The garden has its hat on – a hat of snow.
Plants are sporting their new white headgear.
All sculptures and ornaments are wearing their ermine hats and coats.
The insects are warm in their homes, hopefully hibernating safely, but we will not know until the spring. Each night the little Jenny Wrens queue up to roost in their wicker basket.
As 2012 ends and 2013 begins it seems appropriate to look back at the twelve posts I made based on monthly wanders around our garden. So please enjoy my selection of 12 shots. Just click on a photo to see a larger image and slide show.
Hope 2012 has been kind to you. Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.
(Hope you like the new look! Please let me know what you think.)
In recent years we have seen the numbers of most birds visiting our garden, even the commonest, dropping most drastically. Goldfinches, House Sparrows, House Martins, Swallows and Starlings seem particularly badly affected. We try to help by providing food, shelter and nest boxes but our actions must be a drop in the ocean. What would make a real difference would be for some serious research to find the root causes of this sad decline, and then putting it to rights.
For a change I thought I would add some of my drawings and paintings to the usual photos I include in my postings. The pencil sketch below is of the multi-coloured Goldfinch.
This year the flocks of Goldfinches are showing signs of improvement, the sparrows are back cheerily entertaining us with their constant chatterings and the tit family seem more numerous. We notice these changes just by observing activity on and around our three feeding stations.
Some birds though still seem to be suffering especially Chaffinches and Greenfinches which until a few years ago were two of our garden’s commonest species.
Happily the Great Tit population here appears stable and their cousins the Coal Tits seem more numerous. These related birds display very different characters when visiting the feeders. The larger Great Tits are confident and stay feeding for long periods often chasing away other birds with wing-flaring and threatening shouting, while the Coal Tit comes quickly and quietly, selects its nourishment and disappears into nearby vegetation.
Many birds come into the garden to feed even when we are around, confidently feeding and foraging as we go about our business.
Winter brings into our garden for our enjoyment birds that we rarely see for the rest of the year. Winter visitors like the continental thrushes are the most obvious as they arrive in great numbers noisily and feed voraciously on berries and bits and pieces dropped from the bird table by the residents. Smaller less obvious visitors are Blackcaps and Siskins and these are welcomed with open arms. They are lovely to watch in the shrubs and trees. Goldcrests move in from the local woodlands and add wonderful bright splashes of colour.
A strange happening that we have observed this winter for the first time kept us amused for while. Our Nuthatches have started hiding peanuts away under the edges of the roofing felt of the garage and sheds. They ram them in a long way and very firmly. We wonder if they will recall where they left them when they need them in the future. It seems more likely that the Bluetits will discover them as they search all nooks and crannies in search of bugs.
Feeding the birds in our gardens may be drops in the ocean, but lots of drops may make a big wave!
The last month of 2012 and therefore here is the last post in the “wander around our garden” series. December was a month that started wet and cold and quickly got wetter and colder. We have found ourselves carrying on regardless – we weren’t going to let the weather beat us. So we donned warm waterproofs and busied ourselves clearing soggy perennials and pruning shrubs.
The birds are suffering from lack of natural food in the surrounding countryside so are flocking to our feeders. They add so much colour and song. This year’s flocks of Long Tailed Tits and Goldfinches are much larger than in recent times. Mixed tit flocks have reached over 70 in number at times and finch flocks up to 25. So we are kept busy regularly topping up the seeds, nuts and fatballs. As a result of the poor harvests of berries and fruit in the woods and hedgerows we have had invasions of large flocks of Blackbirds into the garden and already our shrubs are stripped of their produce. The blackbirds are aided in their berry stripping by Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares. All the red berried shrubs were denuded first, leaving not a single berry on our Cotoneasters, Hollies and Mountain Ashes so they are looking a little less colourful. They have now started on their second choice berries – yellows and whites.
There is still an amazing amount of colour in the garden with some flowers still going strong. This Hebe just ignores whatever the weather throws at it and keeps on flowering. When a frost comes these delicate looking flowers prove they are not delicate at all. They stand to attention even when coated in frost.
These small Hypericum shrubs, similar in size to the Hebes, perform on several fronts with flowers still apparent, berries showing several colours on the same plant and leaf colour which gets richer as the weather gets colder.
Odd flowers of Rudbeckias appear throughout the winter way outside their peak flowering period. They are like little bursts of sunshine.
