Everyone wants to be able to watch the wildlife in their garden in the spring, whether it’s baby birds, hedgehogs or butterflies. However, if you want to enjoy the wildlife in the spring, it’s important to make sure that you get your garden prepared in advance over the winter.
As part of our plans to grow GreenArt and make it the best garden design and landscaping outfit in Oxfordshire, we’ve welcomed two new members to the team this month; Luke as a Trainee Landscaper and Suzy as Operations Support Administrator. We’ll let you know how they’re getting on once they’ve had a chance to settle in. In the meantime, we thought we’d introduce John who joined us last year. John shows that you don’t have to have any experience to join our team, just a positive and enthusiastic attitude, willingness to learn and work hard.
It’s that time of year again! Get ready for 2019’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch from 26th-28th of January! Why not spend an hour this weekend taking part in the world’s largest wildlife survey and see what you can spot. The Big Garden Birdwatch is the world’s largest wildlife survey that helps to find out what wildlife is in trouble, and what’s thriving. As a result of counting birds in our garden for Birdwatch, since 1979 starlings have declined by 81% and song thrush numbers have declined by around 70%. It started out as just a bird survey, but since 2014 we’ve been asked to look out for other wildlife that visits our gardens. Through this we now know that only one in four of us see hedgehogs in the garden at least once a month. All this information adds up to create a detailed snapshot of how our wildlife is faring around the UK.
I recently treated myself to a day at the Cotswold Gardening School to refresh my skills in Container Gardening and get some inspiration from Caroline Tatham, the award-winning designer and lecturer. I certainly achieved both goals with the added bonus of rekindling my love of art and the works of the Impressionist painters in particular – more of that later.
Hedges are the unsung heroes of the garden – a practical solution for security and privacy, a beautiful backdrop for planting and other garden features and, perhaps more importantly, a haven for wildlife. Hedges are the green walls of a garden, a natural boundary which can be used for structure around the edge and within a garden, but also as a key feature in themselves.
With any project, planning is one of the most important elements to create success and can help you save time and money. Your garden is no different. Although it can be tempting to raid the garden centre for plants that catch your eye, you may end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another. Alternatively rushing out into your garden to dig up the lawn because you fancy a water feature, could end up costing you a lot of money and result in a lack of cohesion in your garden.
Front gardens are an important part of life in Britain today for more reasons than you might think. Not only is your front garden the first thing that greets you and your visitors, it also has to be multifunctional. While a front garden creates the all-important first impression, setting the tone for your home and what you may find within it, it often also has to accommodate space for parking and practical access. As a result of our increasing reliance on our cars, many front gardens have been transformed over the last few decades into monochromatic hard standing areas that do little to enhance or even sustain the environment. Times are changing, however.
As the summer draws to a close and everyone returns to work and school, it is the perfect time to be thinking about how well your garden worked for you over the last few months. Summer is the prime time to be out in your garden so it is important to use this time of year, while your memories of barbeques and enjoying the sunshine are fresh, to reflect on how to get the most out of your garden next year and for the summers to come.
What worked well?
Using nature’s own to water your garden and why it’s not just about having big butts.
What has been a distinctly average summer so far, watering the garden has at least been a fairly easy job. A dry week will soon change that though, and trudging around the garden with watering cans and hoses gives us all time to think.
One of the many joys of having a well-planned garden is that you can have ready access to freshly-cut flowers to add colour and scent to your home all year round. Your home-grown flowers will be less expensive than the florist/shop bought variety and also there’s the extra satisfaction and enjoyment from growing your own cut flowers in a sustainable manner that then decorate your home both inside and out.
