| My Brief Is To Bring Balance To An Unbalanced World! |
| Season 3 |
| The current view from the entrance to the Wildlife Garden’ is the area where a board will be present explaining the garden and its own brief’. In the background, you can see the next part of the wall being built, whilst the foreground has removed that lumpy eyesore so that the garden’s overall ground layout can be viewed properly. |
| Things are slowly coming together – at least we have defined pathways. The dead wall is getting longer, the log pile is shrinking, and the reclaimed area looks more organised. In twelve months, this garden will look very, very different. |
| The Wildlife Garden is continuously evolving – it changes weekly, depending on who you speak to or with. Now whilst it is still a wildlife garden’ with no labelling aside from the label of it being a wildlife garden – it is not to be a wildlife garden like others – No. It is to be a wildlife garden in colour and pollinator attractive only. This means that despite the specific native plants it can take on board – it is open to anyone else’s interpretation of a wildlife garden and their planting agenda. The question of herbs was raised, and again despite advice about certain herbs needing certain soil types, this was and is going to be ignored. Raised beds were offered as an alternative soil option by myself and the conservationists, and that was agreed upon, but the moment the conservationists were gone, the raised beds were seen as unwanted. Raised beds would have been the perfect answer, especially with regulating soil types for different plants. It would also mean we could incorporate many of the materials we have as reclaim construction … but they will spoil the look! Apparently! It is easier to say that if l want certain things done – then l best do them myself. If l want the soil to be dug a certain way – then dig it that way. If l need to introduce raised beds – do it yourself. Blah blah. We had twenty volunteers turn up today, yet the garden project only has three of us working on it. Three?? Going to be a long year! As long as in the next twelve months, the garden starts to look and smell like a garden, then Hallelujah!! That is the attitude to have. I want to have this on my portfolio to support the business. So if l want it to look good, then l must make an effort myself. My ‘brief’ is to assist in creating a colourful pollinator attractive garden, and that is what l am going to do – simple. Today was productive despite the labelling confusion and the other gardeners’ opinions, one of which is easygoing and will go with the flow. The other is a retired architect who wants things done in a particular way. The other side to my brief will be to work on accommodating as much of her way as l can diplomatically without making the garden lean too far out of logical wildlife configuration. We can afford to be relaxed in certain areas, but l can be a pedant when getting the soils right. Because l have learned that wrong soils mean plants die or do not award great results. Everything is about balance. |
| On a side note, the image above displays paling fencing that is coming out of the reserve and is classed as unwanted and is to be disposed of. Suze and l have four primary fencing jobs down on the allotment – stake, netting, wire and paling. Earlier this week, Suze worked on 75% of the wiring job. Tomorrow l am going to be working on the stake fencing. On Friday, Mike and l are to collect a lot of this paling fence, sometimes called picket fencing or perimeter fencing, to take down to the allotment for Suze and l to work with on Sunday. It keeps it out of a landfill, which must be good. Additionally, as you can see, there are some tremendous wooden fencing poles which we will be using on Sunday with the wiring fence Suze erected last Monday. They need to be sawn down to the correct lengths. |
| 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 
Lot of hard work waiting for you guys. Best of luck
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Hey Sadje, yes especially if we are the only three to work on it.
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Just be careful my friend. Don’t over burden yourself
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Oh l know, but it’s gotten to the point of well which one does one lose? It’ll be right in the end 🙂 I have a doctor’s appointment ref my knees in March.
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Okay, that’s good too know.
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Well they probably want a natural appearance and raised beds wouldn’t give that…
But you “could” look for loopholes 😘 lol
Ok well if they want no square raised beds
What about if you made a stacked rock 🪨 formation that was steady and would have little bed areas … lined by rocks and not perfect – more natural formation beds lol 🤷♀️
Then you could have small areas to make look like blend with the surroundings more ??
The raised beds I have seen you do are very much done by a human lol – they probably just want a more natural feel?
It looks amazing with the lay out – very very exciting 👏👏👏❤️
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There ‘s more to it – but we have to make the beds from a material that is very heavy and not easily vandalised. Once the garden is up and running, in the evening we will get kids visit who are drinking and they will probably vandalise things, so we have to proof it.
The beds l had in mind were a very heavy railway sleeper .
If we make from logs they will simply pick up and throw in the stream, or kick rocks around and damage the flowers.
The railway sleepers we have are very natural looking, but one of the gardeners is a retired architect and wants to use them to make a bridge.
Even in the garden we have elements of politics sadly.
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That’s so sad that you have to also think of when it would get vandalized
Smart, but sad have to factor that in ☹️
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Oh l know, it’s bad news, but everything has to go through as much bomb proofing as we are able.
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Progress in the making, Rory!
“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” ― Stephen R. Covey
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Hey Eugenia, well we have a starting point 🙂
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