My Lady's Border
Inside the Greenhouse
Fox and Hedgehog are the new mascots for the Gardens
Mirror Pool
Apples and Pears are ripening in both the Orchards
The Spitfire Willow Sculpture in the Kitchen Garden is new.
Rowan berries look nearly ripe.
Part of the Lower Wilderness
The Gardens are participating in Solihull's Hedgehog Survey and there are lots of these hedgehog boxes round the garden and several hedgehogs have been spotted :)
Warwickshire Wildlife Trust in a new important project has chosen Solihull as the location for the UK's first dedicated Hedgehog Conservation Area or Hedgehog Improvement Area (HIA). The aim is to boost Solihull's hedgehog population, inspire the residents and to help hedgehogs as a response to this species recent rapid decline.
Holly Walk
Bumble bee on Lavender
The Upper Wilderness
There's a small exhibition in the Visitor Centre giving information about the gardens and Castle Bromwich Hall.
11 comments:
What a lovely place to wander around and it is wonderful that they are restoring the garden back to the period 1680-1762. I have not seen a Hedgehog for years now so hope they are doing well there.
Margaret Adamson - Thanks Margaret - its a very peaceful and tranquil place to visit :) The Gardens have seen several hedgehogs I believe and have captured some on video which is good news :)
Nice place, were you able to spot any flowers you had not seen before in the gardens they are doing up ? all mine are looking a bit drenched and on there way out after the rain we have just had.
Love the Spitfire Willow Sculpture, OH would love this in the garden, and great they are looking after the Hedgehogs, mine who I have named Barry is still coming in to the garden most nights to feed. Had to change from cat food as there was a cat coming in, driving the dog mad to Hamster and Gerbil food. Now the slugs are making a be-line for it, and they are huge buggers ! think even Barry would struggle to get through one of these !
Amanda xx
Lovely looking place and not too autumnal yet, unlike here! x
Amanda Peters - Thanks very much Amanda. I am not sure if I have seen Cosmos there before - in fact, OH and I were discussing whether or not that dated back to the 17th century! There were a lot of new wild flowers I spotted in the "wilder" parts of the gardens earlier this year.
So glad to hear Barry is still coming to the garden - you must be thrilled :) Had to laugh re: the slugs!!!!! :) I tried putting cat food out for the one we released but, like you, all it did was attract cats :( So tried dried Spikes special h/hog food and the cats still kept appearing :( Someone (was it Julia??) had an idea of putting bricks etc. round the h/hog food so the h/hog could reach it but not cats! Not keen to encourage cats because of the birds but someone must have moved in locally recently who has loads of them as I have never seen so many cats as in recent months. OH and son are livid as they have discovered the newly dug over vegetable area :(
Gosh I like the spitfire willow!
Countryside Tales - Thanks CT :) Looking rather more autumnal here too these last few days!
Simon Douglas Thompson - Thanks Simon.Wish I could have taken a better photo but camera's autofocusing was playing up for some reason :(
I read about the HIA a while ago and thought of you. Would be nice to do something around here as it's fairly quiet. Lovely gardens.
SeagullSuzie - Thanks. The HIA is a great initiative and its so good that the Trust is doing something so positive to try and help hedgehogs. Their decline (and that of so many other species) is just horrifying :(
It looks lovely - love orchards left wild like that with mown paths through them. The willow spitfire is brilliant! Also good to hear about the hedgehog conservation scheme. Like Amanda, my garden is looking the worse for wear after rain and wind - was just looking at some uprooted sunflowers when I went out to let the chickens out. Oh well they are food for birds too so will continue to be of some use! :-)
Millymollymandy - Thanks so much :) The gardens are a real haven :) Sorry to hear about the sunflowers. I haven't grown any this year :( Our perennials are also looking the worse for wear :( Garden seems to have "gone over" very quickly this summer.
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