| The Great Wall of Gazen |
| Season 3 |
| A seventy five foot long by four feet high wall is quite impressive for not just the wildlife that are starting to make it their home but also for photographers and passer bys alike. It is starting to allow others to see the defined shape of the new wildlife garden. |
| Various angles of the Great Wall of Gazen |
| The Wildlife Garden is now the name people wish to attach to this area. We have to class that as its central theme – being wildlife inspired and having a wilding aspect to it and introducing elements of other garden types to it purely for colour and vibrancy and pollinators. Alright, l can live with this. We have at least a theme now, making it easier to work with in so far as conceptualization. Also, finally accepted as the voice of reason is that we cannot simply plant into the soils and earth without attending to the state of the grounds. We need to work on the soil. We need to dig and hoe to a depth of around six inches, the bare minimum, for many reasons. Still, the two most prominent reasons are 1] the number of ivies and ground weeds that require removal and 2] because the area here used to be back in the 70’s a dumping ground for hardcore and aggregates. So we have to work the soil and make it a more manageable area to plant into. I can work with this, and l am prepared to work with this as a project for as long as l am able, considering all the other pulls on my time l have, but equally, l can use this for my gains regarding experience with the gardening business and because l am now in charge of the boards l can advertise Earthly Comforts as well. Last week, the job was to firm the wall height at the back of the garden with the dead grasses from Gallow’s Field, and this week was to finish that task and extend the length from fifty to 75 feet. In addition, the log pile, which was initially moved from the garden last December by me and a few others on the premise of my buying the logs to use for shredding for the allotment, was foiled because the logs were too wet for a commercial shredder. So today, we started moving them back into the area to add natural elements to the wall and extend the base skeleton. More passers-by are now complimenting and commenting on the wall and how it is an excellent haven for birdlife. Many photographers come out early in the morning to capture images of the wildlife attracted to and interacting with the dead wall. But also, the volunteers are entirely on board, especially now that they can see how the wall will look with the logs interwoven into it. The wall’s length is around seventy-five feet. I plan to extend that by a further forty-five feet and achieve that before the end of March. However, now there is another request to develop the length with an additional seventy-five feet and to have that completed in two stages from March to December this year. This new length will start from the end of the first wall and then extend in a curve sweep behind the garden over the other side. Once completed, a dead wall will surround 65% of the wildlife garden. This is excellent news. For those who have followed Tales of Gazen Salts from 2021 from the days in the Guy Blog, they too will know this means we no longer have to have fires to burn and dispose of green wastes from the reserve. All we will have to do is add them to the walls. Great news, indeed. |
| Tales from Gazen Salts Nature Reserve is about my time and stories of my voluntary work with this project. I’ll see you next episode. Thanks for reading. Gazen Salts Nature Reserve Sandwich, Kent, England, UK |
Earthly Comforts 
No more burning is good for everyone… flora & fauna!
💌💌
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Yes very much so, a few of us were done and dusted with the burnings 🙂
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I must say it is a good looking wall. As soon as I read and saw the wall a line from Robert Frost’s poem “The Mending Wall” popped into my head and now I can’t get it out – much like a musical earworm I now have a poetry earworm…
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Hahahaha funny you should mention musical earworms!
For some reason when working in the client’s garden l keep humming two songs and when l realise l am humming one l stop myself and think what the hell? Wait a while then suddenly start humming the other.
It’s most frustrating and every week l am in that garden l keep humming or whistling the same two songs.
I am not even sure why, because 1] they are old songs, 2] l was never that keen on either one and 3] WHY?? Because l am not hearing them anywhere?
The two songs are Wham – Wake Me Up Before You Go Go and Tiffany – I Think We’re Alone Now
Gah!!
I like my wall also – it awards me a lot of joy and more so when l see the birds on it 🙂
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So well thought out and executed Rory 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼
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Certainly getting there sadje – many thanks 🙂
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All the best.
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You seem pleased with the way things are going at Gazen Salts and no more burning is a plus.
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Hey Eugenia, well l think l am pleased that my conversation of last week with the conservationist was heard. I was getting to the point of enough being enough.
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Finally, they are listening to you, Rory! I don’t blame you for being frustrated since you work so hard for them.
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Yes thankfully Eugenia, they are now listening to some reasoning, l was all for a garden evolving, but l wasn’t a fan of no direction as that leads to problems sadly.
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Old logs are great for wildlife — birds and nesting, groundhogs and other small warm-blooded creatures, squirrels and more. They will all be very happy you left them homes.
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Very much so Marilyn, we have lots and loads of old decaying logs that will make smashing little homes and habitats for a diverse range of flora and fauna 🙂
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We get special rates from the wood cutting people because they don’t have to haul away the dead trees. We had to have three trees taken down. They were dead and with winter (such as it is) on the way, all the wind and weather was surely going to land them on our house. I do miss them, though. They were full of nests for birds and squirrels and the provided shade. But the boring beetles got them and the were also old. Now, they will be nests for many.
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I had to double take the beetles but .. bless l thought initially, l wonder if the beetles knew they were boring … then l facepalmed and got some coffee to start my day and then said “Aaah the ‘boring’ beetles!!
I think and l have seen a lot of it in England that so many people with trees here are so conscious of having trunks in/on their prim and proper gardens that they don’t think twice about having them carted off or in many cases shredded down.
It’s a shame that more people don’t leave trunks and branches for the wildlife here. I always wonder why so many are so keen to cut their lawns within an inch of their lives too – when if they let the grasses grow longer the bees and bugs would love them for it.
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Uncut lawns also survive droughts MUCH better than very short ones. But most people are ignorant and many who know better don’t care. We care which probably makes us unique in some weird way.
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Suze and l were saying exactly just this yesterday looking at a guy mowing his lawn to almost bare dirt – the irony is he maintains himself to be a wildlife lover — and yet, that doesn’t extend to lawns?
I think there is way too much in the way of apathy in the world and l have noticed a lot of ‘why should l worry about it all, let someone else carry that burden, there’s plenty of time to fix this …’ in the last few years.
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I think it may already BE too late.
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I think so also, sadly.
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