Author: greenbenchramblings

A retired primary school head teacher, I now spend much of my time gardening in our quarter acre plot in rural Shropshire south of Shrewsbury. I share my garden with Jude my wife a newly retired teacher , eight assorted chickens and a plethora of wildlife. Jude does all the heavy work as I have a damaged spine and right leg. We also garden on an allotment nearby. We are interested in all things related to gardens, green issues and wildlife.

The Gardens of Piet Oudolf

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 26, 2012

Piet Oudolf has been one of the most influential garden designers in the C21. We have had the pleasure of seeing several examples of his work. The development of our own garden has been influenced by his choice of plants and his plant combination. Our borders now feature far more grasses, achilleas, monardas, alliums, heleniums and sedum and we consider more carefully how good plants can look as they die off during the autumn and how well they stand in the winter.

I wonder why local authorities in the UK have not taken his ideas on board – why do we still see so much Victorian bedding in our parks and other areas of public planting? Shrewsbury, our closest town and the county town of Shropshire, seems to be going backwards with more such backward-looking planting appearing. We often look at the local roundabouts and parks and think how good they could look if more imaginative, “new perennial style” gardening was adopted. Just look at Oudolf’s planting at Wisley, Trentham and Pensthorpe and imagine how well this style would work in public spaces.

We visited Pensthorpe in Norfolk not long after the Piet Oudolf garden had been revamped, and they were looking splendid.

We visited the wonderful gardens at Trentham several times during 2011 and early in 2012. Whenever you visit the gardens by Oudolf are outstanding. Piet Oudolf’s planting here is in two distinct areas with contrasting character and atmosphere. his “Rivers od Grasses” is unlike any planting I have ever experienced. Lush green low-cut paths meander through mass plantings of tall decorative grasses. Children seem to love this area seeing it as an informal maze, a place to explore gently and quietly. This is a wonderful example of how plants and garden design in public places can influence how people feel and move around.

Beyond the River of Grass is an area of perennials and grasses planted “en masse” with winding gravel paths for exploration.

I decided to look back through my photo library for examples of pictures I have taken over the last year or so that show how our own planting has been influenced by the work of Piet Oudolf. Firstly in “The Chicken Garden” in May when the lollipop flowers of allium dominate.

New planting of grasses and sedum in the recently re-vamped “Prairie Garden”.

In our “Hot Border” a mass planting of Crocosmia “Lucifer” are interspersed with campanula, verbascum and inula.

Tags Pensthorpe, perennials, Piet Oudolf, prairie planting, Wisley

gardening hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs

Impulse buying at nurseries – is this true retail therapy?

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 24, 2012
1 Comment on Impulse buying at nurseries – is this true retail therapy?

We hate shopping in town centres, retail parks and especially supermarkets. How can people refer to such unpleasant things as being any sort of therapy? But put us in a nursery and everything seems different – we get tempted every time! We have just visited two of our favourite nurseries half an hour from home just into the Welsh countryside outside Welshpool, The Dingle and its sister, The Derwin. We went to buy a couple of plants for a container that sits empty at the end of the central path in the back garden. It has long been crying out for some plants. We came back with a boot full of plants, some for that pot, some for another pot, some alpines, a couple of shrubs and some perennials. It happens to us all the time, but just look at our booty! We are definitely into coloured foliage.

Euphorbia Silver Swan and Euphorbia Walberton's Rudolf

IMG_2646-1 — Bergenias - Bach, Winterglut and Winter Glow.

Osmanthus x macrodonta and Luma apiculata "Glanleam Gold"

Tags bergenias, community gardening, euphorbia, foliage, foliage plants, gardening, hardy perennials, hellebore, heucheras, shrubs, winter gardens

bird watching birds conservation garden wildlife natural pest control photography Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust wildlife winter gardens

A Day at the Original Wildfowl and Wetland Trust Centre – Slimbridge

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 22, 2012
5 Comments on A Day at the Original Wildfowl and Wetland Trust Centre – Slimbridge

Our recent visit to Barnes, the WWT centre in London, reminded us that we hadn’t visited Slimbridge for a good few years. Bitterns were being spotted regularly so a relatively mild day in January seemed a good day to visit. A long and very slow drive down in the drizzle failed to dampen our enthusiasm. So having arrived an hour after we had planned a welcome cup of coffee was gulped down before we headed for the hides. Trouble is we had to begin by walking passed the flamingo enclosure – an assault on the eyes and ears. Not our favourite birds – the Dame Edna Everidges of the wildfowl world.

