A short video taken of just one part of Winsford Walled Gardens which is open daily to the public in summer. The word ‘INSPIRATIONAL‘  features a lot in written visitor comments.

How many gardeners begin their garden project trying to cover their plot with as many plants as possible? It’s a desperate race to cover ground with the plants you want in your garden before the unwanted weeds reclaim the bare soil. The scale of my own garden project was such that it took about 5 years before most of the ground was ‘planted’. It then took a further 5 years for the shrubs and trees to thicken up sufficently to actually properly cover their assigned space. But now, after 10 years, there are plants which are suffering noticeably from insufficient light, and if they are to prosper changes need to be made.

The title photo above shows the conifer hedge in 2000, a year after planting.

Poor light manifests itself in various ways but amongst flowering plants. They either don’t flower at all, or don’t flower for long enough or simply don’t have as many flowers as they are capable of having. Whereas conifers and shrubs which suffer poor light conditions will loose their foliage on the ‘dark side’ and go very ‘twiggy’ and these twigs will quickly die off making the area look pretty ugly. Unfortunately, with conifers, these twiggy areas are very reluctant to grow back and replenish with green. Instead these areas will remain an eyesore unless shielded by another plant a lower plant.

After just 10 years some conifers need to be removed if other plants are to prosper

When I was creating Winsford Walled Gardens we had terrible problems from high winds swirling around inside the walls, and so I designed a conifer hedge using the wonderful varieties that are so readily available in an ultimately succesful attempt to reduce the cyclonic winds. The  conifer hedge is a popular source of ideas for visitors. This winter I had to chop down 4 trees from the hedge. In previous years I had procrastinated about the resulting gaps but this year something had to be done. I also reduced the potential gap by relocating a tall, thin Thuja ‘Holmstrup’ (small footprint) that was being suffocated be adjacent shrubbery. The result is actually a great improvement. Not only do the remaining conifers have enough physical room, more light will reach them.

Conifer hedge after. Notice the absence of flowers in the centre of the Viburnum.

Notice the absence of flowers in the centre of the Viburnum plicatum ‘Snowflake’ which had looked very sad due to the proximity of conifers which had grown too large for the location. Planting too many conifers, too closely together, is a common mistake for all gardeners, when they are impatient for quicker results. Immediately before the Viburnum is the much narrower Thuja ‘Holmstrup’ relocated to join its larger ‘brother’ on the left. The shorter Thuja was being ‘crowded out’ in its previous location.

Most noticeable of all is the amount of light that reaches the flower beds behind the hedge which has improved noticeably. This light level was not affected by the hedge during the summer when the sun was high, but now (late October) and during the winter,  and especially in spring. the low sunshine is now able to reach the border behind much earlier and more often – encouraging even better growth in future.

The Conifer hedge following the removal of 4 trees during late-October 2009

The Conifer hedge following the removal of 4 trees during October 2009 is still very much a feature of the Gardens throughout the year. Only now, following some removals the existing plants will grow better and flowering plants behind the hedge can now enjoy any winter sun that was previously denied to them. And in spring this will encourage them to shoot earlier and flower more – for longer.

On June 01, 2010, I took another picture of the viburnum pictured above to show the contrasting dramatic result that can be easily achieved after light-enhancing ‘surgery’.

The same viburnum with dramatic results.

How Do birds do that?

Have you ever wondered or been amazed how a garden bird makes its nest in the branch of a tree? Now spare a thought for the amazing indviduals who created this nest in bamboo. By comparison, building a nest in the fork of the branches of a tree must be a ‘doddle’ when compared to  this as the ‘fork’ doesn’t move. But how do birds make a nest in bamboo when the canes are moving independently of one another?

Imagine the dexterity, skill and THE PATIENCE needed to get the first twig to stay in position!! Before the nest builder must go find the next twig and return to stitch them together (assuming the first twig hasn’t already fallen when the canes move). . .

