This kitchen owl was made from salvaged kitchen supplies and a CD which is reflective and can help keep away hawks or other birds from your veggie garden.
Category: This and that
By Dayna Woolbright
Norwich is a City with many things to offer; over 1500 historic buildings, numerous museums and art galleries, 31 churches, 2 cathedrals and a medieval castle, but that’s not all, Norwich is ranked as one of the top 10 places to shop in the UK*, its streets are busting with an abundance of high street stores, designer shop and quirky boutiques. Like most cities today Norwich is home to four of the large department store chains; John Lewis, Debenhams, M&S and House of Fraser, but there is also a large, local, independent department store, Jarrolds. In short Norwich is a shopaholicas paradise!
Recently, in the Superstore, we came across a large floral carpet, on the reverse incorporated into the design was the name ‘Chamberlins Sons & Co. Norwich’ This sparked my curiosity as it was a name I was unfamiliar with and after a quick Google search…
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Whilst visiting friends recently, we were fortunate to be given a guided tour of an historic garden and house in the course of renovation.
Copped Hall, close to Epping in Essex, is a substantial Georgian mansion which I remember visiting about 30 years ago.
At that time I can remember the house being a gutted shell, having no roof and pigs being kept in what remained of the ground floor!
There has been a grand house here since Norman times, with the current building dating from the middle of the 18th century. It has a fascinating history, culminating in the near destruction of the latest house by fire in 1917. Since then, various attempts have been made to redevelop the site, but local opposition has fought these off. The outcome was the formation of a charitable trust which raised funds to purchase the site with the aims of:
- preventing development of the buildings or in their vicinity
- raising further funds to carry out sympathetic restoration of the buildings and grounds
- educating the public on the site and it’s social and natural history.
An active ‘Friends’ group supports the trust, including a small band of gardening volunteers, 2 of whom (Marion & John), kindly showed us around. The house itself has been made wind and weatherproof and some progress has been made in reinstating the interior structure. As anything portable and of value was stripped out of the buildings and grounds in the 1950’s, much of what remains are functional, structural features such as the brick piers supporting former stone steps and stairs. These tumbled down ruins are interesting in themselves, and with the still significant columns of clipped Yew give a gothic, romantic ruin feel to what was once a grand, formal, elevated approach to the house along with parterres and clipped hedges and bushes.
This space gives way to a wooded walk to the walled garden. There are some open archaelogical excavations in these grounds, adding further interest, and some more recent large scale landscaping projects in areas on the site of what was once the Tudor Manor house. Originally built in 1740, the 4 acre walled garden (one of the largest in Britain), is clothed on the approach to its outer wall with a glorious herbaceous border. Several metres deep, with excellent variation in height, this border also features large groupings of plants providing a strong structure and rhythm through their repetition, along the full 100 metres or so of its length.
Herbaceous border at Copped Hall, Essex 
Inside, a series of original Boulton and Paul glasshouses- most in urgent need of renovation, contain a fascinating collection of fruit and flowers, including vines and peaches now open to the elements as the former covering of glass has fallen away.
The scale of the renovation task, especially here, is enormous, but the small band of volunteers is making steady progress, though could perhaps do with an overall ‘Conservation Plan’ to help to channel their efforts and encourage others along. We wish them well, and but for the distance from home, would offer to help them!
Copped Hall is open to the public one day a month and guided tours are available – see the weblink below for more information.
Further information:
Old School Gardener
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Osteospermum ecklonis
Osteospermum is a genus of some 70 species of annuals, perennials and evergreen sub shlrubs from mountainous, forest edge or grassland habitats in southern Africa and the Arabian peninsula. It has several common names: African Daisy, South African Daisy, Cape Daisy and Blue-eyed Daisy.
They are mostly tender or half-hardy, but a few are reliably hardy, and hybrids are being produced from these which are also hardy. In frost – prone areas the more tender types can be treated as annuals.
Osteospermum have three features that commend them to the gardener:
- A very long flowering season
- They are evergreen
- They make excellent ground cover
Their daisy-like flower heads have ray florets of pink, white or yellow- with a wider range of shades available in the cultivars and often with contrasting, darker disc florets.
