All posts by Jackie Elwin

A few changes…

birds, pond


We have all heard about ‘global warming’ and the effects it is having on our weather systems – but just whose prediction will be right?  Some theories suggest we are heading
for a mini ice age across Europe (Gulf Stream conveyor belt theory) while others predict hotter, drier summers with wetter autumns and severe winters along with flooding from higher sea levels.  The earth may also be going through a magnetic flip – where the poles
actually change their magnetism.   Only time will tell which, if any, theory will be correct?
Here in the UK our weather patterns are changing and these changes are already affecting our wildlife. Spring is staring earlier and our growing season is getting longer. Some
species are adapting to these changes while others are struggling.  Already a rise in sea temperature has affected the sand eel population in Orkney and Shetland. Sand eels are the main food source for guillemots, puffins and other sea birds so a reduction in sand eels has drastically affected the sea bird population.   Similar affects can be seen in our own back yard.  Our blue tits are having trouble feeding their young as the caterpillar numbers are peaking too early.  The frogs are coming to our pond earlier to spawn, but the hard late
frosts are killing all the frogs spawn.  To help our wildlife out a bit we are putting mealworms out for the blue tits.  Live ones are best and although I had an interesting few months when I decided to breed some myself; it is a lot easier to just buy them mail order instead.  To help out the frogs we keep a bucket of spawn in the cool conservatory
during spring and once they have hatched into tadpoles we can pop them into the pond.  We lost a few plants and shrubs in some summers due to the very hot and dry conditions but most of the others have survived well needing only a bit more mulch to keep the moisture in.
Climate change however is not the main culprit for some of the changes in our back garden.  In February 2006 we acquired a new canine friend, who is in his element
the back garden.  In just his first week here he found that he could leap effortlessly over the 1.5m walls – hence the addition of trellis above all the boundary walls.  He took our neatly coiled hose for a wee jaunt around the raised bed, around a few trees then chewed and reduced its length by a few meters.  He runs full pelt up, down, across and through the garden and has already worn a muddy trail under the right hand arch.  One fine game is to
find and dig up the peanuts that the squirrels have hidden.  He has absolutely no respect for our borders – crashes his way through the tulips and Narcissi and even has a chew at the odd branch while it is still attached to the tree.

trellis

One major project in 2006 was stripping out the old pond liner and replacing it.  Poor frogs – we made them a makeshift pond; a large flat container with their old pond water, stones and a few plants, then placed it  about 2 meters from where we were working and popped our amphibious friends  into it.   Harry stripped away the old liner then added some new soft sand while I cut back the water lilies, divided the flag irises and threw away any overgrown oxygenating plants.  Meanwhile, our home sick frogs who did not appreciate our efforts at a makeshift abode, jumped straight into the sandy layer before their new home was finished. We were astonished to find that only 2 weeks later the new pond liner
had sprung a couple of leeks.   ***bleep bleep*** exclaimed Harry.  This time they were just patched with pond lining tape.  Just when he finished filling it up with the old water and plants a couple of ducks turned up!

pond 2002
ducks

In the beginning…

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It was June 1990 when we first viewed the 1938 bungalow within a ¼ acre plot
with a small front rose garden, divided in two by the front path, and the back
garden absolutely crammed full of vegetables.

 

as seen 1990
as seen 1990
By the time we moved in September 1990 the back garden was no longer full of greenery, but had only a row of Sweet William, a row of cabbages, some rhubarb and a few roses left in it.  We had no idea what to do with all this space!  Beyond the back wall is Duddingston golf course with its mature ‘listed’ trees and to either side we have our neighbours’ gardens.  We actually thought that the trees in the golf course had almost reached their full height and that it would be a fairly sunny garden so, on this assumption we discussed a very basic plan that included a lawn and flowering borders.
blank canvas what to do next?
The first compromise was the size of the borders.  I of course wanted
wide borders whereas my husband Harry didn’t.  We demolished the single
garage and in its place built a double garage with a ramp running down the side into the garden (I am a wheelchair user).  We added a conservatory
which was initially just going to be a covered entrance to the garage.  All this reduced the size of the garden a bit.  We then re-sited the greenhouse, made a
lawn, knocked a hole in the back wall (to hide compost buckets and Comfrey feed bin behind wall) and put in a fairly narrow border.  Every visit we made to friends and neighbours was an opportunity to take cuttings and receive any plants that just happened to need dividing.
lawn and border and hole in back wall
greenhouse re-situated along with veg gardens
lawn and borders


