Inside the wildlife garden

 Early Friday morning I finally got into the wildlife garden in Ellington Park.  It has been an interesting wait, watching each new development.  Digging the pond, laying out paths, planting a hedge, the placing of the seats and bug  

hibernation boxes and the dogs.  

 There are several different dogs, the first one (see above) I had thought was made of wicker - it is iron, beautiful rusty iron and the breed of dog is on its collar.  There are a couple of stone dogs, a wooden one, one chasing a squirrel up a tree and two made from moss stuffed frames (see below).

 One of the many benches.  The Friends of Ellington Park have not made the mistake that other wildlife refuges have made - here there is plenty of seating essential for watching wildlife.

 The pond is already beginning to look very good.  I have often seen birds enjoying a drink and I was pleased to see lots of tadpoles swimming around this morning.

 Once off the slightly raised 'all weather' walkway the log edged grass paths meander about, past the dogs and the seats.

 

 As well as the bug cube and the other hideholes created for the creepycrawlies by one of the seats some pots of herbs have been planted - rosemary and lavendar should provide food for bees.

I cannot have been the only person who had struggled with the gates because by today there was a note on both gates explaining how to get through the child proof gates.
This squirrel was in the other side of the park.  He seemed almost determined to have his picture taken, remaining quiet close to the path letting me close enough to take lots of photos.

Ellington Park Wildlife Pond

Today is the opening of the WILDLIFE GARDEN in Ellington Park, Ramsgate.  I have been watching the hard work of the FRIENDS OF ELLINGTON PARK for quite a while.  The area has been fenced off while the pond has been marked out, dug, lined, filled and planted.  Logs have been placed around the sides of the pond to provide homes for some of the creatures.

 Several dogs are patrolling the garden.

 Along the path information boards are placed.  The gates are locked as I walk through the park early in the morning. Sensible as there has been some vandalism.

 friends of ellington park 
the FRIENDS OF ELLINGTON PARK are doing so much to make the park an exciting place to go. 

 I will have to make a visit later in the day to get a closer look at everything.

Plenty of seats of all types to relax on and enjoy the garden.

 The story tellers seat. 

 A guardian for the garden?

Idle musings

Not really quite sure what I have been doing over the last week.  A little of this and a little of that without very much to show for it.  The levels of stuff on the dinning table (my workspace) have been lowered and homes found for most of it.  

the bank outside my house

Some gardening has been done.  I thought the dahlias on the bank outside my house were dead so brought some new ones (the plants are only half hardy and there has been quite a bit of snow the last couple of years). But a couple of days after planting the new plants and putting slug pellets around them I discovered shoots on the old plants.  So not dead just munched every time they showed any sign of growth.  

still a little work to be done but quite pleased so far

The general yukness of the weather has not really been helping at all this year.  We have had to move a couple of the marginal plants higher than originally planted because they were struggling with the water levels, we had to bale the pond out at least twice and all this happened through the draught (and hosepipe ban).  There are bright spots though, yesterday I saw the first bud on the runner beans, the spotted orchid I got at the garden show is beginning to flower and yes the rain has been a pain but at least watering with watering cans twice a day hasn't been necessary. 

MORE PLANTS FOR THE POND and other tales

marsh marigold

Today we got a few more plants for the pond - this time from our local garden centre.  We went there for bark chips to tart up the area around the pond and decided to check if they had had any new stock in and we were lucky.

slowly taking shape

 Some of the plants we picked were old favourites,  the others we are hoping will not be to invasive.  


We carried on clearing the ivy that had got out of control in this area of the garden, and found several holly and hawthorn seedlings - far more than there is room for.

Before putting down some of the bark chippings we planted some ferns, foxgloves and anemones.   The log pile was moved to next to our water butt and some decorative pieces of wood put next to the waters edge

Still quite a bit of work to do restoring this area.  There is a Rowen that needs to be removed  but we are only going to remove the main trunk, leaving the suckers to grow.



The plants we got today are:-

myosotis palustris water forget-me-not
preslia cervina alba white water spearmint
mimulus ringens lavendar musk
mazus reptans blue blue mazus
gratiola officinalis hedge hyssop
cotula coronopifolia golden buttons


Although we are a little bit worried about the mint getting out of hand  the forget-me-not is a plant we have grown before and loved.  Just need some ragged robin now, which may have to wait till next year because we have seed for it.

wood pile and artyfarty decoration