Working in the Storey Gardens during December was restricted by some very cold weather and the Gardens being closed between Christmas and New Year.  The cold weather also affected the tasks we were able to undertake.

See below what we were able to achieve. 

• Resumed the task of weeding the paths.  This had been suspended due to other more urgent work.  However we had to stop the weeding when the ground became frozen.  We will resume this work in January
• Removing ivy in The Tasting Garden.  Most of this work was on the boundary walls and had to be done carefully to avoid pulling out mortar between the stones in the walls.  We also cleared ivy growing over some of the old tree stumps
• Removed a wineberry plant growing along the back wall of The Tasting Garden.
• The Lancaster City Council Grounds Maintenance team cut back the yew hedge by Meeting House Lane.  They also cut the hedge in the Copper Beach Garden and trimmed the small box hedges at the top of The Tasting Garden.
• Weeded the back of the Bee and Butterfly border, removed a briar and planted a white Japanese rose (Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’).
• Weeded the border by the wall with the Quaker Meeting House.
• Tidied up the garden at the back of The Storey opposite Lancaster Castle.  Took out creeping thistles, stinging nettles, coltsfoot, wood avens and lesser willow herb.  Also cut back the clematis Montana that was smothering the hydrangeas.
• Planted more cowslips and some cuttings of fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’.
• Fixed a smart new sign to the compost bins to show which of the three bins is currently to be filled. The laminated sign was produced for us by the Visitor Information Centre.

See below some photographs taken in the Gardens during December.

Last month we reported the arrival of much needed rain. In November we had even more. This plus the reduced periods of daylight meant that we were not able to do as much gardening as we would have liked.

However, we did persevere, and this is what we achieved.

• Continued gathering up fallen leaves.  At the beginning of the month this was in the Copper Beech Garden prior to the Light Up Lancaster festival (to read a report of this and to watch a video, click here).  In The Tasting Garden, we focussed on the paths as we don’t want the rotted leaves to fertilise the weeds in the paths.
• Fiona arranged some more flowers from the gardens for inside The Storey.  This included three dry flower arrangements.
• Collected a substantial amount of well-rotted horse manure.  There was plenty available, and you can see from the photograph in the slideshow below how much more is left for another time.
• Did a lot of autumn pruning and cutting back (e.g. honeysuckle, Michaelmas daisies, buddleia, golden rod, briars, brambles and laurel).  The cut branches and stems had to be bagged up for removal by the Lancaster City Council Grounds Maintenance team.
• Removed runner bean canes for storage over winter.
• Weeded and generally tidied up the Herb area.
• Weeded the bed alongside the ramp up into the Copper Beech garden and planted some violas and cuttings of a ceanothus and a purple hebe.
• Planted some crocus bulbs in the Copper Beech Garden.
• Emptied one of the compost bins.  Filled up another and levelled off with a layer of horse manure and then cardboard.  Put some pots of cuttings on top.
• Potted up two sage plants from long stems that had been pegged down.  Pegged down some more stems.
• Weeded around the soft fruit bushes and dug out some of the old raspberry canes.  Put down some compost.  There is more of this to do.
• Two of our volunteers attended a meeting of the Groundwork Northern Network. The aim is to connect green community spaces across Northern England. More about this a future post.

In October we had much needed rain. This saved us the task of watering but reduced the time we were able to work in the gardens. Also, the wet ground made tasks such as scraping the wildflower areas harder work.

So, this is what we did achieve in the Storey Gardens during October 2022:

• Finished scraping the wildflower areas to almost bare earth and sowing yellow rattle seed.  It is the yellow rattle plants that help to create the wildflower areas.  The roots of the yellow rattle are semi-parasitic feeding on the nutrients in the roots of the more vigorous grasses.  This weakens the grass giving more delicate species of wildflowers the opportunity to grow. We will see the results of our efforts next summer.
• Swept up lots of fallen leaves in both the Copper Beech Garden and The Tasting Garden.  The copper beech leaves are stored in a special area where they can rot down into leaf mould.  It takes a couple of years for this to happen.  We will continue doing this into November.
• Weeded the flower beds and cut back some of the perennials that have finished flowering. An ongoing task.
• Fiona arranged flowers in vases for display in The Storey.
• The Bay: A blueprint for recovery group built us another table out of pallets.  We will use this table in the Plants for Sale area of the Copper Beech Garden.
• Sieved some topsoil for potting up plants.
• Planted crocus and triteleia bulbs.
• Planted cowslips where a patch of ribwort plantain had been removed.
• Removed ivy from part of the wall between The Tasting Garden and the Friends Meeting House.
• Cleared the grass and weeds along the edges of the paths in order to show better the shape of the paths.  Another ongoing task.