Other plants are meant to be winter flowering and we look forward to these each year. Mahonia japonica exhibits its long thin upright racemes of buttercup yellow flowers with the added luxury of a beautiful warm scent, somewhat reminiscent of pineapples.
The glossy, dark hand shaped leaves of Fatshedera are a perfect foil for bright summer flowers in our Shed Bed, but it produces its own much more subtle flowers throught the winter. They are the palest of cream with a dull orange centre. They look as if they should emit the mouth-watering aroma of vanilla but that is sadly only in my imagination.
After a deep frost these flowers loose substance and flop, hanging lifelessly until warmed by the sun.
The starkness of winter structure exposes simple shapes and patterns working together. This yellowed sword shaped leaf of a Crocosmia cuts dramatically across the curved metal seat back.
Sculptures take on a new life. Our ironwork ferns rimmed with frost particles curls through the whitened grasses in the Stump Garden.
Seating areas look less inviting!
Right down at the bottom of the garden the summerhouse looks sadly at the pool which sits frozen solid at its feet.
Similarly the water in the birdbaths is often frozen. Each morning as I wander down the garden to feed the chucks I take a detour to add warm water to the birdbaths to melt the ice.
Frost decorates ornamental features giving them a new winter look.
Frost highlights the overnight toils of spiders who weave webs around sheds, nest boxes and insect homes.
There is little to harvest in December but we harvest various prunings. Taller thicker branches will be used as bean poles, smaller branches as pea sticks and to support perennials next year, and these spiral willow stems will be part of some sculpture that I am planning. Bamboo prunings will give us our own bamboo canes. Our first real crop of canes! That should save a few air miles!
Whatever the winter has in store for us, we are well-prepared. This pile of hardwood logs, oak and birch, will keep us warm and cosy and its scent of woodlands give a good welcome. And outside the chimenia patiently waits with its own fuel supply for us to venture outside to garden and enjoy a coffee break in the winter sun. Alongside the sculptural fire bowl adds further interest.
And what is happening in our borrowed landscape in December? Sheep seek nourishment in the paddock and provide a little natural fertiliser for the grass, and the wheat fields sadly sits waterlogged, growth at a standstill.
December hasn’t afforded us many days suitable for lottie gardening, sending us too much rain and flooding the site again for a while early on in the month . In fact the first attempt at working on our plot this month resulted in that too well-known sinking feeling. Algae has turned the soil green again.
We arranged to meet council officers and contractors on site one morning to start sorting out the flooding issues. It was of course raining when we met! Four trucks full of machinery and fluorescent coated workers arrived soon after, champing at the bit to start. Sods law came into play. The floods reappeared and water began lapping at our feet and at the wheels of the vehicles. One tractor got stuck in the mud!
The weather won the first round as work was abandoned even before it started, but at least everyone knows what to do now. We were promised that work would commence as soon as the weather allowed.
Things had improved a little by the end of the first week of the month, enough to arrange a day for Jude and I to meet our friend Pete to get some site tasks done in the communal gardens. We planted trees that had been donated by members in the new coppice we are developing, plus two others in the Autumn Garden. These were purchased with the prize money we had received when we won an award as the Best Community Garden in Shropshire by the National Garden Scheme.
As Pete looks after the Autumn Garden he chose the trees. Two great specimens arrived in the back of his car, an Acer rubra and a Gleditsia Sungold. In the photo above Pete is planting the Gleditsia and below is the Acer with its red stems. We can now look forward to the golden foliage of the Gleditsia and the red petioles of the Acer which contrast so well with the yellow autumn leaf colour.
We also transplanted some wild flowers and wildlife friendly plants kindly donated by a member, Dee. They were on her plot and we transplanted them to the meadows and orchards. Wild Hypericum, Red and White Campion, Mallows, Plantain, Foxgloves and Teasles plus a selection of Verbascum. In the picture below Jude is busily planting verbascum in the orchard meadows. The insect homes look so much bigger when plants die down for the winter. We just hope they are full of our friends, the overwintering pest controllers.
In the first few days of December I completed constructing the Tawny Owl nesting box which I had started weeks ago. It is by far the biggest nest box I have ever attempted to make. Each year I ask members to donate their spare wood for nest box construction and plenty came in this year so I hope to make several boxes. My next challenge is to make a box for House Sparrows.
