Volunteers Worth Their Weight in Gold…or Should That be Seeds? November 2024

Volunteers Worth Their Weight in Gold

 

Unusually for us, last Monday’s volunteers session in the sensory garden was conducted in the warmth of sunshine, much appreciated after days of dour grey weather.

It was a case of many chores, including the planting of wallflowers ready for a spring show, though that really should have been done before we planted the bulbs.

Our sensory garden really is a learning curve on so many levels.

If you follow us you’ll know we are set in amongst Radipole park which sits on a flood plain, (reclaimed from the River Way estuary).

 

 

Our first lesson will be which plants survive in what is essentially claggy clay soil and silt dredged from the estuary during its construction.

Add to that what is fast becoming a real problem, what’s left of Radipole lake is silting up, raising the water levels, causing problems with drainage of our park, especially during the persistent  wet weather we’ve been having.

Something that hampered the project’s construction throughout.

 

 

With the water table being quite high, which plants will cope and which will sulk?

Hopefully with more trees planted in and around the area that will help.

But we’ve selected those plants and shrubs we thought would have a good chance, and this year has been great, it’s been much admires as the plants flourished.

Our second curve will be that of organising for next year a month by month calendar of chores, which of course will be part guided by mother nature’s sometimes warped sense of humour.

Someone tells me there is an app which can do this for you, all you have to do is input your plants and hey presto!

There seems to be one for everything imaginable, but maybe this is where technology might come in handy.

Third curve, wildlife.

 

 

We’re very much encouraging wildlife into this area, very successfully as it happens.

But of course with some forms of wildlife comes a down side.

Squirrels are getting very fond of our garden, so much so they’ve dug up a few plants, bet they’ll think they’ve hit the jackpot when they discover the bulbs.

Plan B is to pot up a load too, to keep safe just in case.

Slow to the party were slugs and snails. Previously being a tarmac surface there’d been little to entice them, but now they’ve discovered our Dahlia’s…let’s just say they ended their year as doilies!

 

 

But there’s still colour in the garden, much of that down to Salvias and an abundance of the most enormous Cosmos I’ve ever seen!

 

 

As insurance we’ve taken loads of cuttings and this week volunteers gathered a ton of seeds, some to be sown now as they need chilling to germinate, others will wait for spring.

 

 

(I know they’re in plastic zip bags but we’ve found that to be the easiest and safest way with cuttings and seeds until we can get them back and do what ever needs doing to them.)

So it’ll be very much a watch this space, as we will be eagerly over the winter months, awaiting spring for those survivors to peep through the soil.

Then it’ll be a hopefully much more cohesive and co-ordinated weekly schedule in place as we learn what works and doesn’t.

Thank goodness for volunteers who are worth their weight in gold, without them we couldn’t do what we do.

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