Forget about spiders making webs in space. How does any garden bird START building a nest? This is one wildlife documentary I would really love to see – and it’s right outside everyone’s front door…

If summer is ‘Broadway Showtime’ then Autumn is for those all-important ‘rehearsals’. Autumn, and by that I mean October and November in particular, is often considered by gardeners as the month for pruning. – But there’s actually a lot more to preparing your garden for the winter than simply cutting back. In this article I provide a closer look at how (and when) to prepare your garden to maximise your summer display.

During the summer months at Winsford Walled Gardens I will periodically make detailed notes about plants, schemes and new ideas. They include things like relocating individual plants which are suffering from overcrowding or because they have grown too big and are blocking their neighbours from view. In some cases, the colour, leaf combination just needs changing. But whatever the reason summer is when the new  ideas are noted and autumn is when the they’re put into effect.

My winter prepartions begin during the first week of October just as the last of the yellow heleniums and the golden brown and russet shades of the rudbeckias are going over to make way for the purples, mauves and whites of the aster and leucanthemum daisies that follow. They consist of ten distinct yet inter-dependent stages listed below.

1. ‘Tweaking’ the garden design
2. Relocation of large plants
3. Prepping borderline tender plants
4. Hacking back – part one
5. Clearance
6. Forking
7. New work
8. Hacking back – part two
9. Weeding
10. Supports

The first four items should be completed before the first frost.

This Canna will 'run out of time' and not flower before the frost arrives.

1. Tweaking the garden design
This is when you make those all-important changes to your planting layout/design for next year. – Using your existing plant stock. This is the time to move those plants which are either too tall or too short for their neighbours or where you can improve on the flower colour or leaf combo – whichever. All your herbaceous plants should be included in this group. Try to avoid moving plants while they are in flower otherwise they will suffer rapid dehydration, but once the flowers start going over it’s usually OK to relocate them.

The main photo features the exotic-looking Tetrapanax paprifera ‘Rex’ that was rather cautiously established between two pittosporums. Following the demise of the Fatsia (below) this exotic plant will be relocatedto a high-profile location in the gardens.

Fatsia relocated to border background to re-grow after heavy snow smashed branches

2. Relocating the big plants
Next to be relocated are the shrubs or small trees. These are the plants which you thought would be 6ft high but have already gone way past that! Included in this group are those larger plants or trees which need ‘major surgery’ rather than gentle pruning – like the sambucus cultivars for example. This year I moved what was once an 8ft Fatsia until the weight of snow snapped branches and left me with an ugly example following major clean-up amputations. The Fatsia was relocated to the rear of a border where it cold re-grow out of  sight over the next couple of years until it rises like a Phoenix behind the foreground colour.

3. Prepping your ‘borderline tender’ plants
Included in this group is everything that needs covering with frost fleece, plus borderline-tender plants such as  Canna, exotic-flowering gingers (hedychiums) and Agapanthus. While these can survive a UK winter in the ground easily enough, the subsequent vagaries of a British early summer can make their flowering ‘unreliable’. By preparing these plants now and storing them in the dry their flowering periods can start as early as the first week of June and continue right through to the end of September to provide a dependable and superior show!

The actual preparation of these plants includes the gradual cessation of all watering as the foliage dies back, which is subsequently removed, during October. The aim is to have dry-ish compost on plants with no foliage or with just bare branches and stem. What you don’t want are potted plants with no foliage and wet compost when the first frost hits, as this can prove fatal. Many of these more tender plants will have no foliage and can be stored under cover in a frame, or at the back of your garage – anywhere out of the winter wet which is the big killer.

The difference is clear! Compare this flowering canna with the previous canna photo

Specimen flowering plants such as agapanthus, cannas and  while they can survive a British winter, are best not left in the ground due to the vagaries of the British spring/early summer which can have a significant effect upon both when they ultimately flower and the duration of their flowering. I locate all these under cover and they do not receive a drop of water between the end of October and the end of March! They don’t need it – no foliage.

