However keen a
gardener you might be, it is likely that there are moments
when you wish you had less gardening to face every weekend.
We all experience times when the amount of gardening that
simply must be done, has completely outgrown the time
available. If you have sometimes reached this crisis point
you may even have taken drastic measures and installed the
dreaded decking to make life easier. Even the most dedicated
wildlife gardeners may venture down this route to reduce
maintenance and allow themselves more time to actually
appreciate the creatures that visit their garden. Wildlife
gardening can involve just as much work as a more conventional
approach and we all know that gardening is one of those
activities that expands to fill the time available. So for
most of us, making our gardening tasks easier for ourselves is
something we have uppermost in our minds.
One way to reduce work
in the garden is to make sure that you garden within your own
local conditions and this includes making the most of your
soil. It makes complete sense, if you have clay, not to
attempt to grow plants that need free draining conditions
unless you are prepared for the extra work that this will
involve. And again if your soil is sandy or chalky, avoid
plants that only thrive in a moisture retentive soil. This is
what I like to think of as ‘gardening with nature’ and in the
long run, this approach can save much heartache and
frustration for all concerned, not to mention dead plants.
But there is another advantage to this approach if you do
garden for wildlife. Emulating the conditions round about
your garden, especially if you are in a more rural situation,
is likely to encourage wildlife from your boundaries into your
plot, where there may be a similar range of plants. Many creatures will travel to find the
conditions they require, but there are distances beyond which
some, especially insects and other invertebrates, are unlikely
to venture.
Applying this rule to
my own garden became crucial a few years ago when I moved house
and became the proud owner of a wet garden. My previous
garden in Oxfordshire was on a band of greensand, which
crosses the south-western corner of the county and was the
most free draining plot I have ever had. Not a drop of water
ever lay on the ground, even after torrential rain, and the
free draining nature of the soil made gardening a challenge.
Lavender grew and seeded around and other Mediterranean plants
thrived but it was frustrating that I was unable to grow some
of my favourite wildflowers, including purple loosestrife and
meadowsweet, except in the margins of my pond. I developed a
distant vision for the future of a damp meadow full of scented
cream ‘queen of the meadow’ (one of meadowsweet’s vernacular
names) and lady’s smock, taking my inspiration from the RHS
garden at Rosemoor in North Devon, where they have made
spectacular use of their wet lawns by allowing wildflowers
that prefer these conditions to grow with abandon. The
result there in late spring is a spectacular wet meadow
effect, awash with orange tip butterflies that use the lady’s
smock as a larval food plant.
Using drainage
wisely There is always a great temptation to consider
drainage in a damp garden, but before you move down that road
it really is worthwhile thinking about the conditions within
which you can happily work. Installing land drains in wet
ground can be very expensive and does not always solve the
problem fully, so where possible it is best to plan your
garden (if you can) around the confines of your local
conditions. If you do find that a certain amount of drainage
is a necessity, do make sure that you utilize the displaced
water if you possibly can, making good use of every advantage
that water in the garden can bring. As responsible gardeners,
water conservation is uppermost in our minds and there is
nothing more frustrating in dry weather than remembering the
wet days of winter as the sun beats down on your precious
plants. If you are installing drainage of any type you could
consider an underground tank plus pump to store water for use
during dry weather.
Although I was
perfectly happy with the large area of wet clay soil that was
to become my long-imagined damp meadow, full of wildflowers
and butterflies, the new vegetable plot proved to be the
wettest area of all, with water draining from fields around,
through the beds and into a natural pond in the farmland next
door. The first summer brought a fantastic crop of quick
growing salads, French and broad beans and root crops, all
thriving on soil that always had just a touch of moisture
under the surface even during the driest spells. No watering
needed here. However the winter brought to light the extent
of the wetness in this area and a remedy was needed to ensure
that winter crops, including leeks and parsnips, did not spend
months with their roots in water sodden soil. Some form of
drainage was certainly going to be essential but although my
damp vegetable garden clearly needed some ‘adjustment’ to the
conditions I was certainly not willing to return it to the
bone-dry soil of Oxfordshire. The answer was to create a
natural looking bog garden with a small stream running through
it. After looking closely to ascertain where the water was
entering the garden, and how it was moving through the soil, I
then dug a ditch about 40 centimetres deep and 60 cms wide in
an area above the vegetable beds to catch the water draining
down the gentle slope. This ditch or stream now wends its way
to the pond in the adjacent field, its ultimate natural
destination. The joy of this new situation is that the soil
either side of the channel is damp enough to create a narrow
bog garden – now full of wildlife friendly moisture-loving
plants such as candelabra primulas, iris, loosestrife and
bergamot, all grown cheaply from seed. A grassy patch above
the bog garden has snakeshead fritillaries, cowslips and
lady’s smock – the latter appearing of its own accord from
long dormant seeds in the clay soil. And my vegetable plots
are now simply moist in even the wettest weather.
This inexpensive and
easy solution to what could have been an expensive problem is
a good example of working with whatever garden conditions you
have. Wet and boggy lawns, which are sodden in winter but dry
in summer, can be transformed by planting in plugs of moisture
loving wildflowers, especially cowslips and lady's smock which will thrive and
spread in these conditions. Bugle too is an easy plant to
establish and the combination of yellow cowslips and deep
purple bugle spikes is hard to beat. Fritillary bulbs can be
planted in the autumn along with plugs of ragged robin, lady’s
smock, meadowsweet and meadow buttercup, if you don’t already
have it. An area such as this should be allowed to grow in
the spring until July or August, then cut to 5 to 10 cms.
Allow the cuttings to dry and then rake off carefully. From
then on until your mowing finishes, you can continue to cut to
keep the area tidy if you wish.
My dream meadow,
created from scratch, was another perfect solution for such a
wet garden. The area, which now boasts expanses of
common spotted orchid interspersed with bird’s foot trefoil, ragged robin, common knapweed and wild carrot, was created in
bare soil with a seed mix designed for clay soil. Sowing into
clay of this type, as you may well know if you have ever
experienced such difficult soil, involved creating a tilth and
sowing at exactly that moment between friable soil and
concrete – a point which most gardeners with clay will know
well! The solution to this difficult soil however has been
perfect. It is now covered with vegetation, and only needs
cutting and raking to keep it in shape. Further plug plants
of devil’s bit scabious, water avens and of course more
meadowsweet have been added.
Moving to a garden
with a heavy clay soil may seem daunting to many people after
easy-to-dig sand, but I am happy to forego the ease of
cultivation for the joys that more moisture retentive soils
bring. Superior vegetables that never need a drop of water, a
permanently green lawn, a new bog garden, the beauty of a
tinkling stream where water cress is the next experiment, and
a beautiful meadow full of wildlife. Give me a damp
garden any day!
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