Gardeners diary
May 2020
My goodness, doesn’t time fly when your busy? May turned into June so quickly this year that last month’s blog just didn’t materialise, far too busy with hedge cutting and nursing the amphitheatre back to health. June is whizzing by just as fast, I can’t believe the longest day has been and gone already. I’m glad to say that this month we have finally being able to take down the barrier tape around the amphitheatre and get that “after” photo I’ve been longing for. A couple of months back the…
March / April 2020
These are very strange times with most of the population under lock down. Fear and uncertainty of what lies ahead is causing so much stress and anxiety people are turning to all sorts of new hobbies to relieve boredom and distract their mind, knitting, baking, DIY, Jigsaws etc . Obviously, I think top on everyone’s list of hobbies should be gardening. There has never been a better time to get yourself outside in the sunshine, absorb some vitamin D and take your daily exercise without the worry of social distancing…
Meet Jo our new Gardening apprentice!
Pobl is committed to providing learning opportunities and has supported a variety of apprentices throughout the group.
Willows
No more wind in the willows Spring is just around the corner and Loftus is budding up, ready to burst into growth again. The time has arrived to pollard our Willow trees all, 27 of them. You might think this harsh pruning we do each year is a bit drastic but it’s the nature of what pollarding is and has been carried out for hundreds of years. The rapid regrowth, when cut back hard, creates thin whippy branches that grow out from the centre of the tree like a giant Firework which…
February Update
Well that will teach me to keep my mouth shut won’t it, last month I was saying how good the weather was for this time of year. And straight away it turned cold, wet and wintry with storms Keria and Dennis the Menace causing havoc everywhere. Although the weather has been pretty miserable, we’ve had no floods or serious damage at Loftus so we should be thinking ourselves lucky to have dodged the devastation that others have had to endure. Can’t imagine how awful it must be to flooded out…
January Gardeners blog
January Happy new year to you all, here’s looking forward to a fabulous 2020 at Loftus. So far so good, the winter weather has been nothing to grumble about, wet but mild, which is much better than snow. Fingers cross it stays that way, but I’m sure if plants could talk they would strongly disagree and be screaming out loud “I’m all confused”. We have plants in flower that should be dormant for the winter. An Oriental Poppy on Loftus square thinks its May and is coming in to flower!…
November Gardeners blog
November November is a very messy month but it has its charm. The trees change colour and look very pretty in their rustic tones, but sadly the show is over all too quickly and when the leaves start to fall then, for us, the battle begins. If there is the slightest breeze when trying to blow them in to piles, the job can take a long time. It’s like trying to herd butterflies! No sooner have you got them into a mound to pick up they are floating off again,…
October
This past month Paul and I have been tackling some of the unforeseen problems that inevitably come with any new site. One job I’ve been itching to do all summer is replace the Viburnum shrubs in the pond park that get defoliated each year by the Viburnam beetle. They are very unsightly when this happens as they look completely dead so something had to be done. A few nibbled leaves here and there is what you would expect to see in a wildlife garden but the larvae of these beetles…
September
It’s that busy time of year again when the rush is on to get the autumn jobs done before the leaves start falling. The soil is still warm and the extra rain fall and shorter day length makes it perfect conditions for planting. You must have noticed that the area around the sand park is looking a bit sparse compared to other parts of Loftus. A lot of the plants originally planted didn’t make it through the heat of last summer so this autumn the contractors will be back to…
August 2019
August Oh dear, another month has come and gone without me writing my blog. My excuse is a good one though as I’ve been far too busy trying to keep Loftus looking Lovely. There is just so much for Paul and I to do that I’ve not found time to sit down at my desk and find inspiration to write. last month was typical summer weather, hot and dry, with everything crying out for water and much of our time was spent dragging hoses pipes about. This month however has…
Bee n Bee Hotel
Thanks to Bradley Miller Loftus Garden Village now has now opened a 5 star Bee‘n’Bee. Bradley came to us initially for one day to experience something new and immediately got hooked. He ended up spending 18 days helping us out at Loftus and loved it so much that we arranged a day for his fellow Pobl Academy come along and experience Loftus for themselves. After a tour and talk about biodiversity the 9 of them put their creative heads on and worked as a team to build bug hotel that…