The Lakeland Gardener

Whilst walking our local lanes I became fascinated by the slowly emerging plants  peering through the cold February soil.   The foxglove (Digitalis purperea) is suddenly evident as is the Greater celandine (Chelidonum majus).  The Gorse (Ulex europaeus) is springing to life too.  The bright yellow pea shaped flower is beginning to stand out against spikey, evergreen leaves.  The Gorse is the only native to the United Kingdom.   As I wander the lanes this week I think about all the plants that have been introduced. The topography of this country has been greatly affected by imported plants, trees, animals and insects.   Foxgloves emerging from the damp winter soil The Babylonians were famous for their hanging gardens; the Egyptians had gardens as a courtyard with the house built around the edge;  the Greeks introduced public parks and roof gardening in clay pots.    The Greeks grew roses and the ancient Egyptians offered the roses to their Gods but it was the Romans who adored them in a

The first secular reference to Gardening is from the Assyrians in about 3000 BC.   Hunting parks were stocked with wild beasts for the sport of Kings and planted with every known tree.   The Persians who over-ran Assyria were dazzled and delighted by these Parks and made their own wherever they settled.   Called Pardes (Persian for Park).    Later Pardes was translated into Greek and became Paradise.    Eventually the idea spread into Europe. In Cumbria we have a paradise of our own in Grasmere. "The bosom of the mountains, spreading here into a broad basin, discover in the midst of Grasmere water, its margin is hollowed into small bays with imminences, some of rock, some of turf, that half conceal and vary the figure of the little lake they command a little unsuspected paradise ". Thomas Gray (1716-1771)   Grasmere overlooked by Loughrigg Fell - an unsuspected paradise Another story, with Cumbrian links, of a paradise was composed after a dream in October 1797 by Samuel Tay

England's second largest county, with a population of less than 500,000, is Cumbria.    Here there are displays of every example of garden style and design. Protected by the North Pennines to the East, the Irish Sea to the West and the Lakeland Fells, the counties rural isolation has prevented fashion from dictating gardening trends.   Change for changes sake has never been a priority to the native of Cumbria. The landscape dominates.     Naturalistic planting overrides every horizon, puts a mark on the whole terrain.    The results are spectacular.   Castle Rigg Stone Circle, just East of the town of Keswick, is my favourite Cumbrian landscape.    Created by nature, manipulated by man.   Erected in approximately 3000 BC Castle Rigg is potentially one of the earliest henge monuments in England and was taken into guardianship in 1883.    There are more than 300 stone circles in England, over fifty of them are in Cumbria.   The majority are Bronze Age dating between 2000 and 800 BC. 

Yesterday sunshine, today the snow falls.    I tramp through the blizzard to feed my pest control army -  the birds that inhabit our garden.    Last weekend (29th -31st January 2021) the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds  (RSPB)  held the British Big Garden Birdwatch.    This information has helped increase the understanding of the challenges faced by the nation's wildlife.   Over the past 40 years data has been collected, collated and analysed.      Results have helped identify problems and contributed towards correcting setbacks.  In one of the first surveys the decline of the song thrush in gardens was identified    In 1979 the thrush was the tenth most popular bird in our gardens in 2019 the tuneful thrush was number 20, numbers had declined by 76%.            Birds are not only beautiful but beneficial to the garden too.   They bounce on electricity cables, perch on branches and sleep in the high canopy of trees.   The birds s weep our gardens free from invertebrates