On our own plot we have dug over the plot and given it a deep duvet mulch of manure. Now we will let the worms and other little critters get to work on it. We have pruned our fruit bushes and brambles, and are mid-point through cutting down and digging up a blackberry which refuses to produce any fruit. We gave it our “three chance and out” treatment which we allow every failing plant in our gardens.
At the mid-point of December the weather turned cold with clear ” blue-skied” days and deep frosty nights. The workers came back to get started on the flood prevention work. They are getting on well. We met them early one morning to sort things out and I took advantage of the bright conditions to get some photos taken. Having just my Samsung Galaxy with me the rest of the pics in this post are taken with its camera – a great camera for a phone.
Spiders appeared to have been industrious all through the hours of darkness creating works of art for Jack Frost to add the finishing touches. In the first pic we can admire how they have decorated a shed’s gable end and the second and third show where they have added a feature to the Communal Hut.
It looks as though the spider population of the lotties have taken to using the picnic benches when it is too cold on the rear end for us gardeners to enjoy our coffee breaks on them.
On Wendy’s plot Jack Frost had iced the rose hips.
We have had some beautiful new trees delivered to the site ready for planting when the soil is not frozen. At the moment we would not get a spade in. We have been given a Weeping Silver Lime which we selected to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee Year, plus two crab apples Malus “Evereste” and Malus “Golden Hornet” to plant, one in each orchard to improve fruit pollination, and two ornamental Hawthorns.
The individual plots are looking bare and forgotten. Some have been well dug for the winter, others await better weather. Where water sits in puddles it had frozen solid. On one plot a double digging session had been interrupted by the weather.
On one plot next to the new coppice area the seed heads of Angelica, left for the Goldfinches and Bullfinches to feast upon, were covered in frost.
In the coppice area itself, our newly planted Hollies had attracted spiders.
The communal gardens looked monochrome with frost covering the herbage.
As befits the season, our Winter Garden is looking good! Pete was with me as I took these photos and he and I created this garden less than two years ago, so we keep admiring our handy work.
Splashes of colour sprang up to shine out in the gloom of the misty grey day, the fruit of the Malus “Evereste”, and the fire-coloured leaves of a Hawthorn in the hedge and a Raspberry on a plot.
As we wandered taking these pictures we were followed around by the resident Robins who were waiting for us to start work turning soil over and exposing bugs for them to pounce upon. But no gardening was done, the soil being too solid with frost so no sod could be turned. We found time to top up the bird feeders in our feeding stations. These are busy with tits, finches, Nuthatches and Woodpeckers.
The penultimate lottie wander post for 2012 and at last the weather is providing a few bright cold days. This is what we look forward to in this autumnal month, rather than the wet dark days we have been presented with in the first few days. The light is warm and gives a crisp edge to any photos taken as the blue haze of summer has disappeared.
We went up the lottie yesterday to deliver some spare seeds for the Seed Swap basket and to collect some greens left by fellow plot holders for our chickens. They are spoilt by our friends from the site! It was mid-afternoon and we had not intended to stop to work, but we changed our minds. We got out the communal mowers and rakes and gave the final two meadows their annual “hair cuts”. Jude, The Undergardener did most of the work as it is a bit difficult with my spine and leg pains, so I wandered off taking advantage of the special quality of the day’s light and shot off a couple of dozen pics with my Galaxy.
As we worked on the meadows the resident Field Voles scuttled off as they felt the mower’s vibrations and disappeared down their holes. We left a few clumps of wildflowers standing for everyone to enjoy before winter cuts them down. Field Scabious, Mallow and Sunflowers.
The meadows that are already trimmed look flat and brown, but the pathways mown through them look crisp and green.
The foliage in our Sensory Garden is given extra vitality in the November sunshine.
The next shot is a view of the site boundary through the seed heads of a white-flowered Actaea across the Spring Garden. In the Spring Garden a tiny Acer shows that you don’t have to be big to impress.
In the meadows the last of the grasses and sunflowers stand tall and proud.
Up in the mature Sycamore and Oak the resident bats will be shuffling around and preening in readiness to leave their roosts in the boxes and go on the feed for moths and night-flying insects. Bats are our night-time pest control patrols. In the daylight hours we are being entertained by birds of prey often being mobbed by our flocks of Jackdaws and Rooks . Peregrines, Buzzard, Red Kite, Kestrel and Sparrow Hawk.
