off the head of the previous owner in order to take possession, much the same stroke as he subsequently played at Hampton Court.

The first maize maze we had visited. It was newly opened for the season and was all very impressive. The whole thing must seem enormous to the small children for whom it is primarily intended, especially a bit later in the season when the plants have grown a bit higher than the six feet or so they are now. On the other hand, they might be a bit more bashed about.

We wondered about various technical matters.

Do you lay the maze out first, then plant the maize accordingly, or do you plant the maize first, then cut the maze? We thought the first option might be slower, but would result in a much better maize, with plants respecting the paths.

Why do you have circular damp patches around the base of most of the plants, maybe four or five inches in diameter. Can't see the plants being watered individually, so perhaps the plants act as gutters, channelling the rain water down to the ground. A rather adaptive wheeze in the hot dry climate where a lot of maize is grown.

Do rabbits eat maize? There were some signs of rabbit, but not many, from which we deduced that rabbits are not that keen. One can see that they might not like the larger plants, all a bit too chewy, but we thought that they would have gone for the young plants. The lad in charge did not have a clue, although he did say that last season the maize had to come down early because the pheasants had moved in and that was messing up the pheasant shooting.