The next compromise was the vegetable plot.  Harry wanted mostly potatoes and sweet corn, but I wanted to try just about every thing else, so we made ‘his’ and ‘hers’ vegetable plots! Friends used to come over to give me a hand with the veggie plot, but by now they were all having babies and babies
tend to take up a lot of time.  So we put in some paving so that I could get my wheelchair between the rows of vegetables and physically remove the caterpillars and other creatures doing the worst damage.  I had tried using a strong water jet to remove the blighters, but the caterpillars and slugs just made their way further inside the veg!  Additional paving also allowed me to harvest the peas, beans, leeks, courgettes and so on myself.  Two smaller raised beds were added for the blueberries and cranberries in order to keep these as acidic beds.  The trouble is; the more paving you have to allow access, the less area you have to plant.
By now we had decided it was going to be a wild life garden, with a large lawn for our two dogs, nephews and nieces with borders full of plants for birds and beneficial insects.  The effect I wanted to create was lush, green and relaxing with a mainly pink, mauve and purple colour palette.  What the garden now needed was a pond.  This time it wasn’t so much compromise as me getting my own way!  Harry wanted fish while I wanted frogs.  We obtained the
frog spawn from a stream running through the golf course and built a small wild life pond. Harry still gets a fright when working near the pond if a frog
suddenly plops into the water!
pond
But, I was running out of planting space and I also wanted to create a more enclosed feeling in the garden, so we had a raised bed built in 1997.
This was not to be your average raised bed for alpines but more of a raised border (three borders really as it is vaguely triangular in shape) with shrubs, bulbs, perennials and lots of ferns.  By now it had dawned on us that the golf course trees were still growing, plunging our garden into shade by late afternoon, so, we made one side of the raised bed a ‘sunny border’ and the other two ‘shady woodland borders’.
raised bed
raised bed

It didn’t take long before I needed even more space for my ‘must have’ plants so in 2000 the tear-drop bed was created.  As I spend a lot of time just sitting by the pond contemplating, what was now required was a small area for
doing just that.  Only a couple of slabs were needed so I could get my wheelchair level and enough room for a small (tree stump) table for my coffee and a book, that’s all.  Although it would be nice if this area was just out of sight of the patio for a feeling of solitude, so, the tear-drop bed was
extended to provide more cover.
garden view
tear-drop bed extended
Over the years we have both learned a lot about gardening and wild life.  We have a lot of wild visitors to the garden and we have learned to share the raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, apples and plums with the squirrels and birds.  We forgive the foxes that dig up the bulbs and pull out some plants because they are such gorgeous creatures and it is such a pleasure to see them.  We learned to sow a few extra peas in the green house just in case the mice eat a few outside, and we just cut out the bits where the slugs and snails have damaged the courgettes.  The only beasties I squash are greenfly, vine
weevils and New Zealand flatworms.  Although we love our garden with hindsight there are a few things I wish we had done differently such as;
·
Levelled the ground properly before starting – although we used a roller the grass is stillvery uneven.
·
Sand blasted the white surrounding walls – red brick walls would have looked so much softer so I am trying to cover the white walls with ivy.
·
Wider borders with more room for the shrubs – we planted the shrubs far too close to the wall and to each other not realising just how big they would grow.
·
A bigger pond with a boggy area and none of the liner showing – I would love to have dragonflies visit the garden and would have liked to plant some boggy carnivorous planst.
·
Put the green house in a more sunny area – it only catches the sun between about 10am and 1pm where it is now.
·
Used something other than boring slabs for paths; slabs look awful, but I require a nice flat surface to push my chair on.  Bark would look much better but I don’t know how that would be to clear up the leaf fall from all the golf course trees.