As Summer Ends, A Garden Share

 

On the last day of August and in my mind the end of the summer I wanted to share our garden. We are very lucky and have a large garden that includes woodland and as such we are a woodland marginal space. We plant for wildlife and encourage wildlife into our space. Why stones not grass? Well when we moved in over twenty five years ago we found so many dead bees and dead frogs we had the soil tested. The elderly chap who had the bungalow before us grew rose in abundance but mixed up his own insecticide and nuked everything in sight to keep the garden pristine. We found that our soil contains high levels of strychnine and heavy metals, totally toxic to pollinators and amphibians. So we cannot plant directly into the soil for generations to come. So where we plant directly into the soil we have to dig out and line the space before refilling with soil and planting. Hence lots of pots and riased beds.
We plant for pollinators, all the hymenoptera, hoverflies and butterflies and moths in abundance. We are not a wild garden in the sense that we plant for year round nectar as much as we can and on the woodland margin not everything will flourish so we cannot opt for just natives although they are present too.
This year has been a stuggle, being in Lancashire we are very luckly and although we have had bouts of very dry weather we have had consistant rain throughout the summer but we needed to do a lot of watering. We water with cans from water butts but so much time was spent watering individual pots we have spent this summer, the three of us, building raised beds. This has dramatically cut down on the watering and the plants are thriving having more room which in turn has meant more insects. The biggest of the beds took 21 bags of 70 litre peat free compost and we originally bought just six!
We all love our garden and spend so much time out here. Our workshops open onto the garden and all get involved with the space. Reuban has a great eye for a plant and is now heavily involved with the running of the garden and he just loves it, which is so great to see someone so young loving green spaces.
So roll on autumn, we are looking forward to you and settling the garden.