4. Hacking back – part one
The first phase of ‘hacking back’ includes a general cleanup of all your garden herbaceous material which have finished flowering. These are the plants which start from nothing at ground level and grow, flower and set seed during the summer months. Now’s the time to cut them down and compost them – they’re looking pretty yuchy by now anyway. During this time I chop back all those long and unwanted stems from my clematis and wisteria to tidy the plants and keep them close to their support. It does NOT include cutting back shrubs such as hydrangea and trees such as pittosporum and sambucus for example. Such shrubs and trees are better left with the protection their surplus summer growth can provide through the winter. The exception to this are those branches which are rubbing against each other and will do damage during winter gales – simply remove the inward-growing branch.

It is best to reach this stage of your preparations before the first frost or the beginning of November whichever comes first.

5. Clearance
By the beginning of November it’s time to clear all those late-flowering herbaceous plants, your rudbeckias, heleniums, asters and any other summer perennials to leave you with large areas of bare soil, weeds (inevitably) and your shrubs. A garden shredder is a god-send at this time and you can pick up a really good one from Lidl for around £90. A garden shredder will significantly reduce the volume of your plant material and cut it up so it composts faster.

Any plants you are fed up with or wish to clear out for any reason, now is the time to remove these. – So, by now all the plants you want to keep have been tidied up or put away for the winter. At this point it’s a good time to take a swipe at the most obvious weeds and remove them. I’m thinking of the taller nasties like rosebay willow herb, brambles, nettles, ash tree seedlings and the like, which can continue getting stronger throughout the winter. (If your mulch is thick enough even buttercups come up easily on long chains!)

Admittedly your borders will look their ‘worst’ at this time, but now they are ready for one of the most important and yet underrated jobs in the garden. . .

6. Forking
Forking your borders is a job that needs to be done but which is all-too often overlooked. So why do it you might ask? Forking the border is the quickest and most effective method of removing your weed roots. Forget chemicals – the fork and your eyes are best! (Roundup? I can’t count how many times in the past I’ve sprayed something in the summer only to fork out nice healthy white roots in the autumn – so you might as well save yur money.

At the same time forking lets all-important air deep in to your ground which is both good for your roots directly and for your worms which also help your soil (indirectly). Forking improves your drainage by breaking up the clods letting water in to the ground, rather than letting it flash-flood the surface. Never fork your ground when its wet -  its uncomfortable, hard work and counter-productive. When its done, avoid walking on it and compressing the surface before the warming rays of spring arrive and new growth reappears.

7. New Work
Your garden has been put to bed for the winter. Now you can have a bit of fun and work on all those new hard-landscaping ideas you’ve been planning.

8. Hacking back – part two
The New Year has already come and gone and Valentines Day too. If Easter is coming early, it won’t be far away. . . The worst of the winter is behind you.
Now’s the time to hack back all those shrubs and climbers which you left alone earlier. The sambucus (elder), clematis, wisteria, roses, bay tree and hydrangeas for example. Be sure to make a clean sharp cut just above a developing bud.

For more detailed cultivation and pruning information on wisteria and clematis.

9. Weeding and cleaning
Get the buggers first before they get your plants! Your new spring growth is just around the corner, daffodils are out, crocus too and it’s time to have one last attack! Keep an eye open for slugs and snails and their ‘tapioca-like’ eggs while you’re at it.  Get the hi-pressure jet to spring-clean your paths so their clean and safer to walk on.

10. Supports
During late March/early April you should see ‘islands’ of new growth appearing which makes locating easier. It’s an exciting time! More-so when you’ve almost certainly forgotten your planting design ‘tweaks’ in the autumn and ‘old friends’ appear in new places! Now it’s time to get out there and put up your supports for your taller plants, in just a few short weeks they will be needed.

As the daffodils go over, then is the time to plant your new introductions for the summer.

Fact: Most gardeners, if given  the chance, would relish working in a walled garden.
Fact: Most gardeners, believe a walled garden offers a wonderful, protected environment for growing plants.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that my walled garden did NOT offer any protection from the weather! Indeed, the opposite was the case! Let me explain. . .

