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The Volcano - not the one in Iceland

beattie

By beattie

26 comments


I’m making a garden – slowly – out of a patch of very overgrown hillside. I’ve tamed a bit of it, we call it “The Rabbit Garden” as it’s fenced against the little terrors and it’s the one part they can’t get into.

It’s a real treat to have a sunny garden for a change – the last one where we lived for nearly 20 years was almost total shade, so growing irises and other sun loving plants is a super experience.

I realised that the main part of the rabbit garden uses very “tasteful” colours, I think of it as based on pink flowers, though there are lots of crimsons, mauves, white, blue and lilac in the palette as well.

There’s nowhere to put the lively colours – the zingy scarlets, the “poke you in the eye” oranges, “the look-at-me” yellows. The “Volcano Colours”. So I made somewhere. A place where ALL the colours should be “in your face”. I thought of making a version of Dante’s inferno – there’s a corner that slopes down – I could have steps with “Everyone was doing it” and “I thought it would be all right”, “They said no-one would know” and"Sorry" painted on them. But then I thought that that would be rather depressing. :-(

So I made a volcano instead. The idea came to me last autumn – before that dratted one in Iceland raised its head! So I fenced a 12′ × 12′ corner with brushwood screen. That was much more difficult than I had expected, as it’s very floppy and blew around (the garden’s on top of a cliff), so I had to dig holes in the mine waste covered in leaf litter that passes for soil around here, put in bigger, beefier fence posts and make a sketchy post and rail support for it.

That took months of work – what HAD I started!! But those orange Dahlias, and the bright day lilies, and the nasturtiums were calling, so I pressed on.

I finally managed to plant it up about 6 weeks ago. There are climbers on the walls of “the caldera”, including a variety of sweet pea called “Orange Dragon” which has turned out to be scarlet. None of the other climbers are colourful yet, but I’m hoping. The eccremocarpus failed to germinate – oh well! There are Cannas in the corners, scarlet and black double flowered poppies are growing, I hope I don’t blink and miss the flowers.

The bit I’m pleased with is the pool of lava in the bottom of the caldera. Good old Impatiens!

There are scarlet busy lizzies bubbling round a red phormium spurt of lava.

I’m laying steps, trying to enhance the feeling of going downhill, into the bubbling crater…..

Come on the rest of you garish plants! Grow!!

I took some photos at the end of August – and they have been doing their best -

More blog posts by beattie

Next post: The Garden Party at Clarence House



Comments

 

Wow... wonderful work...
a definite for GoYpedia Design Ideas and Sloping Garden Ideas...

sorry.. no GoYpedia Rabbit Garden page ... yet :o)

17 Jul, 2010

 

Thanks TT! I haven't done a blog before & didn't know if anyone would find it!
Wot no GoYpedia Rabbit Gardens! :-) Perhaps it could be more comprehensive - "Coping with Pests" for example. I've got a squirrel problem intermittently, and other people have deer, slugs (well, we have them too..) there must be more.

I'm glad you like it, anyway! :-))))

17 Jul, 2010

 

Well done on your first blog, Beattie...
I edit a GoYpedia category called Pets in the Garden...
...but not Pests in the Garden. ;o) lol.

... but Denise edits a page called Pests so I'll nominate your blog for that ...

17 Jul, 2010

 

Great blog. Very imaginative gardening !

17 Jul, 2010

 

Thank you T - that would be an honour! Glad you like it Cinderella. I'm looking forward to seeing everything when it's grown some more. :-)

17 Jul, 2010

 

Lovely photo`s, you have been very creative and its worked, looking forwards to seeing more.........

17 Jul, 2010

 

Lovely blog and planting

18 Jul, 2010

 

That's a wonderful idea :o) It's going to look fantastic .

18 Jul, 2010

 

Well done Beattie,such a lot of hard work.
After all that eye watering colour on the way down the rabbit garden is so gentle on the eye :)
It will be constantly changing over the years as new ideas pop into your mind.Will look forward to more :)

18 Jul, 2010

 

Like your ideas.

18 Jul, 2010

 

lovely planting and a great first blog :o)

18 Jul, 2010

 

Thanks! I got some bargains at a car boot sale today, and a stall at the market had some "eye-waterers" reduced which I snapped up as well, so the volcano's erupted a bit more. Might take some more pics when they're all in and settled.

18 Jul, 2010

 

What a super novel idea, you must have had some really hard work to do all that designing. It's going to be fabulous! I will be keeping an eye on your progress.

31 Jul, 2010

 

Thanks Bellflower! The really hard work was digging all the post holes - what we have for "soil" is the rocks tipped from a nearby tin mine covered with a layer of leaf litter. I have to use a crowbar to get the rocks out in most places, add compost and hope for the best.

