The Blank Canvas

We're going to have a new garden. Whoopee...!

  
      This is the walled garden to the rear of our home, a block of  apartments, slap bang in the centre of Bristol where we diarists live. This picture was taken from the third floor balcony and faces south west.
     This garden was beautiful once. The devestation that you see comes partly from neglect but mostly from the felling of three great trees. In the central area stood the conifers. A huge Lebonese Cedar dominated eveything. So huge had this specimen grown after only 32 years (we counted the rings), that it endangered the building itself. Where it stood there remain just oragnge chippings. Beside the cedar, a very impatient Leylandii raced to reach the sky. We hate felling trees, but these two had to go. Almost hidden around the corner to the left, a beautiful Robinia enjoyed maximum sunlight for maximum pleasure, but being around the corner, no one could see it. Sadly this tree died, probably of some disease, and was cut down about five years ago. The cedar was the last to face the chain saw. What remains of its bulk is stacked against the pink wall. The ivy that grew in its shade still covers the rockery and the forsythia in the far corner is covered with galls.
       
        In the chill of early February, the whole space is drab and uninteresting. Surrounded as it is by red brick buildings, it is not an inviting place to be, but there is hope. The garden is to be re-modelled by Knightstone, the management company, and we, the residents, have been given a say in the planting. The question is, what do we do with it?

     With a blank canvas like this, we could do almost anything, but mindful of the plight of our pollinating insects, we have decided to follow Sarah Raven's conservation philosophy of 'Bees, Butterflies and Blooms'. Now, we (the residents) are not necessarily in the prime of our lives. Some of you might already know what I mean, the floor is getting farther away and once you get down you can't get up again. Truth is, we won't be doing much gardening, but if we can't 'do' we can at least watch. Day by day and season by season we can record the lives of the flora and fauna with dates for flowerings and first sightings of insects and birds accompanied by photographs and observations. As the garden matures we will be able to record the annual changes and watch for new species migrating north with the changing climate.

        Gardens, of course, mature over generations and we, the residents of Knightstone House, will not live to see this one in its full glory, but we are part of its conception, we will winess its birth, follow its infancy and bequeath it to the next generation. The object of this diary is to record the progress of the garden through time. We are setting out to chart the natural history of this little plot, bare of concrete and set in the very midst of a great brick city. Could such a space be a refuge for endangered wildlife, and could such an enclosed space form part of a wildlife corridor?

        We are not scientists, to be fair we're not even gardeners, but we can learn and with the right guidance, we hope to make some small contribution to the scientific program that is collecting such data from all over Britain. We hope too, to make contact with others who share these interests and concerns. This cannot be a new idea and there must be many people and groups who are involved with conservation projects. If such a network already exists, we hope to become part of it.

     The heavy brigade move in with their diggers in May. Between now and then the wilderness in the picture will be tranformed into a battle ground as everything bursts forth and competes for space. While it will all be swept away in a few weeks, our little group is on a steep learning curve so to record this first flush of spring will help us to organise our record systems, and get to grips with the technicalities of computers. (For instance, don't press 'publish' when you mean 'save to drafts'.) To record this process is the first chapter of the diary. We will try to update weekly.

        The next blog takes you on a tour of the garden as it is. There is some interesting stuff when you start to explore, so go easy with the heavy diggers, Mr groundwork contractor...

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