We believe it is high time to rethink what beauty in a garden is. The more we tidy and neaten things up, the less biodiversity there is. We are great admires of Mary Reynolds, whom we wrote about in this post a few years back.
Category: Wildlife
Wildlife haven.
As many of you know we are involved in setting up the local Community Garden. Last summer we planted an area close to the entrance with flowers and other plants that attracts wildlife like bees, birds and butterflies. We did not remove plants like dandelions, daisies and clover.
Roses.
We have always had a weakness for roses. The fascination is partly with the scent, wafting through the warm air on a summer evening, partly with the sunlight shining through the petals and illuminating them as from within and partly with the numerous shapes and colours of the flowers.
A bed for the Fairy Queen.
It has been unusually warm here in the West of Ireland and one day last week we found ourselves close to the shores of Lough Key. We remembered a magical day a few years back when all six of us rented two rowing boats for a couple of hours and went for a picnic on a very special island, so we decided to recapture some of the magic of that day.
Dawn Chorus.
Usually we write about our collective endeavours here on the Greener Dream but recently I decided to do something just for myself. So what follows is an account of a solo adventure that proves it is not always necessary to travel far to behold the world from a different perspective.
A winter wonderland.
This morning we woke up to a world transformed. All night the flakes had been falling slowly and settled on every surface, transforming our land into a picture perfect space, full of natural beauty. It is by far the most snow we have had since moving into our place nearly five years ago and we went out early to capture the magic on camera.
Healthy neglect…
Last month other commitments pulled us away from the garden. Apart from us harvesting apples, raspberries and vegetables, the land was left to its own devices for the duration of the month. On the very last day of September we walked around the different areas to get a few pictures for this blog and we realized that the land had not suffered at all in our absence. Sure, it looked a bit untidy and overgrown on the surface, but underneath it was healthy, alive and brimming with wildlife. Maybe that is the biggest lesson we have learnt from looking after and developing our land over the last few years. A forest garden, mimicked on young natural woodland but full of edible and other beneficial plants, is a very forgiving place. Nature has a marvellous way of doing what is best for the land and when you start to work with nature and not against her fantastic things can happen. We wanted more frogs, newts and other wildlife so in addition to our stream we added two ponds. Because of this the slug population is being kept small and is not the major problem it was for the first couple of years.
The little people preparing for the big day.
It is less than a week now to our Open Garden day for Amnesty. Although we have lots to do still, today we decided to help the little people in the garden, by building them a summer house and putting up some bunting. We know they are shy creatures and that they may be a bit startled by all the visitors to the garden on Saturday, but we still think they want their place to look the best.
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