It’s generally acknowledged that the protection afforded by any screen (wall or hedge) extends to a distance roughly equal to twice its height. Since most Victorian garden walls are around 10 feet high, the ‘protection’ afforded by most garden walls is limited to about 20 feet. On that basis, why don’t we see our famously pragmatic Victorian walled gardens just 40ft wide?

Look at it another way. The definitive ‘Victorian Kitchen Garden’ must surely be Queen Victoria’s very own kitchen garden at Windsor Castle. In this case, the walls are just 9ft high. Yet they enclosed a kitchen garden covering 32 acres! Where’s the weather protection in that!

Wind protection is necessary within a walled garden

As someone who gardens inside a walled garden, the biggest single problem I experienced during the development of the garden were the high swirling winds generated by the walls themselves – in complete contrast to the generally accepted viewpoint. Strong winds would blast across the face of the south-facing wall, reach the corner, then turn south to begin what became a highly damaging ‘cyclone’ inside the garden. The problem was SO bad that the first garden ‘feature’ built in the garden was a giant pergola designed to ‘baffle’ the winds. Even then, young shrubs planted in the summer would be blown over before they could properly anchor themselves. Until I hit upon my wigwam idea. . . (see photo). The wigwam protection enabled young shrubs to get a firm foothold during their first winters.

So why did wealthy Victorians spend so much effort and expense to enclose their vegetable gardens if it wasn’t to protect their produce from the weather?

At Winsford Walled Garden there’s a simple clue because the walled gardens are located between the houses of the Land Steward and the Head Gardener. IF you were hungry and had a bag of stolen produce slung over your shoulder these were the last people you wanted to meet on a dark night! The walls were built to secure the exotic produce within.

The above photo highlights just how exposed my initial plantings were, taken during the winter that first prompted me to use my ‘wigwam protection’. Yet even these small shrubs are already taller than any ground-hugging winter vegetables that often populated Victorian kitchen gardens past and present. Today, after 10 years of growth the mixed herbaceous borders that form the backbone of my design are now so well-established that much of the damaging winds now come over the walls and glance-off the shrubbery within.

Treat your plants like you would yourself – and you won’t go too far wrong! That’s the advice many new to gardening don’t fully appreciate when they ask for gardening advice.

One of the biggest problems facing newbie gardeners is their own lack of self-confidence when faced with cultivating their strange new plants. After all, buying plants is expensive nowadays and “a fool and his money are quickly parted” as the saying goes. But for all that, and as someone who cultivates over 3,000 different plant varieties, I’m always being amazed by just how resilient most plants actually are – if given just half-a-chance.

Like people, there are very few plants (aqauatic and carnivorous plants) that actually like to spend the winter with their ‘feet wet’ all through the winter. And like people, most plants, certainly those above 2 feet high, fare much better if they are not exposed to high winds. When they’re young and/or from a warmer climate, wrap your more tender plants in frost fleece (especially during their first winter) or locate them within the protection of another plant. Berberis, Eleagnus and Escallonia are especially good, hardy, fast growers that your more tender plants can shelter behind.

Plants can survive – without a drink – much better than people. But they will need a drink eventually. . .
But what is not generally known, is that a plant, whether it’s dying of thirst, or ‘drowning’ will have floppy, limp-looking leaves. So how do you tell the difference I hear you ask? Well, if your suspect plant is in a pot – simply pick it up. The heavier pot is the wet one. If your plant is in the ground you can probably see the ground is sodden.

Very often, most plants will survive better in colder climes IF their compost is left to dry out. Plants like cannas and agapanthus which originate from South Africa and Northern India can happily survive the colder UK climate provided they are kept dry during the long, grey winter months. But actually how dry is ‘dry’ you might ask?

Here’s my example. Around late September many, but not all, of my cannas and deciduous agapanthus will be turning yellow – this is the time to stop feeding and go easy on the watering. You will find at this time they are not taking up water as they once did. By mid-October I have stopped watering them altogether and put them inside my frames and, except for a brief splash towards the end of March next year they will not receive a drop of water. April is the reverse of September – add water, but easy does it and gradually increase as individual plants ask for it. Don’t do what the garden centres do and water everything in sight whether they like it or not.

