The More You Look The More You See

Much of my work here, at Betley Court Gardens consists of handpicking weeds. I know many people find this activity dull, and long for a ‘once-and-for-all’ solution to keeping a garden tidy. I’ve found over the years it’s help attune my eyes and other senses to what is going on around me in the garden.

Take this week, for instance, I was handpicking nettles from the areas of spoil left from the work to install the new visitors’ hub. Its not particularly pleasant work – my right forearm is peppered with nettle stings – however handpicking allows me to be selective. I’ve spotted many species of self-sown wildflowers amongst the nettles that would have been obliterated if I’d used a strimmer or weed killers; toadflax (Linaria), foxglove (Digitalis), poppies (Papaver rhoeas) pansies and heartsease (Viola).

The other huge advantage of handpicking and selecting which plants to edit is that cover and habitat remains for the thousands of species of small reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds and mammals we have in the gardens.

Can you spot the toadlette?

For example, the lush, damp area around the visitors’ hub teams with little toadlettes at this time of year. These are young European toads, which go by the entertaining Latin name of Bufo bufo (Toad toad). They are perfect toads in miniature – about the size of your thumbnail. Already, they have the earth-coloured, warty skins of their parents, and they spend their first summer eating small insects, the size of their prey growing with the size of their bellies. They will return to the pond next year to find a mate and breed. Unless of course they become prey for a creature further along the food chain, like one of the barn owls that stalk the woodland at night.

Toadlette in close up, hiding in the stems of herb Robert (Geranium robetianum)

Another habitat we’ve been creating more of is deadwood habitat. Visitors to the garden will notice log piles, standing deadwood (i.e. upright dead tree trunks) twig piles and dead hedges (brushwood laid to create corridors for small creatures. A huge number of creatures depend on decaying plant material for their diet and habitat. Encourage them to thrive in your garden, and you encourage the larger animals and birds too. It is quite hard to resist the urge to tidy the garden too much. The message to clear up is rammed home by adverts for labour saving gadgets. And what might be appropriate in a small garden (getting rid of brambles for example) is not necessary in a large space like Betley Court, where a thicket of bramble constitutes a vital habitat (albeit one that needs thrashing back every now and again!)

 Examples of deadwood habitats by the temple. Standing logs and log piles. 

I mentioned the food chain in the gardens earlier. Nigel spotted an amazing act of predation on the high path around the pond. A wasp colony (not sure which species, I’m not foolhardy enough to go in close enough to make an identification!) had built one of their complex pulp nests into the bank, behind an earth-retaining log. A badger had rolled back the log, clawed into the papery layers of the nest, and feasted on tasty wasp grub. Badgers (European badgers – Meles meles) are notorious for their toughness, and clearly, the meaty dinner hidden underground was worth the wrath of the wasps.  

The papery scales of the wasp colony's nest

We watched the wasps’ valiant efforts to repair their nest, and rolled the log back to protect them. No doubt badger will be back. Hopefully a few of the young will survive – but not too many. Despite their bothersome reputation, wasps really are quite useful in the garden as they control other pest insects.

Banks of wildflower seedlings outside the visitors' hub

View from inside the visitors' hub

The wildflowers around the visitors’ hub have really establish well now. Our handymen, Shane and Melvyn have created a handsome flight of steps leading to the grassed area. We’ll furnish that area with benches before we open next year. It’s a lovely place to sit and enjoy a cuppa.

The handsome new steps down from the visitors' hub

Finally, an update on the demolition and clearance at the main house after the fire almost 12 months ago. Work continues to clear the top floor flats. It is filthy, difficult and potentially dangerous work. The lads on site gather large bucket-loads of debris from the burnt-out flats and empty them down plastic shoots to a colleague waiting at ground level with a wheel barrow.

The rubble chutes, in position 

He then barrows it into a large skip. There’s the odd recognizable item, like a cooker or fridge (which is put to one side for appropriate disposal). Most of the material is a fine grey ash, peppered with shards of pottery, glass and slate. It’s a horrible dust. It fills your pores, and robs your skin and throat of any moisture whatsoever. The site bins are full of water bottles and Capri Sun packets, bearing witness to the desiccating nature of this heavy work on the lads as they work. When we’ve been inside, we’ve always headed straight home for a bath afterwards such is the dust’s unpleasant nature.

Larger items from the clearance. A boiler and cooker.

The most surprising aspect of the clearance has been how little has emerged in a recognizable condition. One resident was delighted though, when his Christmas cognac, stored in his washing machine for reasons best known to him, was retrieved intact. I’m intrigued to find out if it’s still drinkable! This week, the lads discovered a photo album, singed but recognizable amongst the debris in a top floor flat. It was an incredible find. As the flames spread across the building through the roof, the roof collapsed into the flats below, engulfing them in a fierce fire. Very little of those upper floor flats survived at all. This album is the only distinguishable memento I believe to have been retrieved from this particular flat and we hope to have it back with its owner very soon. Sometimes, these victories, no matter how small, have the most disproportionately positive affect on the heart!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su