Around the plots the gardeners are preparing their plots for the winter, beds are cleared and manure piled up or spread over the surface.
A few crops remain for winter sustenance.The red stems and purple leaves of Ruby Chard add a burst of colour. Brassicas are covered to give protection from ravenous and greedy Wood Pigeons who love to eat the sweet centres of Brussels Sprouts and the tenderest, newest leaves of cabbages.
A few remaining flowers add extra brightness to the plots.Tthat most popular of companion plants, the Calendula brightens up compost areas and odd roses still perform in the Summer Garden. We can expect these David Austin roses to continue to treat us to flowers until the new year.
The star of the site for the next few months will be the Winter Garden and it is already showing promises and hints of what delights it has in store for us in times ahead. As leaves fall from trees and shrubs the colours and textures of the stems and trunks will come into their own.
We have endured a wet summer and autumn with each month breaking previous rainfall records. Crops have been poor and we have been flooded four times. Dave, the Scarecrow looks a bit worse for wear too!
This is the month of harvesting and preparing the soil recently vacated by crops that have been dug, cut, pulled and picked,ready for next year’s new crops.
As we wander around the allotments now it is noticeably colourful – flowers abound with almost all plot holders growing some for picking, to enhance their plot or to attract beneficial predatory or pollinating insects.
Some plots feature the more expected allotment flowers grown for cutting, such as Sweetpeas, Dahlias. Chrysanths and Gladioli.
And of course productive plants give floral displays before the fruit, pods and berries appear.
Many plot holders grow a variety of flowering plants as companion plants to attract beneficial insects, both as pollinators and predators, or to benefit crops or act as barriers.
In our communal borders, designed to look good for the plot holders and visitors as well as serving to attract wildlife, late summer flowers are adding a feast of colour and scent.
On some plots the gardeners have such a good sense of design that their vegetable raised beds look structured and colourful without the need of flowers.
Some flowers on our lottie site had to serve a very different purpose recently. Annie, one of our neighbouring plot holders sadly passed away after a long illness. It was decided that as Annie loved the allotments so much that Jill, who represented the site at the funeral, should create a big bouquet made up of flowers cut from the plots. It was a bright, colourful, cheerful and summery and perfectly reflected Annie’s personality. We will miss her.
September is a month I love for the richness of its colours which are intensified by the lower light of early Autumn. But It is a month I dislike as it marks the end of summer and initiates the dropping of temperatures. I enjoy watching the fruits and berries ripening and their changing colour. I am saddened by the silence in the sky as Swallows and House Martins leave us for warmer climes. Leaves begin to show signs of changing their colours too and in September we are given hints of what is to come.
Throughout the September garden we find individual buds and flowers hanging on after the thrusts of the summer lush display. Droplets of moisture sit on the blooms as the first frosts melt away.
These little gems of individual blooms which are flowering out of season add so much colour to the borders, flowering alongside those plants which are traditionally the true flowers of September. Two flowers which we look forward to in early autumn are Lobelia tupa and Salvia uliginosa which display unusual colours and shapes.
The light in September creates a different atmosphere, no longer the direct overhead light of the summer. Now there is increased contrast between light and shadow.
Our grasses begin to come into their own in September. Their seedheads glow and their colours get paler and more silvery.
I shall finish my September wander with a few plant portraits.
The garden is still full of colour, texture and patterns but is missing the life flying above it. The Swallows, House Martins and Hobby have left the daytime sky quieter. At night we miss the cries and calls of the Little Owls even though at times we curse them for keeping us awake.
We return to Barnsdale Gardens every few years on a trip down memory lane. Barnsdale was the garden of TV gardener Geoff Hamilton the nation’s favourite gardener for many years. He was the gardener on the BBC’s “Gardeners World” programme so he visited many gardeners’ homes every Friday evening for years. He was the first truly organic TV gardener and as such he promoted these sound garden principles and backed them up by conducting experiments and sharing the results on his show.
As well as Gardeners World he made several series of gardening programmes based on making gardens such as “The Cottage Garden” and “The Paradise Garden”.
He sadly died at a young age when taking part in a sponsored cycle ride for charity, but he has never been forgotten.