The walk to the first hide took us through wildfowl enclosures. We don’t stop here much but it was a favourite when our children were young, and is still a favourite for young families today. it is a great way to introduce youngsters to the joys of the bird world. It is safe to say that many children who marvel at the beautiful fowl from every corner of the world become birdwatchers – their interest is sparked here at Slimbridge.

In this area pollarded willows with wands the colours of fire glow against the storm-laden sky. Some newly pollarded trees look like they are sporting designer stubble, others throw their stems rigidly into the air.

Flames of willow lapping the airforce blue sky.

Winter light gives so much colour to a dull day.

We arrived at the first hide after a twenty-minute walk through the wildfowl pens regularly distracted by the low winter sun and its magical effect on stems and stalks. The view from the hide was one of flat landscape of reedbed, river and shallow pools. Shelduck were relaxing on the grassy bank of a patch of cold looking water while mallard and teal flirted in the edge of the reed fringed pools. This was a quiet place with just the wind rustling the reeds, the whistling calls of the teal disrupted by the quarreling mallard. A small bird flitted from one reed seed head to another never settling, a brown backed warbler with rounded end to its tail – a cettis warbler. This is a sight worth the long journey to see. But Jude quietly whispered to me “I can see a bittern”. There it was, so hard to find and so easy to lose, skulking in the fringes of the reeds a few metres from the hide. Stripes of brown on warm beige, provided the perfect camouflage, the bittern moved so slowly like a clump of dried reeds. Jude saw it with head and neck stretched up – lucky lady!

We remained in this hide long enough to get cold and stiff after perching on the hard wooden seating, revived somewhat by regular coffees. Eyes soon become tired staring over such huge areas of wetland, so blinking and rubbing them was a necessity. But our tired eyes did see many delights, Pintails, Shovellers, Water Rail among multitudes of Pochard, Wigeon, mute swan mixed with Bewicks and the occasional heron flying in and landing on fenceposts. The only birds of prey we spotted were several buzzards all lined up on fence post on the edge of the river. Our eyes needed a rest and luckily the nearby Kingfisher Hide provides just this as the views are smaller, the birds more intimate. Here bird feeders hang in a tree just outside one of the hide’s windows. A half hour of close-up views of finches and tits while eating lunch is an enjoyable interlude.

As Jude read an information board about kingfishers she informed me that they moved elsewhere during the winter but returned in March, but as she told me this one flew across the water low and purposefully. You can’t mis-identify a kingfisher, there is nothing else like it. Then it flew back across the water to prove he really was there. Beneath the feeders opportunist pigeons, blackbirds, moorhen and jackdaws joined by a squirrel picked up the seeds and peanut crumbs dropped by the messy small birds above. We enjoyed watching the antics of a Little Grebe as he swam around just feet from the hide, a delightful ball of feathers.

Picnic eaten and eyes rested we continued our tour of the site visiting smaller hides and enjoying the walkways in between. We passed the Rain Garden with the most wonderful, sculptural insect shelters.

The art of the dry-stone wall-builder provides shelter for wildlife.

Many of the birds have become so used to human visitors that they let you take photos without huge telescopic lenses, just compact digital cameras like the one I carry in my pocket.

It's not just me that appreciates pollarded willow.

The moorhen, common but beautifully marked and subtly coloured.

The coot creating his own patterns in the water.

It was between some of the smaller hides that we spotted the first good-sized clump of snowdrops of the winter so far bursting from the leaves that had dropped in the autumn to give the ground a warming duvet. Nearby gnarled old bracket fungi clung to equally gnarled old willow bark.

Bright lights in the gloom under the bare stemmed trees.

Such varied texture and so many shades of brown.

We reached the Holden tower as the poor light was fading further. The multitude of waders, geese and ducks were almost in silhouette now. A flock of Tufted Ducks had taken over one small pond exclusively, but the other pool was busy with Lapwing by the hundred interspersed by a scattering of their cousins the Golden Plover. Out on the far estuary Pintails could be seen feeding in the margins and Curley in the muddy banks. A real treat was spotting a female Reed bunting close to the hide atop a twiggy bush. She was a bird of subtle beauty. Completely unlike the black hooded male, she sported black and cream streaks all over.

