The garden in... January
Kari-Astri Davies is appreciating garden life while planning some wildlife-friendly changes
TINY PETALS FLOAT in the air like furtive snowflakes. I look up into the battered old cherry tree, Prunus x subhirtella, braving the weather. Its fragile blossom lifts the spirits on a wintry day. Last year, many of us gained a deeper appreciation of outdoor spaces and the flora and fauna close to home. Less-managed road verges awash with wild flowers, unmown public parks and hay meadows were celebrated.
“The storms of wintry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded spring encircle all” James Thomson, ‘The Seasons: Winter’
Change is inevitable, if sometimes not entirely welcome. The land in this part of Wiltshire has been restlessly farmed for centuries, turned over from grazing to crops in cycles. Adjoining our garden is the edge of a roughly square-shaped field. At approximately 12 acres, it is larger than the higgledy, maybe medieval-patterned, fields abutting it. In recent years, it has been grazed. Latterly, a late hay crop has been taken off it. Last summer, it was rusty and gold with waving grasses; alive with grasshoppers and Meadow Brown butterflies. Swallows skimmed low under the spreading boundary oaks. Sadly, this is no more. The grass was sprayed off; from afar, its dead tan colour mimicked the hues of the meadow. It is now ploughed brown earth.
Winter farming work; the re-excavation of ditches; the thick blackthorn scrub bordering the village green erased: all mean that habitats are changed. The refound ditches are home to squabbling moorhens, eels and plundering herons. Newly revealed ground will be seeded with grass and wild flowers. I am told that is how it looked in the late 1970s: a 40-year agricultural cycle. I doubt that snipe and woodcock will return though.
I am mindful that the act of gardening also changes habitats. I try to garden with wildlife in mind. Slipping around on a muddy clay bank, on a cold, wet January day, I planted a small run of bare-root wild privet, Ligustrum vulgare, at the back of the vegetable plot. The flowers are loved by insects: in autumn, the black berries provide food for birds, although they are poisonous to humans.
Eleven native small-leaved limes I have planted elsewhere in the garden have been sought out by almost-ready-to-pupate, yellow-banded Buff-tip moth caterpillars in late summer for the last few years: some reparation for altered habitats.
New year projects
This year, I am looking forward to getting out and visiting gardens large and small. I am hoping for inspiration, along with a cup of tea and some cake.
In my own garden, there are still some areas to be resolved. Over a year ago, we had a large Leyland cypress cut down. Its four 5ft (1.5m) bare trunks remain; a testament to this tree’s once overbearing evergreen
presence. We are still debating how we might use this woody structure to some advantage.
Rather than being able to view the wood bed immediately on entering the garden, I want to create an element of surprise. A village garden I visited a few years ago used a creative arrangement of offset rough-sawn planks for screening. I might develop this idea. We still have not made the two corten steel-bordered grass steps in the lawn. Now would be an ideal time to start.
Seed hoard
I am currently sowing sweet peas, working through a number of years’ worth of bargain and other packets, which have been stored in the fridge. Some of last year’s sweet peas flowered particularly well, including ‘Grandma Butt’, but were not well-scented. This year’s pick and mix includes ‘Blue Velvet’ and the pink-shaded ‘Heaven Scent’ and ‘Mollie Rilstone’.
I have come to the conclusion that to get anything out of my roses, they need far better nourishment through the growing season, including mulching and more feed. The soil also needs building up in the vegetable patch and main south-facing beds. I will be buying some well-rotted manure and mushroom compost.
“Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers” Thomas Campion, ‘ Now Winter Nights Enlarge’