THE TREE - they smell GOOD, make our living rooms into a grotto for a few weeks and occasionally stab us with their needles - why do we do this every year? Find the right tree for you and then make it a more sustainable tradition... FROSTED HISTORY The branches of the evergreen Conifer have been flailed about in celebration since the pagans danced with them and strung them up for the Winter solstice, and the Romans fought and lounged around them [...]
Commonly known as the Dogwood the Cornus is a group of botanically diverse plants with a lot of year round interest to add to any planting design. Planted on mass they can be used to give winter and spring interest with their vivid stem colour. There are two species which are alba and sibirica. Dogwood are vigorous growing shrubs reaching 4 to 6 foot in high depending on variety. Dogwoods prefer a sunny position in moisture retentive soils. The second year after planting [...]
STEP INTO THEIR CLAWS If you’re a bird in winter these are your problems - there’s hardly any food about; your water supply becomes a block of ice; there are less places to hide as half the leaves have dropped and your predators are even hungrier; oh, and it’s minus degrees and all you’ve got to keep warm in is your own body fat - which means you’ve got to find food, expose yourself to predators, keep near to your flock, [...]
