Tag: Ryton Organic Gardens

Bee Festival

Thanks to social media I discovered that Coventry University (their Centre for Agriculture, Water and Resilience) were running a two day bee festival just down the road at Ryton Gardens with the fantastic Steven Falk author of the THE bee ID book – and it was free.

I sat through three brilliant talks in the morning with three interesting and very enthusiastic presenters.  First there was the aforementioned Mr Falk.  How he crammed in so much information in less than an hour I don’t know.  He spoke about his book, discovering new species including the use of DNA to prove an 18th century naturalist right and the different families of bee – I don’t think any of us there will forget the Pantaloon Bee!  Next up was Andrew Salisbury from the RHS talking about the trials that they’d carried out at Wisley to find out if native, near-native (i.e. Northern Hemisphere) or exotic (Southern Hemisphere) plants were better for pollinators.  The answer – depends on the pollinator.  It was very interesting to see how they carried out the trial, such a lot of meticulous hard work.  I was also interested to hear that they only saw 80 butterflies over the multi-year survey – I am not sure that butterflies visit gardens in great numbers unless you have a buddleia.

Finally we had Brigit Strawbridge talking about plants and pollination.  She almost contained her enthusiasm for bees!  Fact of the day that I learnt was that you won’t spot honey bees on lavender unless it is warm as it takes hot weather for the nectaries to fill up enough for the short tongued bees like honey bees to be able to feed.  But brambles keep on providing nectar for days – that explains why the bees love my silver stemmed Rubus and shun the lavender for it!

In the afternoon Steven Falk entertained a large crowd on a search for bees around Ryton Organic Gardens – he was hoping for 20, but we were all satisfied with the 17 that we did see – including this Osmia leaiana showing its orange pollen collecting scopa on the underside.

Osmia leaiana-osmia leaiana

The whole festival was put on by BloomsForBees a new initiative promoting Citizen Science and plants for pollinators with a new App and website to help log the bees and the plants they are enjoying.

I had a fantastic day, made some new friends and renewed my love of bees.  A recent workshop about solitary bees that suggested that there was no point trying to ID solitary bees unless you were willing to learn latin and kill the bees for subsequent dissection dampened my enthusiasm quite a lot.  Steven Falk loves giving bees English names that make them more memorable and showed how much there was to discover without the aid of a killing jar and microscope.  And, as for his knowledge of flowers…  All I can say is if you get the chance to go on a Bee Walk or Workshop with Steven – grab it and his book which has been sitting unused on my shelf for too long.

A cold day at Ryton Organic Gardens

I rarely visit Ryton gardens at this time of year because, well, to be frank, it is even less exciting than my own garden and much colder.  However, I felt the need to go out with my camera and so I called in on my way home.

I have to admit, the drab and dreary weather (it started to rain whilst I was there) did not lessen the dull feel of the gardens, but, here or there were some hidden gems that made me think that underneath the mud and general brown tinge there was a whole host of life just waiting to get out.

There were quite a few hellebores there, but many did not look their best – not sure if it was the early morning frost or if they just needed some TLC – however, not far away were some bright points of blue – I think they are scilla – there were not enough to cover the ground, but they still grabbed my attention.

Whilst I didn’t see much in the way of edibles, the trees in the orchard were full of big, fat buds, and underneath they were planted with iris or daffodils.  The daffodils were just showing some colour, in a couple of weeks they will be amazing.

One thing that I did notice was the amount of bird life there.  They have put bird feeders in every garden.  I am not sure if they have always done this, but there are never any out in the Summer.  As a result, with every step, there was a flurry of activity as a chaffinch or blackbird or unidentifiable small bird zoomed off into the safety of the hedges.  The lack of visitors at this time of year, and the mist and drizzle lent an air of tranquility to the place.  The cacophony of bird song just added to this feeling.  One bird that I used to hear a lot more around Daventry, before they built even more houses, was the yellowhammer, so I was very surprised that to find it in the middle of the gardens.  I think it was just getting its voice back after the Winter, the song was almost there, but the characteristic wheeze at the end was much shortened.