The fading light that makes the afternoons in January too short, made us hurry to the South Lakes for a final half-hour bird spotting. Gulls, waders and ducks galore greeted us, unaware that they were being watched by a Buzzard in one tree and a Peregrine in its neighbour. We were entertained by a group of Black Tailed Godwit feeding in the shallows close to us and Lapwing moving across the shallower water feeding incessantly. Scanning the Lapwing flock with the telescope, I spied a small gang of Redshank, easily identified by their red legs. But amongst them was a different character, a slightly longer and down-turned beak and marked eye stripe and more marked plumage identified it as a Spotted Redshank. What an end to the day! Our time watching and appreciating the waders on the South Lake was forshortened when the Peregrine launched itself from its tree top perch. The waders disappeared.

But it is not just the rarities that it is possible to see at Slimbridge, and we certainly revelled in seeing our Water Rail, Spotted Redshank, Bittern and Cettis Warbler, that makes this such a wonderful place to visit but is the enjoyment of seeing the commonest of birds in such a varied range of habitats. Journeying home we looked back on a day when we spotted over 50 species of birds some of them in their hundreds and satisfied with a short glimpse of the ubiquitous Bittern.

Tags birds, bittern, conservation, garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, insects, lapwing, organic gardening, Slimbridge, teal, wildfowl, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

garden photography gardening photography winter gardens

Winter Garden Patterns

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 21, 2012

My morning wander to feed the chickens this morning – a frosty one again- saw me take my camera as usual. I took shots of the patterns found in the garden both in nature and in the structures we have created.

DSC_0006-1 — Criss Cross Twigs of Cornus "Midwinter Fire"

DSC_0004-1 — Decking Stripes - Wood and Frost

Tags garden photography, gardening, photography, winter, winter gardens

birds conservation wildlife

Conservation and Culling

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 19, 2012

This is another controversial look at a conservation issue. I began writing this blog way back in October and then spent much time thinking about exactly what to write and ensuring due consideration was given to both sides of the argument. Then the issue was brought up on Autumnwatch where in particular the culling of Red Deer in Scotland was looked at. So I have waited until now to publish it.

Has the time come when we must consider seriously the need for the controlled culling of certain species in order to maintain a balance in our natural world? We have upset the balance through our actions for centuries by removing links in food chains and food pyramids especially predators such as wolves. Gamekeepers have removed certain raptors from huge areas of our islands and massively reduced the population of others. This amazingly continues today!

The consideration of this controversial issue is currently difficult as people’s vision is being blurred by the contentious ambitions of our government to cull badgers all for the wrong reasons – pressure from the farming industry. The unproven condemnation of badgers as being the main cause of the spread of bovine tuberculosis is being used as the reason for a cull. but this is altogether different – it is being proposed for purely economic reasons.

The aim of the culling I am talking about here would be to bring some control to over-sized populations caused by an imbalance of nature caused by man, often the species needing to be culled being foreign invaders. The most obvious creatures that need to be under scrutiny when considering culling are the Grey Squirrel, the Wood Pigeon, the Rabbit, Signal Crayfish, mink and some species of deer. It is clear to see that there are far too many of each of these and where mink and Signal Crayfish are concerned even one is too many as they cause severe disruption to our native creatures, the Bank Vole and our native Crayfish respectively. Whether the Grey Squirrel is a direct threat to our native reds is less clear-cut as they tend to favour different habitats.

Perhaps one answer is to consider these as a food source. Should we return to a time when pigeon and rabbit were part of our everyday diets, and begin to think of harvesting the Grey Squirrel and Signal Crays as a new food source? To some extent we accept this with deer for example Attingham Park, a National Trust property near us just outside Shrewsbury, culls its deer to keep a healthy herd and sells the venison.

So what is the way forward? Could we accept culling if it also had the by-product of providing a food source?

The Grey Squirrel is cute and entertaining as are rabbits, so a cull of either would be hard for some to swallow. But they are not native to our shores and they can both become tasty ingredients.

The opposite side of the coin could be the re-introduction of missing species, and this could be even more controversial. Could we realistically reintroduce wolves? The reintroduction of beavers in Scotland does not seem to assist in redressing any imbalance.

