A garden for wildlife

 

We do quite a lot of garden visiting during the summer, some of them large gardens, others quite small by comparison.  I like to visit other peoples' gardens to get ideas for garden design, planting schemes, spotting how well  plants grow in different conditions.

A few weeks ago Helen and I visited an NGS garden which was open for the first time and quite conveniently was only just down the road from where we live. Park Head opened this year for the first time under the National Gardens Scheme. The garden slopes down to a woodland stream and beyond that is open countryside and farmland--quite a beautiful setting.

We entered  the garden through a pergola covered with clematis and the occasional tinkling mobile hung here and there. Through the pergola I caught a glimpse of a lawn bathed in sunshine and a summer house. There was music coming from the direction of the top end near the house and we spotted a saxophonist. We've done a couple of garden visits this summer where there has been a musician. Maybe it's the latest trend to have music at open garden days. I prefer not to have music as I walk around a garden,  I like gardens to be peaceful places. I found the music intruded on my thoughts.

Out of the pergola we came  to the wildlife pond where we did a bit of frog spotting. Across the lawn was the summer house where a dry river bed led down to the wildlife pond and beyond this  to a wild flower meadow. There were fruit bushes and a few salad and vegetable beds amongst the borders which contained many perennial plants and shrubs. This was a garden for wildlife, amongst the natural planting in the borders were bird feeders, bird baths, logs left to rot, plants attracting bees and other insects.

Up near the house pots of herbs arranged along low stone walls and a few vintage pieces added a bit of quirkiness.

 Apart from the music I loved this garden and will probably go on my favourites list. It was my sort of garden and one I would like to return to.

 

Harvesting the onions

 

It's now that time of year when all the allotment holders are harvesting onions. As we walk along the lane to the allotment we can see onions strung up in greenhouses, laid out along benches or left lying on top of the beds. They are everywhere.

I spent an afternoon last week harvesting my onions. The tops had started to bend over so I knew they were ready to be pulled up. Not only that, I could see that they had grown amazingly in the last couple of weeks. Then came the annual problem of where to put them to dry out. The first lot went on top of the brassica net frame, another lot went on an old growhouse frame which Richard dragged out of storage.

A couple of days later when the roots had dried out I moved them all to the cold frame which is not being used for seedlings at the moment.  There is no room in the greenhouses to store them and not much space in the shed either.  They will be fine in the cold frame until they have dried out completely and I can clean them up and put into onion bags.

With the onion bed cleared and weeded I made use of the space to plant some lettuce seedlings and sow some more radish and beetroot.

Richard has been doing some work on the fence down one side of the plot recently. Our neighbour on the other side does not look after his plot and the weeds get out of hand. There are some really bad weeds growing there--nettles, Himalayan Balsam, bindweed, hogweed to name just a few. So Richard has put some black weed suppressant membrane along one section of the fence and a length of bamboo fencing along another. These are just materials which we had to hand. They will not stop weeds from growing under  the fence into our plot, but they will help to stop them growing through and will hide the ugly view we have of a very neglected plot.

Through the garden gate-- July

Once again I'm joining Sarah at Down by the Sea for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' slot.

Everything is growing well in the garden now, the borders have filled out hiding the weeds. Occasionally I spot the odd weed raising it's head above the plant foliage and I can pull it out. It's a relaxing way to do the weeding--no bending! There's a lot of deadheading to do as flowers go over--that's another gentle sort of job--especially if the weather is very warm.

Some of the earlier flowering plants have needed a good cutting back, like the hardy geraniums which get to look very untidy when they've finished flowering and will sometimes flower again if cut back. This has left some gaps in the borders. It's a problem I have in my garden during July and early August that there can be a lack of colour before the vibrant hot colours of August appear. I bought a dahlia and a liatris to fill a couple of gaps, in other places I have put pots of flowering plants.

We went to a car boot sale last weekend. Richard hates car boot sales, but I love wandering around looking for bargains. So it's not a thing we do often, but we always manage to get a few bargains, usually old items which we can put in the garden to use as plant containers or simply to add a bit of interest in little corners. This time I bought an old copper coal scuttle complete with verdigris even Richard thought it was a bargain and was happy for me to buy it. 

I also bought an old metal lantern which the stall holder said she had bought in France, she said French stuff has lots of character! There were some other good things on her stall but I'd spent enough money by then. In time I will plant something in the coal scuttle--when I find the right sort of plant. I think a fern would look good.

It's good to be able to take time to enjoy the garden and July and August are the months for that. We have been spending time  having lunch outside when it's been warm, sitting with a coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening. Hope you've all been enjoying your garden this month.