gardening info-redundancy

I haven't blogged for quite a while but I'm starting again unfortunately this particular blog hurts as sadly I'm being made redundant from my job but the Hairygardener will continue blogging passing on my knowledge of plants because that's what I do ,oh yeah if any one knows of groups who would like myself to give a talk on anything to do with Horticulture I'd be grateful and they can contact me through this blog,facebook, twitter, Cheers, Good gardening

gardening info- expansion of snails

Due to the resounding success of my snailery (don't believe it was a success than ask the kids who came to see it over the summer hols ), I have expanded the snailery by this I mean I've got a new state of art more mobile snailery into this you may be able to make out from the photos a new born snail called Briannette who was born to proud parents earlier in the year. Believe me I'm as proud as them as this proves that the snailery actually works,(surely there were no doubters I here you say), well there was a few but thankfully now converts. As I'm writing this, the snails work is coming to an end for this year as soon they will be hibernating and dreaming of helping this gardener make even more compost next year.

gardening info- vols visit

I had a very enjoyable day today on a visit with Landlife Wildflowers volunteers to Jodrell Bank where we were shown around the impressive arboretum by Becky and Phil (horticultural staff) at Jodrell Bank.One of the trees on display if you like was the Paperbark Maple (Acer griseum) a native of Central China. On the other hand a tree a bit closer to home shown to us was the Spindle Tree (Euonymus europaeus) the wood of this was used in the cotton industry to make Spindles. The berries however attract children but are HARMFUL so beware. The bark ,leaves, and fruit are injurious and no animal but the goat will browse upon them,anyway enough of folklore thanks JAN PELL on behalf of everybody for a very informative  day.

gardening info-what plants love best

One of the jobs today,( my actual favourite )was sieving compost which had come out of one of our tumbler composter. You can see from the photos how fine this compost is, ideal for seed sowing. Again this batch was made from kitchen waste,grass clippings, nettles used as activators to kick start the composting process and plant material. It is well worth us gardeners making our own compost as the rewards are worthwhile and if it doesn't go well at first keep at it,it's taking me 150 years to get this batch looking half decent.........................well maybe not that long.