Trip to Folly Farm!

On my recent visit to the UK aside of some extremely wet weather I had a very enjoyable morning walking around Folly Farm in Somerset - the changes there since my last visit were remarkable... the place has been rebuilt and the grounds are still in the process of being developed. All the original buildings have been beautifully renovated - providing the chance for the wider community to engage with the environment and really enjoy the surrounding countryside. If you're interested in learning more about the environment and how to preserve it, you should check out the courses offered here http://www.follyfarm.org/ - you can even stay here too!

They've developed a short woodland walk through lovely mixed woodland, which is mainly surrounded by meadow - some of which has been left untouched for over 100 years. In these areas you can see great examples of established ant hills of yellow meadow ants - one of the favorite foods of the Green Woodpecker! These birds are able to feed on such insects aided by their sticky tongues. Walking through there are plenty of nesting boxes for both bats and birds and if you come at twilight you might be lucky enough to watch badgers.

On the way round we spotted hedges which had been laid in the traditional way - using a mix of Field Maple, Black Thorn and Hazel. Hedging like this is a wonderful way of encouraging wildlife into the area offering both shelter and a nesting site for some.

There are longer walks here too - a place for all ages and well worth a visit if you're passing!

And to finish off with before heading to the car park - some wonderful views towards Chew Valley Lake! Only a couple of hours later I was in my seat on the aircraft bound for Dinard...

A great end to the weekend....

What a beautiful day we've had here in Northern Brittany - a typical autumnal day - but not particularly cold, light sunshine and a breeze - ideal for getting many of the jobs desperately needing to be done somewhere near complete!

Many of the perennial plants were needing to be cut back - such as the large areas planted with Helianthus and Echinops - the best way that I've found is by taking some hedge trimmers to the base of the stems - when they're dry it's easy work and amazing how quickly you can get through them. It's a lot quicker and a neater job is done than when using a pair of shears. I've also done this when clearing patches of brambles - trim back an area and then pull the ones you've trimmed back with a spring-tined rake and attack the next bit until the patch is cut and by that time all the brambles will be in a neat ball to place in your wheel barrow and off to the bonfire heap - no horrible lengths of bramble to claw into your legs and arms and a much less of a painful way of removing these horrors! All said and done I don't ever remove them all as the fruit is delicious to eat and provide much needed food for garden birds and visiting wildlife.


After a hard day's work I took a few more pictures of our garden to share with you.

Autumn leaves....

What a beautiful sunny day it's been here in Brittany - wish every day was like this - maybe if they were we wouldn't appreciate them quite so much. Later in the day as the sun got lower I was doing some work in a beautiful garden which has a young Tulip Tree - the leaves in the golden sun looked stunning so thought I'd share a few pictures to lift your spirits...

The final two shots are of the Maple!

Fiery colours of November!

As one or two people had asked over this weekend what had happened to November, one conclusion suggested that it had been cancelled due to bad weather - I decided that this was probably the best phenomenon that I could indeed come up with!!

The autumn is an extremely busy time of year or it certainly seems to have been this year for one reason and another - certainly not enough time to get jobs done in our own garden so far with the constant battle with the weather, but then again it could be worse!

With the gradual transition this year from rather mild weather into more cool weather, the leaves have had time to change colour and many still remain on the trees giving us some wonderful autumn colours and so I thought I'd share some of these with you. If you've got some obvious gaps in your own garden at this time of year, it's an ideal time to plant to ensure a good display for 2009.







Yesterday I sat inside watching the rain pretty much all day and then today it cleared enough to allow me into our own garden for a change to catch up on some of the many jobs needing done. It was wonderful to watch our Spotted Woodpecker prizing his way into the few walnuts remaining on the ground, the Great Tits followed to pick up anything that remained and towards the end of the day was surprised by a flock of long tailed tits that seemed to find plenty to feed off in both the Plum and Field Maple trees - they're wonderful acrobats and extremely entertaining!
















To round off the day today - some wonderful evening colour in the sky...

Autumn splendour....

As autumn starts to kick in with leaves starting to fall from many of our trees I thought a quick posting on autumn colour in the garden might cheer everyone up.... especially seeing that it just doesn't feel as if we've even had a summer!!

The recent deluge that we had last week has almost kickstarted the garden again with all sorts of buds appearing and many new shoots apparent on the roses in particular. The garden at this time of year is full of lots of warm firey colours and for anyone reading this who finds their garden lacking in flowers at this time of year - this might give you a few hints as to what to add into yours in time for next year.

I've been out this evening in beautiful warm sunshine cutting our grass which is always a pleasure especially when the weather is like this... maybe we're due an Indian summer - who knows!?

Anyway - hope you enjoy some of the shots I took today....

Wonderful smells of autumn cooking....

This time of year always takes me back to my childhood - of whole afternoons spent picking copious amounts of brambles as we knew them - probably due to having a Scottish Mum! Many people know them as blackberries too. It always seemed like my parents had a competition to see who could pick the most which was invariably my Mum who towards the end of the afternoon had to tolerate the endless questions of when we would be going home! Once we got home the cooking started and the whole house had that wonderful aroma of freshly cooking brambles which were added to the apples already picked in our garden. It was only a number of years ago when I was still living in Bristol that I first cooked my own and the smell took me right back.... it was a strange experience but one full of happy memories too.

Just incase anyone reading this has not enjoyed this delicious mixture - peel and chop a few apples - cook them a bit first in a small amount of water and sugar and add as many blackberries as you wish and even elderberries if you're lucky enough to have them, plus additional water as required and more sugar to suit your taste - don't add too much liquid at the beginning as the brambles themselves will create quite a bit of juice on their own. Once cooked this can provide a wonderful base for a crumble or even put a sponge mixture on the top - great with custard!

Brambles and apples are as good as a marriage made in heaven and they can even be found growing together naturally - just as they were intended!

Picking brambles now is a very pleasurable way of using up an afternoon or even a snatched half hour whilst out with the dog - infact she probably eats as many as I pick... anyone ever see a dog picking brambles!? Its' also a great opportunity to watch the local wildlife as well - I was lucky enough to spot this beautiful Speckled Wood butterfly.

Bon appetit!

A garden of ideas...

I can bearly believe that nearly a month has gone by since my last post on here, there just never seem enough spare moments in my week for blogging at this time of year.... all the more opportunity to think up ideas for future posts when the weather keeps me inside!

At least during 2008, I've managed to tick a few more gardens off my list of "want to visit" in this area and so decided that I couldn't pass the opportunity by to mention this one...

The Jardins de Broceliande is a wonderful garden to the west of Rennes. It's almost what I'd call an experimental garden where so many different ideas have been tried out and there for you to discover. Some of them in my view really work, whilst others probably need some tweaking! All in all though if you're looking for some interesting ideas or you're new to gardening it's a garden I'd really recommend. As an aside, if you've got young children, there's plenty there for them too to discover aside of the various animals on site and playpark!

This was an interesting amateur garden of a "dining room"!

And an original idea for a water feature!

They had also got some novel ideas for labelling of plants too ....


Not to forget plenty of places to sit and admire the scenery...

The tour of the site starts with the potager with a good collection of vegetables being grown, followed by a rose garden - full of many different varieties. There are a collection of amateur gardens too which are in the process of development.

For those of you intersted in growing your own fruit trees - there are a number of different forms of tree here - especially good for people who maybe haven't got enough space for a proper orchard but are still keen to grow tree fruit.

They have a great collection of Dahlias too for those of you like myself who are fans of these beautiful plants - they make great cut flowers!

Also in amongst all their ideas were some interesting pathways...

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!