Osteospermum Daisyweb
Osteospermums are relatively new to most gardeners, and were almost unheard of 25 years ago. They have risen in popularity in the last decade as they have become more commercially available. Osteospermums have now become very popular as summer bedding plants, either to put in the border or in pots. The prostrate varieties can be used in hanging baskets. Osteospermums require full sun for the flowers to fully open, although while half-closed it is possible to appreciate the different colours on the underneath of the petals. Some old favourites such as ‘Whirligig’ and ‘Pink Whirls’ have spoon shaped petals. There are also stunning variegated leaf varieties available such as ‘Giles Gilbey’ and ‘Silver Sparkler’.
As well as preferring a warm and sunny position they like rich, well drained soil- a sunny bank is ideal. They also tolerate poor soil, salt or drought well. Modern cultivars flower continuously when watered and fertilised well, and dead-heading to prevent self seeding is not necessary, because they do not set seed easily, Deadheading will improve and prolong flowering, however. They make good cut flowers. If planted in a container, soil should be prevented from drying out completely. If they do, the plants will go into “sleep mode” and survive the period of drought, but they will abort their flower buds and not easily come back into flower. Moreover, roots are relatively susceptible to rotting if watered too profusely after the dry period. Regrettably, like most daisy- like flowers, they are highly allergenic. They are prone to downy mildew in wet areas.
O. ‘Lemon Symphony’
Sources and further information:
Old School Gardener
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The Fens Waterways Link is one of the most significant waterway projects to take place in the UK for two centuries. It will connect the Cathedral cities of Lincoln, Peterborough and Ely, opening up 240km of new and existing waterways. It is hoped the project will put the Fens on the map as a nationally recognised destination, as well known as the Norfolk Broads.
The map below outlines the sections of waterway that will be improved/created by the scheme. The Ouse Washes come into this area, as can be seen on the map. Not only are the Fens Waterways Link and the Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership Scheme closely related geographically, they also share common goals, aiming to promote heritage, conservation and community engagement. (See here for the aims of the Ouse Washes LPS.)
In detail, the aims of the Fens Waterways Link are to:
- Create opportunities for…
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By Wayne Kett
An object or group of objects have different meanings attached to them by different people, when I look at an object I know my response probably differs from that of the person stood next to me. As an example, consider these washing machines we recently unpacked from Box 21.
There are some who would dismiss them as a load of old junk, others might be old enough to remember using them, or at least conjure up memories of parents using them, in this instance it is about reminiscence. Those of a more mechanical persuasion might be fascinated with how these machines worked, and how they help explain the development of modern machinery. There are some who look at these machines as something aesthetically pleasing, objects that fit in with a particular retro style they like. Of course in reality this list could be infinite.
Whilst I understand the…
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Our garden is too full – we have nowhere left to grow the plants we keep finding and wanting to take under our gardening wings. So we need ideas for more gardens. We are going up!
Take an old rickety wooden ladder, too old and battered to trust. We cut it in half and fixed it against the sides of two of our sheds.
We found this strange collection of objects at various interesting outlets nearby. Two French wire baskets, a cast iron drain pipe top and a kettle used by gypsies to boil water over open fires.
And now for the planting! We need plants that require little looking after and won’t be constantly calling out to be watered. Succulents are the answer.
A little job well done I think! A little bit of garden sculpture. Some recycling and some re-using. Now we can just enjoy them as…
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I’m feeling quite bewildered, astounded, (grabs thesaurus), combloglified (I made that up) – to be here at post #100 and to have a small gang of co-bloggers who come by and click like and always comment so kindly. I’ve even met some co-bloggers in that time, due to ridiculous sets of circumstances, and I feel I know some other co-bloggers so well I’m sure I could just turn up for tea and sit down and talk to them for hours about gardening and art and life in general.
So for this post No. 100 I just thought I’d put up some pics of my family’s perfect day at Philip Island doing absolutely nothing.
While I was taking pics of the kids and the last surfers in the beautiful dying pinks and blues of the day – one of the kids was taking pics of us – so there is a picture…
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Old School Garden 