More questions than answers!! I certainly have no answers. I couldn’t kill any living creature, with the exception perhaps of the slugs that devour our plants.

Tags conservation, culling, squirrels

allotments birds community gardening conservation fruit and veg garden photography garden wildlife gardening grow your own meadows natural pest control ornamental trees and shrubs photography trees winter gardens

A Wander Around the Allotments in January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 18, 2012
10 Comments on A Wander Around the Allotments in January

As I decided to create a blog at the beginning of each month illustrating what is going on in our garden, so I have also decided to publish a blog in the middle of each month to show what is happening on our allotment site.

So today we braved the cold and went for a wander. The weather although cold, at five below, was bright sunshine in a clear blue sky. the air felt freezing as it entered my lungs but the sight of the lotties cheered me. As we stepped from the car a kestrel was hunting low between the sheds in search of the abundant field voles. A day never goes by without seeing at least one kestrel quartering the site. A buzzard soared overhead in the thermals created by the warmer air above the cultivated plots.

First job was to fill the bird feeders at the two feeding stations. They were busy with blue tits, coal tits and great tits feeding from the hanging feeders and blackbirds, dunnocks and robins beneath picking up the feed dropped by the clumsy birds above them. All the while we could hear the call of nuthatches in the site’s mature oak and sycamore trees.

Frost sits on the bare ground and helps the gardeners by breaking it down and improving the texture in readiness for a final preparatory rake over. The fine tilth can then be home to seeds.

The plots themselves look very sad at this time of the year, drooping brassicas, frosted leeks and steaming muck heaps and compost bins, the warmest spots of all. The scarecrows have fallen in the recent strong winds, their clothes wet and bedraggled and their structures weakened. Frost emphasises leaf structures, settling deepest along the veins.

The strongly veined wrinkled leaves of the Savoy Cabbages withstand the cold wrapped into tight balls.

Kale defies the cold and stands upright and proud even with ice droplets and frost splattered on their tightly curled leaves.

Sunlight makes the old runner bean pods translucent as they hang on the dead remnants of last year’s plants.

On our own plot the rows of Mooli, Broad Beans and Leeks look delicate in the frozen soil but will sit until spring arrives when they will have growth spurts and give us early crops.

Plastic bottles on canes support last year’s netting and still protect any overwintering crops from hungry Wood Pigeons.

Blackbirds move low across the lotties settling onto any sun-warmed soil and dig for grubs, but this one sat looking sad.

We took a leisurely walk around the “Interest Trail” which took us through or close to most of the community gardens – the orchards, wildlife borders, seasonal gardens and meadows. Near the car park the first green bursts of new life have appeared, the leaves and catkins forming on the birches. The young catkins stand bolt upright at this stage but will soften in colour and structure when they dangle down in the spring.

The purple catkins of the alder sit on the branches with the darker cones.

In the Autumn Garden seed heads of Asters remain long after the flowers of autumn, like tiny dandelion “clocks”.

In the first orchard th frost still lingered strongly on the logpile especially on this old chunk of bark.

When we reached the Spring Garden we were struck by the contrasting leaf texture, shapes and structures.

At the back of this garden the silver tassels of the Garrya hung in profusion and the new buds of the Amelanchier promised early flowers and foliage.

Further round the trail we arrived at the “Winter Garden” where the low rays of the sun sent long shadow lines of the fence right across the border between the coloured stems of the Betulas and the Dogwoods. It also illuminated this peeling bark, giving it the impression of slithers of orange brittle toffee.

The blue spruce looked bluer than ever with the whiteness of the frost laying on its needles.

Our Winter Garden has so much of interest that I shall publish a blog just featuring it within the next few days, so for now we shall move on to the second orchard where the golden fruits of Malus “Evereste” have escaped the attentions of the winter visiting thrushes but I suspect they will soon be discovered and devoured. The insect stack in the orchard is there to attract beneficial insects who provide our very wildlife-friendly pesticide. The stack should give them some shelter to help them survive the winter cold and wet.

As we wandered back towards the car park we passed through the wildflowers meadows long since cut to the ground, but showing promise for next summer in its tiny seedlings. One lone flower braved the cold – a pale blue cornflower. Leaving the lotties we noticed promises of flowers from the bulbs in the car park border and in the half-barrels in the gateway.