Pruning is another common area of indecision for newbie gardeners. “Pruning” for me conjures up images of genteel Victorian ladies with a trug daintily removing flowerheads in summer. But this is NOT what most plants need during Autumn. “A good HACK” is much more accurate and descriptive example of what most plants actually NEED and THRIVE upon. Of course there are exceptions to this – aren’t there always? And two of the most common of these are hebe and ceonothus.

This blog can not possibly cover every eventuality in the newbie garden, but it should help towards providing anyone new to gardening the confidence to get out and enjoy gardening even more. And if, as a new gardener, you do treat your plants like you would yourself, you will be well on the way to mor enjoyable and successful gardening.

The South West of England is well-known for its glorious ‘spring’ and ‘woodland’ gardens with their extensive and colourful rhododendron and camellia collections but, unfortunately such displays come to an end at the end of May leaving just a mantle of green for the summer visitor.

This was my own view when I discovered a derelict and forgotten Victorian Walled Garden and decided to create a stunning summer garden. Even more surprising was the discovery that the original walled garden had been designed as an exotic flower garden from the outset.

Located just 10 miles NW of Okehampton and the main road artery (A30) that runs right through the South West region, Winsford Walled Garden provides a stunning variety of summer colour that extends right through October. On this page are featured just some of the many plants in this most fascinating of gardens.  I designed and built the garden from brambles in just 10 years.

Plants providing glorious colour during September include; abelia, agapanthus, alstroemeria, bougainvillea, cassia, cimicifuga, clematis, cyrtanthus, dahlia, echinacea, fuchsia, gladioli, helenium, hibiscus, lupinus, pittosporum, plumbago, potentilla, rudbeckia, viburnum.

Here’s a link to my garden web page featuring a ‘snapshot’ of just some of the many colourful plants available to visitors during September.
http://www.winsfordwalledgarden.com/garden_world.aspx?Group=gardenworld&Page=september_colour

As a self-confessed plantsman actively cultivating around 3,000 different plant varieties in his garden, you can be sure I’ve come across every type of plant label imaginable. Yet, for all that, I haven’t come across one that’s really up to the task of providing the would-be purchaser with all the information they need.

On the face of it, you’d think it’s a simple task for the nursery grower – to provide the proper cultivation information for a plant they grow themselves. Yet so many cultivation questions on the ‘net need only straight forward answers which ought to be on the plant label.

In this post I shall be looking at the problem of plant labelling and making practical ‘plantsman’ suggestions for nurserymen of all sizes and markets to consider.

The Problem with Plant Labels

“Needs sun, partial shade and humus-rich well-drained soil.” If I had a pennny for every occasion I’ve seen this. . .  Its a description every gardener is familiar with on both plant labels and in gardening texts everywhere. The fact that it’s SO prevalent and there are SO many cultivation queries online suggests that, as a source of cultivation advice it’s pretty much useless.

Size DOES matter.
Another problem with plant labels are the dimensions provided. While I readily accept ir’s impractical for nurserymen everywhere to provide anything beyond what is a general guide. I do reckon it would prove more than a little helpful to prospective purchasers if plant labels bore some resemblance to practical reality in average conditions – rather than down to a size  which the marketing department knows will sell to the majority.

All I’m asking is that the given dimensions provide a guideline that bears some resemblance to practical reality for most situations so gardeners can determine the proximity of neighbouring plants in their gardens. Gardeners do rely on the guideline details on plant labels to design and organise their borders and the extent that many labels are SO far off the mark does raise question of ‘mis-information’. Here’s one example.

In 2001 I purchased a Phormium whose label clearly stated it would grow a metre in all directions. Based on that guideline, I proudly planted my new acquisition about 2 feet from the footpath. Three years ago I had to remove part of a perfectly good and well-established border in order to drive a mini-digger up to my ex-3ft phormium which had become a 12ft colossus! Which is a far-cry from the stated guideline size provided at purchase.

Many’s the time I’ve overheard visitors to my gardens exclaim they had no idea their recently-purchased plant is capable of growing SO big. . .

