AtWaG - (All the World's a Garden)

The Learning garden - opened by Chris Packham

The excellent learning garden in Beaulieu was opened officially on Friday 20th June by local media champion of wildlife and conservation, Chris Packham. Thankfully, dignitaries were thin on the ground, the 'do' was for the people whose input transformed the concept into reality. Designers, builders, diggers, and planters, many of them volunteers were thanked most sincerely by Patrick Fairweather and it was a great relief to all that the rain held of.

In just a few months a sea of mud has been transformed into a fine example of a well managed, atrractive and highly productive garden. Julian, the gardener has worked wonders in getting rapid results from a heavy clay soil.

If you can, you should pay the garden a visit, you can find out  more from the Fairweathers web site

Rose suckers

  Rose suckers 
  Originally uploaded by AtWaG

My daughter in-law has a new HT rose in a terracotta pot on her patio. I noticed today what fine example of rose-suckering it was making - so out came the camera.
Suckers arise from the stem of the plant below where the desired variety was grafted onto a brier stock - so the suckers show the characteristics of the wild brier rather than the cultivar.
Rose suckers can vary a lot in appearance - that's because many different types of stock are used by nurseries. However in general they have more 'leaflets' than the cultivated type.

Rhossili beach - The Gower

Rhossili beach - The Gower
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Just back from a week on the Gower peninsula (S. Wales)
Never been before, but very impressed. Excellent coastal flora, impressive geology and mostly uncommercialised.
Worms head and Rhossili beach are just about what Lands End should be but, well it isn't like that.

Only down side is that we suffered from the worst campsite showers imaginable - five different camp sites all of them with rubbish showers!

Fritillaria meleagris - again!

  Fritillaria meleagris 
  Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Sorry to post this image again but I felt I had to after seeing that it has been chosen as image of the month over on the Garden Photographers Association web site.
Given that it's a rather tall portrait image it doesn't sit well in the square frame on the site but hey-ho, it'll look good in print.

New Forest foal 2008

New Forest foal
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

I don't recall a year when I've seen more foals around my part of the New Forest....all born pretty much in synchrony too. I guess the stallion around here last year was both vigilant and vigorous.
If you want to see New Forest Foals don't leave it more than another week or so. They grow amazingly quickly and soon turn from endearing babies into gangling, scruffy nosed urchins.
If you visit remember to keep your distance, don't try and pet or feed them and don't do anything to attract them to the roads.

Bad plug delivery

Bad plug delivery
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

The last two springs I've been doing some comparisons of mail-order plants and Garden Centre bought plants. Until my last delivery mail-order was well ahead in terms of quality and labeling accuracy. However I had a delivery of Geranium plugs yesterday that blotted the suppliers copy-book.
Look at these sorry specimens of Geranium plugs - spoiled by a combination of overheating and too long in darkness They were packed April 28th and arrived with me May 2nd.
I phoned the supplier immediately and explained the state of the plants and he suggested I pot them up and wait a week or so to see how they did. I explained that I needed the plants for a photo shoot and that they were not of salable quality and he quickly agreed that they would be replaced.....I hope the replacements travel better.
I have potted up the survivors but the plants are even worse than they look in the photo - some have rotted away to nothing worth planting.
I think it's important that the suppliers know about incidents like this so that they can keep tabs on the shippers and put pressure on them so that plants don't get wasted like this.

Fairweathers Beaulieu

  Fairweathers Beaulieu 
  Originally uploaded by AtWaG

There's a cloud  of doom and gloom around Garden Centres just now but you can't say Fairweathers of Beaulieu aren't giving it their best shot. I took a look around their Garden Centre last week and was impressed by their innovative display of re-cycling and local materials. These sculptures were made of  waste fibreglass from a local boat yard and the mosaic effect was cleverly created from plastic plant tags stuck on with powerful adhesive. The surrounding drift of pebbles and grasses gave a pleasing maritime effect and created an oasis away from the 'hard sell' of Garden Centre plant benches.
Within the same area their 'plants for a purpose' displays were pleasingly arranged on benches supported by bales of New Forest heather.
Fairweathers current project is even more ambitious - a large community veg garden for the village of Beaulieu - I saw the bare bones of the garden with the very first plants going in.....more of this to follow - you will be impressed by the scale and vision of the project.

Bumblebee on Blueberry flowers

Bumblebee on Blueberry flowers
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Blueberry growers make a lot of claims for their product. Beautiful, fragrant flowers, wonderful healthy fruit and great autumn colours - all true and you can add important to wildlife as well.
At Trehanes blueberry farm this am the bushes were a buzzin' with honey bees and bumble bees - there were quite a few Syrphids there too. This Bumble bee is on a variety called Blueray - for my money the prettiest with it's pinkish hue with green tones - it was the most fragrant as well....sadly not available to buy as a young plant though.

Crab apple blossom

Crab apple blossom
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Out on the open 'Forest' near my New Forest home there is a hillside with many large mature apple trees. These trees weren't planted on purpose, they 'volunteered' having survived passage through the digestive tract of farm cattle that had been fed on Cider apple pulp. Being seed raised every tree is different - flower size, flower colour, time of flowering, fruit size and colour all vary making for a delightful semi-natural orchard.
The fruits are mostly tiny and sharply acid. The Cows and Ponies out on the forest relish the apples when they fall - take care where you tread though as apple fed stock have notoriously loose bowels!

Bombylius major

Bombylius major
Originally uploaded by AtWaG

Every year about this time I have fun trying to photograph these little chaps as they take nectar from the Pulmonarias in my garden. They are very quick - even quicker than the bees they imitate.
This is the best from todays batch - at 1/500 sec the wing beats are very blurred - tomorrow I'll try using shutter priority and make sure that I use closer to 1/2000 sec to try and get things sharper.
The larvae of these flies are parasitic on the nests of solitary bees (e.g., Andrena, Halictus and Colletes species), where they eat the food stores and grubs of their host.