1 Aug, 2010

 

Well it seems to be working Beattie.

1 Aug, 2010

 

Thanks! :-)

1 Aug, 2010

 

This is a great idea ... a volcanic garden ... good luck Beattie will look forward to seeing the flames ... how about red hot pokers ? lol

8 Sep, 2010

 

Slugs and snails just LOVE red hot pokers April violets, and we have world class slugs and snails! I've taken a few more pics recently and I've added them on the end of the blog.

8 Sep, 2010

 

Beattie your new pics are full of colour and the designs are great too! Well done you!

8 Sep, 2010

 

Hi Beattie ..the colours are striking, good choice, dont think Ive ever seen black poppies ... but I want some lol I did have poppies (orange) growing in my garden but they have mysteriously disappeared :( I absolutely adore dahlias but not the beasties inside them and I didnt know red hot pokers attracted them either eeuugghhh lol !!!

13 Sep, 2010

 

Ive been thinking lol have you seen a stag's head sumach in the autumn Beattie ? Its the most stunning shrub I have ever had, I had it removed from my garden as it was completely taking over and since then sooo many little shoots have been appearing all over the garden, the roots are never ending in their battle to survive and show off !!! The colours would look amazing in your volcanic garden and it grows tall and spreads lol ... was just a thought :)

13 Sep, 2010

 

Thanks for your comments and suggestions April Violets. Sorry for the delay in replying, I've been away. We had a sumach in the garden of a house we lived in 25 years ago and I know what you mean about the suckers. Ours was quite old and was a great tree for kids to climb. It had wonderful horizontal branches that even a toddler could use to get off the ground, and 10 year olds could get high into the branches. The volcano is only 12' x 12' so much too small to plant a tree in, so I'll stick with the herbacous stuff. :-)

21 Sep, 2010

 

Love your garden Beattie. We have a squirrel problem here in North Herts, (black as well as grey) but rarely a rabbit. Apparently my alliums keep them away as they don't like the smell of the bulbs! But then deer are also supposed to dislike alliums, and we had a pretty muntjac deer resting at the back of the garden for an hour the other day.

12 Oct, 2010

 

Thank you very much Sheilabub :D We used to live in North Herts too, not that far from Letchworth where there are lots of black squirrels. We have squirrels here too - I saw one today. They've stripped all the bark off a sycamore sapling this summer. It was only a self-seeded one, but I'd placed the gate into the rabbit garden between two sycamore saplings of the same size so it was framed. Now I'm expecting the one on the right in the first photo to die as the bark's all gone, all round, from about 1 foot from the ground to about 5 feet up.

Rabbits LOVE alliums! And I haven't seen any muntjac, but I thought I'd identified some prints in the snow last winter as theirs. My OH's theory is that the prints were from jumping mice -if only!

12 Oct, 2010

 

We have a squirrel problem in town. They visit our Hazel tree in season and plant the nuts all over the garden. Just pulled out lots of mini hazels earlier today. Shot up after the recent heavy showers and couple of hot days. The first nutkins will be doing a nut check any time now..... ready for being Green man's little helper! Glad there are no bunnies so far Beattie. Like the idea of a red area.

17 Jul, 2011

 

Thanks Dorjac. Sorry about your excess hazel seedlings. I find a lot of oak seedlings - I read somewhere that jays bury them, but we have squirrels too, so it could be either in our case.

We had an incursion into the rabbit-free area a little while ago. I was weeding and found plants that had been nibbled... I checked all round the fence & found nowhere where a rabbit could get in. After a few days I spotted a baby rabbit trying to hide behind a bush - I was pootling around quietly & it didn't know I could see it. So & got my OH & son, we propped the gate open, and we flushed it out of its hiding place and out through the gate. Phew. We decided it must have crept under the gate when it was tiny and had got fatter inside. Time for a small modification to the bottom of the gate.

A couple of days later I was weeding again and found that the plants that had been nibbled before were recovering, but new plants had been "got at". So we did a repeat performance, but couldn't find any bunnies and no way in under the fence. My OH did point out a sort of "diggings" under a hydrangea, which I filled in a bit & smoothed the top over with a plank, like icing a cake. I came back a couple of days later & nothing had dug in or out, but even MORE plants were looking "got at". Another search still revealed no culprits, but the next day I found - a LEG! A rabbit leg!! A small rabbit leg!!! So I guess a buzzard or a fox sorted out my problem for me in the end.

The bunny we chased out of the fenced bit of the garden had set up home in the garden outside the fence, but I haven't seen him now for a few days either. But we do have lots of buzzards overhead. Circling, circling ....
Thanks, guys!

17 Jul, 2011

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