See below some photos taken of our gardening volunteers in action during the month.

This is what we did in the Storey Gardens during September 2022:

• Scraping the wildflower areas to almost bare earth and sowing yellow rattle seed.  It is the yellow rattle plants that help to create the wildflower areas.  The roots of the yellow rattle are semi-parasitic feeding on the nutrients in the roots of the more vigorous grasses.  This weakens the grass giving more delicate species of wildflowers the opportunity to grow. There will more of this activity during October.
• Weeding the flower beds especially around the Swan’s Egg pear.  An ongoing task.
• Clearing the grass and weeds along the edges of the paths in order to show better the shape of the paths.  Another ongoing task.
• Taking cuttings and potting up plants to sell at the Heritage Open Days.
• Picking ripe fruit to offer to visitors at the Heritage Open Days.
• Using a hand mower to cut the grass in The Tasting Garden. A border is mowed around the paths and also the non-wildflower grass areas.
• Planting cowslips with The Bay: A blueprint for recovery group in the wildflower areas.
• Cutting back catnip spilling on to the pavement from the garden opposite Lancaster Castle. The Friends of the Storey Gardens maintain this garden as well as the Copper Beech Garden and The Tasting Garden.

See below some photos taken of our gardening volunteers during the month.

This is what we did in the Storey Gardens during August 2022:

• Weeding the flower beds and the circles around the fruit trees.  An ongoing task.
• Clearing the grass and weeds along the edges of the paths in order to show better the shape of the paths.  Another ongoing task.
• During the dry weather, watering seedlings, vegetables and the plants in pots.
• Clearing around the soft fruit area and removing some of the old raspberry canes.
• Moving the Plants for Sale area in the Copper Beech Garden. Click here to view a separate post about this.
• Clearing brambles from the space between the Meeting House Lane wall and the yew hedge. 
• Lowering and thinning the holly and wild briars in the old hedge between the yew hedge and the Bee & Butterfly border to let in more light.
• Assisting the Lancaster City Council staff strim the wildflower areas in The Tasting Garden. Click here to view a separate post about this.
• Planting out Verbena bonariensis seedlings in the Bee & Butterfly border.
• Planting out cowslip seedlings in the lower part of the wildflower meadow area.
• Picking some of the ripe fruit in The Tasting Garden.

Recently we have encountered three interesting species of moth caterpillars in The Tasting Garden.

The species were:

• Cinnabar
• Grey Dagger
• Elephant hawk-moth

See below some photographs of what we found.

On Monday 22 August 2022 the Lancaster City Council Grounds Maintenance team came to strim the wildflower meadow areas in The Tasting Garden.  Some Friends of the Storey Gardens (FOSG) volunteers were also present to help with the raking.

For a successful wildflower meadow it is necessary to cut the grass annually, rake it and remove it. Now the cut grass has been removed, the next task will be for FOSG volunteers to prepare some areas for sowing yellow rattle seeds.

It is the yellow rattle plants that help to create the wildflower areas.  The roots of the yellow rattle are semi-parasitic feeding on the nutrients in the roots of the more vigorous grasses.  This weakens the grass giving more delicate species of wild flowers the opportunity to grow.

So where there was insufficient yellow rattle this year to inhibit the long grass from growing we will scape these areas to almost bare earth before sowing the yellow rattle seeds we harvested during July and August.

Chris Wright was on hand to photograph the action.  The Council staff are in yellow tops and the FOSG volunteers are wearing their green tabards.

A volunteer task over the spring and summer has been moving the Plants for Sale in the Copper Beech Garden. These were located to the left of the steps sitting on the ground and on a stand made by The Bay: A blueprint for recovery.

The plants needed to be moved to the right of the steps. It was a long process as a large mound of soil and rubble had to be removed first. Once this was complete more tables were required to stand the plants on. Two of our volunteers, Ruth and Clive, constructed three tables out of wooden pallets and old fence posts.

See below a few photographs of the mound being cleared and the tables at the final stages of construction.