Tags allotments, community gardening, cornus, foliage, fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, fruit., garden photography, garden wildlife, gardening, insects, meadows, organic gardening, ornamental trees, trees, wildlife, winter, winter gardens

garden photography gardening ornamental trees and shrubs photography shrubs winter gardens

Changing Colours

It may be the cold or the blossom may be simply exhausted, but as we looked at the garden today we noticed that the Autumn Cherry tree blossom had changed from a delicate and pale sugar pink to a warm salmon-ginger.

Another change of colour I have recently noticed is related to the flowering quince that brightens up our gateway with its orange-red blossoms with contrasting yellow stamens. We recently brought into the house some twigs to encourage the flower and leaf buds to open. When they did open they opened not as a bright orange-red but as delicate shade of pink with a hint of salmon. Could this be different light inside and out?Different temperatures? Or even the lack of trace elements that the quince gets from the soil which aren’t in the case water?

Tags garden photography, gardening, ornamental trees, shrubs, winter, winter gardens

birds photography wildlife

A Cold Riverside Walk

A walk along the River Severn in Ironbridge, just a dozen or so miles from home, proved a lovely way to enjoy a frosty Sunday morn. the gorge here is so deep that the sun’s rays barely manage to peep over the top meaning unusual lighting and taking photos shooting into the sun. I only had my smart phone camera to hand so the glares across pictures were a revelation.

Very little wildlife shared the gorge with us, mallards and mute swans on the water and a buzzard hunting along the opposite bank floating slowly and gracefully through the tree tops . But we had been treated to a wonderful view of a bright rustic-coloured fox slowly crossing the road just in front of the car. This was no urban fox – the fox shown obsessively on TV programmes – all scraggy, bones showing and dull coloured – no, this was the real thing.

The frost was just showing signs of melting away forming sparkling droplets of water on the bankside vegetation.

Tags Ironbridge, mallards, River Severn, riverside, swans, wetland wildlife, wildlife

garden photography gardening hardy perennials shrubs winter gardens

Winter’s First Deep Frost

Mid-January and the first true frost of the winter. This must be the latest it has ever happened. Last year we had frosts from October right through till spring. I look forward to this coating of white, look forward to a wander around the garden with my camera in hand, look forward to seeing the low morning sun rim the frost on the remaining leaves and seed heads and even a few out of season blooms. Beyond the garden the countryside rested white and still, silent and crisp.

Entering the garden was like entering a different place than we were in yesterday. This world brought to my nose a mixture of comforting scent of wood smoke and tingling cold. It was so quiet and motionless, not even a murmur from moving grasses or bamboos today. Soon though the watery wintery song of the robin arrived and then other robins joined in, each one singing to announce ownership of a patch of garden or countryside. Pleasure to us, a threat to other robins, the true audience.

DSC_0039-2 — The Secret Garden with a gentle sprinling of frost.

Deeper into the garden the sweet scent of the Sarcococca joined the wood smoke, a rich aroma from an insignificant tiny white flower on a dull evergreen shrub. I planted it near the greenhouse door and its perfume scents the air whenever I work in there in the winter. It is a scent that stays in your nostrils for a time after you have left the garden and returned indoors. Today it has filled the garden completely.

The icing sugar frost has settled on berries and buds, foliage and flowers, seed heads and stems.

DSC_0014-3 — Holly leaves rimmed with frost.

An out of season rose frozen in its bud.

DSC_0003-1 — The sun creeps up to melt the frost from the euphorbia.

DSC_0020-1 — Euphorbia flowers hanging on through the winter with the grey frozen pool behind.

Winter sun lights up the leaves of the thornless blackberry which has been evergreen this year.

DSC_0018-2 — Frosted ginger-bread headed sedum.

Frost takes the pearlescence out of the Viburnum davidii berries.

The frost even coats terra-cotta and metal.

Tags foliage, frost, garden photography, gardening, winter, winter gardens

garden photography gardening

More Green on Green

Back in December I posted a blog entitled “Green on Green” featuring photos that were based simply on shades of green all taken in the garden. Here are more to shots to help you through the winter months. Soon the new shoots of herbaceous plants and signs of budburst on trees and shrubs will come along to give a clue of good growth times ahead.