The autumn colour in the Botanic Garden, especially the grasses in the pollination garden among the lovely acers and the light red acer in the woodland edge against the black trunk of the old oak tree, is just spectacular, An artist's dream and not to be missed in this mild spell we are promised for this week, Higgy.
What an interesting thread! Beauty has become so many things - for many it seems to be a mixture of different idealogies which are influenced by trend, media and the general consumeristic nature of society. I work in a nursery specialising in Architectural Plants and I am often struck by just how many people fail to realise that plants are not simply pieces of furniture to be arranged neatly and according to the latest fad. What is missing so often in the approach to gardening and perhaps life too (!) is empathy. Order and formality can be sophisticated and impressive and these can be achieved beautifully but a wildflower meadow (for example)buzzing with life, colour, texture and movement - this just is, and can't be anything other than beautiful.I'm rambling on a bit now....thinking out loud I think they call it.....sorry everyone!
Yes I agree please do keep sharing your enjoyable 'rambles' with us Mrs P!
I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed my wild flower 'lawn' this year and was amazed at the large variety of insects and butterflies it attracted this year when so many people were saying what a bad year it was for them!
Luckily I have enough room for the area to have a few paths mown through it and watching my 4yr old daughter happily skipping around the paths and enjoying counting ladybirds put an even bigger smile on my face!...if you have some space to try it then I please do! My only advice would be to grow a few wild flower plugs to get you started as they will give you colour straight away in your first season whilst it gets established...then just enjoy it!
strange how this little Island is being concreted over when we should be learning a lesson from the damage already done. we are told every week on our country file programme how important it is to stop distroying our pleasant land, is it to late , have we already gone to far, have we already killed our world.
Richard, may I use your blog to thank the tree surgeons of Bristol City Council who found two larvae of the lesser stag beetle yesterday in some rotten wood and asked the Botanic Garden if they wanted them. Of course we did and they are safely in their old home transported to our set-aside for wildlife area. Don't worry, Kay,the army of workers grows bigger everyday.
re: virtues of concrete as a habitat. We have a service road at the rear of our house which is made of concrete and gated each end which is fringed with weeds (wild flowers) and gets pretty baked in the Summer hence the small lizard I spotted (not a newt)at the bottom of the garden - all this in surburban Ruislip -just goes to show nature is there if you look for it.
I live in rural Kent, with lots of lovely woodland footpaths around. Recently, an old hospital has been redeveloped as a housing estate. The footpaths have been widened and tidied for 'trim trails'. One particular path has wooden signs to indicate these trails, but for the hard of understanding they've included blue signs like motorway signs. AAARRRRRGGGGGH!
One of the biggest problems is the loss of "common" wild flowers due to harsh mowing regimes on huge tracts of amenity grass land. Acres of ultra-short coarse grass, a few ground-hugging pioneer species, but nothing else gets to flower. Much of this grass is cut every couple of weeks at a height of 15-25 mm. Green indeed, but a barren monoculture.
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I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed my wild flower 'lawn' this year and was amazed at the large variety of insects and butterflies it attracted this year when so many people were saying what a bad year it was for them!
Luckily I have enough room for the area to have a few paths mown through it and watching my 4yr old daughter happily skipping around the paths and enjoying counting ladybirds put an even bigger smile on my face!...if you have some space to try it then I please do! My only advice would be to grow a few wild flower plugs to get you started as they will give you colour straight away in your first season whilst it gets established...then just enjoy it!