The Barnsdale Gardens still display all the model gardens Geoff made and others have been added since his death. The garden and the nursery attached are run by his son and daughter-in-law. His other son created this bronze sculpture that graces the garden.
The trees that we saw Geoff plant many years ago are now impressive specimens and display interesting bark colours and textures.
One of his favourite flowers was the Day Lily and many remain in the gardens still. Coming a close second as his most popular garden plant must be the rose.
A popular feature of “Gardeners World” was Geoff’s do-it-yourself projects – he was always making furniture and garden features, to try to save his viewers money. Below is his garden bench with matching herb coffee table made from recycled pallets with old roof slates built in as coasters.
He also constructed this compost bin disguised as a beehive and accompanying garden store, both created from recycled wood.
He even made a water feature from an old copper water cylinder!
Although he encouraged gardeners to construct things for their own gardens he also extolled the virtues of craftsmen and his garden diaplays many works by craftsmen local to Barnsdale. In particular he brought locally made furniture into the garden.
Productive gardening – fruit, veg and herbs – played a big part in his programmes, magazine articles and books. Several of his productive plots are still at Barnsdale, such as an allotment, the Ornamental Kitchen Garden, an Elizabethan Vegetable Garden. the Fruit Orchard, an Apple Arch and Herb Garden.
Geoff was definitely ahead of his time, encouraging organic principals and attracting insects into the garden. he recognised them as pollinators and predators of garden pests.
He featured plants such as Achilleas, Heleniums and other hot coloured flowers, and using lots of different grasses. These are all popular now.
Since Geoff’s untimely death the garden has continued to develop. His son, Nick and daughter-in-law have created new gardens so now Barnsdale is described as “39 inspiring gardens, all in one place”
A sign of just how popular and influential Geoff Hamilton was is the fact that his book on Organic Gardening is still in print and has been updated and revised on several occasions. He was a great believer in the importance of compost and found all sorts of ways of making it efficiently. How about this brick-made composter. The bricks would absorb warmth from the sun and heat up the composting material inside and speed up its decomposition.
I shall end this visit to Geoff Hamilton’s Barnsdale with a few more views of the garden.
August is when the busy harvest period begins. As land is cleared green manures are sown and compost is spread across empty spaces. Plans for next year’s gardening are beginning to form.
Another amusing sign has appeared on a plot in recent weeks. Doreen and Phil have a corner plot and it has been christened “The Naughty Corner”. Next to their plot, Gill has hung some vibrant decorations in her fruit.
Wendy’s plot is always full of interest and at the moment the star of the show has to be the glitter ball hanging inside an obelisk up which is growing Morning Glory.
We have had a very successful month where awards are concerned, some for the whole site and others for individual allotment holders. Jude and I were invited to the Shrewsbury Flower Show to receive an award for the allotment site. Chris Beardshaw, author, broadcaster and TV gardener presented me, on behalf of our allotment site, with the award for “Shropshire’s Best Community Garden”.
Bowbrook Allotment Community members also provided plants for a show garden created by the Shrewsbury Residents Association – herbs, vegetables and companion plants. This garden won a medal.
The two daughters of our Membership Secretary entered craft and art classes in the Honey Tent and won many certificates too. Their honey cakes and biscuits looked so tasty.
Jude and I also took part in the Shropshire Organic Gardeners Society stand at the show. Members were asked to provide photos of themselves with a pot plants and these took centre stage.
Dave Bagguley one of our plot holders was awarded Shrewsbury’s “Best Front Garden” award at the show.
Back at the lotties the Autumn Garden, one of the site’s “Gardens of the Four Seasons” is beginning to look really good, with the late summer/early autumn perennials blooming in their hot colours.
The meadows around the site are incredibly colourful at the moment but the early flowering ones are well-past their best. They will soon be due their annual haircut.
We like to leave the meadows’ annual haircuts as late as possible so delay them until seeds are well set and there is an obvious decrease in the amount of wildlife visitor activity. But in the Buddleja Borders the beautiful scented flowers are still bringing in so many butterflies, bees and hoverflies.
This year’s periods of extreme wet have taken their toll. Whole potato crops have rotted on plots and root crops badly split.
As I was finishing writing this post I heard that our site’s entry into the Shrewsbury Town Allotment Competition came out the winner, so well done to Sue and Paul from Plot 40. Here are a few shots of their plot to finish off this post.
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