Busy afternoon dodging the drizzle

The salad bed is doing really well - especially thanks to Barbara's watering between sessions.

Lots of people today, despite the ominous weather forecast.

The new perennial beds are doing well but we have a lot of re-growth of annuals seedings, which take a lot of work to clean.

We mowed the grass for the first time, dug meadow beds, weeded, planted, edged and finished another pond-dipping bench.

The hesperis (sweet rocket) is coming into flower - and we have a new bed of Snow White, white strawberries (pineberries). And biennial wallflowers.

New flowers are out too.

The second pond-dipping bench - also good for pond watching. Well done Justin, Kate and Julian!

And small children found hidden Easter eggs (not anything to do with us!).

New bench

New bench made from oak sleepers

Julian and Justin made a new bench/table on Sunday - the first of two by the pond. They are designed to make pond-dipping easier for visiting school groups - but are good for just pond watching too (or having a snooze). 

There isn't much nature in the pond yet - we need to get more vegetation going in and around it (and maybe fewer visiting ducks, although they do entertain us).

Mr and Mrs Mallard

Flew in during the garden volunteer session on Sunday, got amorous, splashed around for a bit, swam around for a couple of hours and then flew off again. Apparently, we shouldn't encourage them because they will make establishing our pond plants much more difficult. So please don't feed them if you see them (especially with cake).

Expectant gardeners

Frogspawn, visible over the fence from the 'mound' side.

We are very excited to say we have our first frogspawn in the new pond. Just a little. We are calling all the tadpoles Abigail, after the visiting girl who spotted it first.

Woven hazel fence - it has eyebrows and windows, which make really attractive reflections and shadows in the March sun.

We have almost finished making the woven hazel fence too. Just need to design and make a suitable gate and maybe add some creatures to it.

Volunteer gardeners working (and relaxing) in the March sun. The purple crocuses are enjoying the sun too.

There are lots of little violets out in the mossy grass at the moment. It is a very purple time in the garden.

Purple for Polio crocuses are coming out

Update: the crocuses were over by 20 March - we are looking forward to seeing them next year.

Very excited to say lots of the 4,000 or so Purple for Polio crocuses we planted around the former bowling green are now coming out - more every day. Here is a photo from Tuesday - I hoped to get one with even more today but then it rained...

Lots of crocuses - the squirrels have been enjoying some of these too!

Apart from looking lovely, and being good for some early-flying pollinators, they remind us about the Polio Eradication campaign. Purple, because of the dye still used on many millions of children's fingers when they have had a life-protecting dose of vaccine. Rotary have been supporting this campaign for many decades. The campaign is so close to eradicating this devastating disease but still needs support. So if you are inspired, you can find out more and make a donation here: http://www.rotarygbi.org/what-we-do/purple4polio/.

Once they have finished flowering, we will let the bulbs naturalise in the grass and hopefully will have even more next year and in years to follow. And probably some fat squirrels too.

Weaving away at the fence

The fence around the pond at the end of day 1 of making.

We had a very industrious workday in the garden on Monday. Guy and Julian bashed sweet chestnut and hazel stakes into the ground and, in the afternoon, two teams of volunteers got hazel weaving. We got better at it as we went along... We still have some more to do because we were rained off around 4pm.

It is a bit 'Saxon village' at the moment. There was talk of looking for some small sheep.

Pollen up close

A 50-year old microscope - very heavy, which is just as well because a lighter one would have blown across the garden in the wind this afternoon

We had a very productive afternoon preparing beds for annual seeding, moving plants, edging beds - and we got to see pollen grains up close with a borrowed microscope. This was very successful using just natural light. Here are some other photos of pollen from an MSc student.

We looked a snowdrop, primrose and hellebore pollen, which are oval; round and yellow; and rugby ball shaped with pits and a seam vsisible down one side: here is a higher magnification photo of hellebore pollen.

We moved some of the wallflower and sweet william plants into blocks in the newly edged narrow beds, which are apparently best for bees - not so far to fly between flowers.

One of the single snowdrops - a pollen supply.

Winter volunteering

5 February: panoramic shot of a few of the garden volunteers at the start of the Sunday afternoon session - before all the biscuits came out!

I am amazed at how few sessions we have had to cancel over the Winter (maybe two or three, due to rain) and how much we have achieved. Now, if you volunteer with us, you can sign up to the Streets and Open Spaces Volunteering Scheme and through it earn Time Credits.  Rina from the Council signed up several of our garden volunteers on Monday.

We made a new bed for sweet peas and started a support from willow from a nature reserve nearby - thanks Vic!

We were happy to move our bowls support back into the garden, again for sweet peas or similar...

We finished the scything, ready to prepare the annual Pictorial Meadow beds

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Around 8am, frost on the ground and a frozen pond.

We had a very frosty start to our annual birdwatch (and some of us had very frozen toes by the end). But we spotted lots of birds. Most of the time that we 'requested a bird', we saw at least one within the one hour time period (8.20 to 9.20).

The Bird Cafe, with lots of different foodstuff in feeders.

The final count, which is the maximum number of birds at any one time [plus ones not on the RSPB list]: 

• Blackbird: 1
• [Black-headed gull: 5]
• Blue tit: 3
• Chaffinch: 2
• Coal tit: 1
• Collared dove: 2
• [Crow: 1]
• Dunnock: 2
• Goldfinch: 0
• Great tit: 1
• Greenfinch: 4
• House sparrow: 0
• [Jackdaws: 3]
• Long tailed tit: 2
• Magpie: 4
• Robin: 2
• Starling: 0
• Woodpigeon: 2

And a squirrel and a black and white cat.

We will post some bird close-ups soon.

Just to show we did get a blue sky and some sun!

I think next year, we will do the Count later in the day. We might get fewer birds but more people (and warmer extremities!).

Brrrr... ice fun

Ice sculptures in the sun

It was a rather icy session today in the garden - some jobs had to be abandoned or modified because the ground was too hard. There were lots of people in the garden enjoying the January sun though.

We found thick ice in the water trough, which was too tempting to leave. We couldn't decide if the visiting kids or adults enjoyed smashing a great thick slab of it most. And then everyone decided to be a bit artistic making mini igloos, which then also got smashed.