After removing some weeds, we positioned all the tables, ensured they were level.  The ground here is tarmac that has become uneven.  We also moved a bamboo plant in a pot into this area to hide part of the wall behind (N.B.  The bamboo is not for sale!).

The final step was to move the plants.  See below some photos of the finished work.  I hope you will agree that the area now looks more attractive.

This is what we did in the Storey Gardens during July 2022:

• We finished removing the mound of soil and rubble in the Copper Beech Garden. This was the mound by the steps coming up from the Storey.
• Weeding along the edges of the paths in order to show better the shape of the paths.  This is an ongoing task.
• During the dry weather, watering the fruit and vegetable plants.
• Harvesting the yellow rattle seeds.  The Bay: A blueprint for recovery helped with this (see photograph below). After Lancaster City Council‘s Grounds Maintenance team has cut the grass during August, we will rake the wild flower areas and sow the seeds ready for next year.
• Weeding the flower beds.
• Weeding around the betony plants in the Copper Beech Garden. Click here to view a separate post about this.
• Training the young espalier apple trees against the Georgian wall in The Tasting Garden along bamboo canes (see photograph below).
• Pruning the plum and cherry trees. This must be done in July.
• Summer pruning the apple trees.
• Further thinning of the apple and pear fruits

Yesterday, 27 July 2022, we had a number of gatekeeper butterflies behind the folly in The Tasting Garden.

Searching the Internet for further information revealed that an alternative name for a gatekeeper butterfly is hedge brown and the butterfly in the photo below is female.

Last Saturday, Fiona undertook some training of our younger gardening volunteers.

She showed them the flowers on a mature betony plant.  She then set them to weed around the recently planted betony plants in the Copper Beech Garden having first instructed them as to what were weeds and what could be left.

During the morning there was a visit from a passing holly blue butterfly that landed on a nearby privet leaf.  It obligingly stayed there long enough to be photographed.

At one point Fiona put the pain au chocolat she had bought in the Printroom Café down on the grass and left it for a few minutes.  As she returned she saw a herring gull about to steal it.  She shouted and ran towards it.  The bird released its grip and flew off.  Much laughter ensued.  Chris Wright was on hand with his camera to record Fiona showing Isabelle the dent in the pastry left by the gull’s beak.

This is what we did in the Storey Gardens during June 2022:

• We continued the work of removing the mound of soil and rubble in the Copper Beech Garden. This is the mound by the steps coming up from the Storey.  Not much left.  When this is complete we can move the Plants for Sale to this area.
• Weeding along the edges of the paths in order to show better the shape of the paths.  This is an ongoing task.
• Weeding and mulching the earth rings around the fruit trees.  All the trees have now been weeded and mulched this year.  Also weeded and mulched the espalier apple trees growing against the Georgian wall.
• Clearing brushwood from around one of the sycamore trees.
• Weeding the flower beds.
• Harvesting the bumper cherry crop on the large cherry tree at the top of The Tasting Garden.  Click here to view a separate post about this.
• Thinning the fruit on the apple and pear trees.  Click here to view a separate post about this.

On Tuesday 28 June 2022, a team of gardening volunteers undertook thinning of the fruits on the fruit trees in The Tasting Garden.

As preparation, some of us had watched a video on the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) website about thinning apples and also searched the Internet for further information.

On the day, we found that the plums did not require thinning as there were disappointing numbers of fruits forming.. However there was plenty to do on the apple and pear trees.

The job took about 90 minutes and some photos of the day are provided below.

This year the large cherry tree at the top of The Tasting Garden has had its biggest crop of cherries in living memory. Normally the cherries we have are eaten by the birds before they are ripe for humans.

This year, however, the tree has been smothered in cherries and we and our visitors have enjoyed sampling the fruit.

Chris Wright was present when we picked some of the cherries and has made a short video of us in action. Click on the image below to view the video.

One of our volunteers Candice Chen also took some photographs on the day.

In the past week we have had two sightings of a speckled wood butterfly in the Storey Gardens.

According to Alex Blomfield, sightings of a speckled wood butterfly in Lancaster would have been uncommon 20 years ago. However its range has been extending gradually north and has now reached Scotland.

Alex is a Nature and Wellbeing Officer for The Bay, A blueprint for Recovery. He and his colleagues run a session in the Storey Gardens each Tuesday morning (https://www.thebay.org.uk).