I always like the sensory garden at Ryton – whatever the time of year they always have something flowering, and this weekend was no exception – look at the little cyclamen that I found.  I have planted corms several times in the garden, but whilst I seem to have one or two that will throw up some leaves, I never seem to get any flowers.  (However, my anenome blanda – all of which seem to be blue – have just started to come into flower.)

 

My biggest surprise of the day also came in the sensory garden – my first bumblebee of the year, foraging on some heather.  This will be a queen going out to gather food before the first of the brood start to hatch.  It just shows the importance of having some early flowering plants in the garden – mahonia and some early flowering honeysuckles are also good for the early bees.  Sorry for the poor quality picture though – I was taken a bit by surprise and she didn’t stay around for long!

 

Winding Down

After a bit of a hectic week (if only by my standards) I decided that Friday would be a day for doing the things in life that make me happy. This inevitably means photography or birdwatching and definitely a good walk. So, once more, I combined the two into one trip and spent an hour at Ryton Organic Gardens looking for a good photo opportunity and some inspiration for my flower garden, followed by an hour at Brandon Marsh.

I took a few photos that I quite liked, but I am not sure that I obtained much inspiration. Many of the flowers were still looking good, but I am not sure how much will be there in a couple of months time. There was also a fair amount of clearing being done, preparing the vegetable beds for Winter. The apple trees look as though the harvest will be a good one, ready for their Apple Day on 5th October, but, unfortunately I don’t have room for an orchard.

Brandon Marsh always seems to be an all or nothing place, and this week was closer to nothing. I didn’t have my ‘scope with me and was reliant on a small pair of binoculars, which meant that I probably missed quite a bit of what was on offer. However, no matter what the state of the bird population there it is always a relaxing place to walk around. The trees are starting to change colour and the Viburnum Opulus (Guelder Rose) were full of berries.

There were lots of lapwings and gulls about, and a red kite had been seen earlier (maybe that was responsible for the expensive glassware on show in the Carlton hide?), but there was a bit of a dearth of birdsong in the woods. I shall have to have a wander to the Country Park to check on the state of things there (any excuse for a walk!).

A warm day at Ryton

I am lucky enough to live close to Ryton Organic Gardens and this weekend I decided to brave the heat to spend some time at what is one of my favourite gardens. (I had been lamenting the continuous wind and rain in the past few months so could not really pass up a day of full sun with not even a whisper of a breeze.) My main aim was to indulge my favourite pastime, botanical photography, but, in the past it has provided inspiration from a produce point of view.

Although it is a big place they have divided it up into a number of smaller areas including a cook’s garden, a garden planted to encourage bees and one for birds as well as allotment areas and experimental areas. Their soft fruit garden was the reason behind my purchase of an evergreen oregon thornless blackberry which we are currently training to hide the bins.

Whilst I did take a few pictures that I was reasonably pleased with (see my Flickr page) I also got a few ideas for the front garden which I am in the process of planting up. The main constituents of the front are herbs (which we planted some time ago) and some grasses which we did not want in the back garden anymore. These will be augmented by lots of bulbs, annuals and perennials, the main criteria being low cost and photogenic appearance.

I was very much taken by a white flower bed that they had planted. The centre was a huge mass of white cosmos (a favourite of mine) with two different plants at each corner of the rectangular patch. In one corner I was particularly taken by some stunning white Nigella which was in front of a fluffy headed grass. 

In the diagonally opposite corner there was another plant that I was thinking of buying, Echinacea ‘White Swan’. In truth I was a little underwhelmed, expecting something much whiter where this seemed cream coloured at best, possibly heading towards a lemony yellow.

So it is a thumbs up to the Nigella, a maybe to the Echinacea.

What do you think?