Plant labels that give dimension details that are woefully off-the-mark will give their customers a year of relative disappointment. Surely this can not be good thing. . . As every gardener knows, there is considerable risk attached to moving any plant in flower for fear of it wilting beyond the point of no return. Shorter plants will invariably placed before their taller brethren in spring. Yet during my ‘gardening apprenticeship’ I’ve lost count of the times my forground plants have swept high to obscure the supposedly taller plants behind. It’s a regrettable result, based on label details, that I’m stuck with right through the summer months until the autumn when it’s safe to switch the arrangement.

Two Suggestions for Improvement

Natural Origin
An informative plant label should include the natural home of the plant. ‘Mediterranean coast’, ‘Himalyan foothills’ and ‘Chinese rain forest’ are far more indicative of the ideal growing conditions to which a gardener should aspire to for strong-healthy-looking plants, and yet I’ve seen plants from all three geographic zones sharing the same do-all catch phrase of “needs sun, partial shade and humus-rich well-drained soil.”

Plant pH
Another improvement plant labels should contain is the preferred soil pH range – or even just to advise ‘acidic, neutral or alkaline. Especially since the preferred acidity of a plant is fundamental to its ability to absorb nutrients and its growing success. Yet rarely does a plant label contain this most basic of important information.

In practise, most plants are happiest in a fairly narrow pH band. So its very helpful to the gardener if the label is able to differentiate between plants which thrive in a particular soil.

These are relatively small, things for plant label-makers but I’m sure they would make a significant difference that would help prevent so many plants coming to wasteful demise because they were in the ‘wrong’ conditions or located in the ‘wrong’ place.

Young blackbirds are voracious slug eaters!

Any garden  is ‘in balance’ when there is a productive coexistance if you like between the pests, plants and their natural predators requiring very little intervention by the gardener.

Think of your garden in layers, each of which must balance with its adjacent neighbours. Planting in layers is the simplest, but have you considered just how many layers there are? More crucially for the truly balanced garden, you need to simultaneously consider your garden’s wildlife in ‘layers’.

Just how well both these plant and wildlife layers interact with each other will determine the ultimate balance and success of your space, especially with regard to reducing and even eradicating the adverse effect of pests upon your garden environment.

Layers of planting
Layered planting is a common garden design concept and the simplest form is vertical layering – setting the taller plants towards the back of your borders. Extra interest can be added by horizontal layering – by incorporating curving paths that compel the viewer to look ahead around the corner. Surprises can be all the greater if the designer adds a tall shrub or small tree on the apex of the curve blocking the immediate view ahead

A further layer of planting focuses on time. By juxtoposing a varied planting scheme the gardener can provide extended flowering interest, ‘forcing’ some plants adds to this effect. Also, by adding plants with unusual foliage or attractive seed heads you can provide layers of added interest for year-round-pleasure.

Layers of wildlife
Consider the wildlife in your garden, both the beneficial kind and the pest varieties. These are distributed in horizontal layers from beneath the earth to around 150ft above it. Think of each layer as seperate yet dependent upon its adjacent layers.

Take the ground layer of your garden, this is occupied by two of the most diabolical pests for all gardeners – slugs and snails. Yet their destructive effect can be successfully countered by encouraging their natural predators – hedgehogs, blackbirds and thrushes – being the main oves for me. I’ve heard it said that frogs and toads will consume slugs. But in my opinion they don’t appear to have anything like the appetite for them as the three already mentioned – at least in my experience – frogs least of all in fact. You might think thrushes appear to have snails all to themselves. – They don’t! And I’ve lost count of the occasions I’ve witnessed parent Blackbirds popping young slugs in to the gaping mouths of their young. The cute-looking hedgehog will rummage through your garden mulch hungrily snaffling up any slug it encounters duing its noisy, nocturnal foraging.

For most gardens the greatest aerial predator and in my view one of the best  ‘natural assets’ of any garden are the beautiful swallows and house martins. If you can encourage these to protect your air space they will literally  ‘hoover the skies’ over your garden at the rate of around 10,000 insects per bird per day! That’s a huge number of garden pests and carriers of plant disease that simply never reach your garden. These beautiful birds will not only provide hours of entertainment they will also harry and ‘dissuade’ any predatory birds, such as kestrels, jays and magpies, waiting ready to strike at your other garden birds and their young.

In between the ground loving birds and your high-flying swallows are what I call your ‘shrub birds’. These are the birds which spend their lives hopping from shrub to shrub plucking off insects from your garden plants. They include the tits, wrens, sparrows, dunnock and such like. The various tit species love caterpillers, greenfly and aphids. Sparrows feed on the seeds of many garden weeds – docks, dandelions, grasses and buttercups. They also love weevils, aphids and caterpillers. Wrens, these tiny birds go for beetles and are able to pluck any number of small insects they spot feeding on your precious plants. While dunnocks will feast upon flies, beetles, seeds, worms and snails.

With all birds, if you can provide them with security and plentiful food they will come to stay and encourage others to join their growing commmunity in your garden. And they will do a lot of the work for you. I’ve mentioned just a few key examples that will greatly help you achieve a good balance with lasting effect.

Garden Mulch
Encouraging avian predators in to your garden is only part of a successfull campaign against slugs, snails and other garden pests. I’ve also found a thick mulch of bark chips to deter an ‘invasion of weeds’ be a key compenent to a successful balanced garden.

The world moves at a frantic pace, catastrophic events from the furthest corner are thrust before us vying for our attention. Even when we are not watching the silver screen or paper media, still the incessant bombardment of our senses by advertising never lets up, on billboards everywhere. At weeks’end we owe it to ourselves to seek a place of solace, somewhere to escape and spend time alone, to renew our depleted energy – both physical and psychological.

For many people the garden is a place of refuge, perhaps it is for you. Try to make time for your self. Leave your mobile in the kitchen. Step outside, stretch out your arms, breathe in deeply and saviour the fresh air as you would a nice glass of your favourite wine.

Simply seeing the various shades of green, all the myriad textures and shapes, has a deeply calming effect on all of us, add the colour and extravagance of flowers and it’s easy to immerse ourselves in another world. Just wandering around a garden thinking of nothing except what’s before you will soothe you. Yet one of  the greatest pleasures, for me at least, is observing the various wildlife amidst its daily tasks. I use the word ‘observe’ carefully, because to me it means more than simply ‘watching’. What follows is a surprising example of just one of the myriad pleasures that can be found on your own doorstep.

I’ve often witnessed Blackbirds feasting on slugs to such an extent that I’m convinced they are one of the hapless mollusc’s biggest predators after hedgehogs. Mother blackbird must see any slug as a well-wrapped sandwich for her young, that can be popped in to hungry gaping mouths like a pro basketball player shooting at goal.

Anyway, this one time I watched one mother gather her brood beneath a cotoneaster shrub before jumping up and plucking the ripe berries for her attentive audience. A common enough garden scene, until the ground began to erupt just a hop away. I thought she would seize the worm the instant it showed itself.

But I was wrong. She appeared as transfixed as I was, the cotoneaster berries forgotten.

An impetuous youngster moved to seize the hapless squiggly and was sharply rebuffed by the parent. There we were, human, mother blackbird and her three youngsters watching spellbound while the mulch coninued lifting, beneath what must have been desperate bursts of energy. Eventually, a huge worm heaved itself in to the open to escape the clutches of its waterlogged confinement.

The instant the worm was free and seemingly safe, the parent pounced, snatching his centre, the worm coiling itself inagony and surprise. It knew its fate. Her brood knew it also and moved forward expectantly. Then this wiley parent did a curious thing. She laid one half of the worm along the ground and then, very suddenly, she stabed it with the point of her beak, not enough to kill it but enough for it to arch its back in pain-filled reflex. Her head jabbed forward, only this time she snatched the coiled reflxe part of the worm enabling her to ‘fold’ it smaller. She repeated her jabs several times before the six-inch specimen was folded in to a ‘sandwich’ small enough to be popped in to one lucky mouth.