February Snow

Many warning of snow have been given by the weathermen of recent weeks and finally the snow arrived in Oxfordshire this morning. The team spent the first hour clearing and applying rock salt to the paths and steps making the college grounds safe for staff, students and visitors. 

Here are a few photographs showing the beauty of the gardens in the snow.

The Orchard

Red Nandina domestica berries

Teasels

Frozen lake

Pink Cyclamen flowers

Ducks in the snow

Rope, Two Trugs And Five Tonnes Of Soil

The project to rejuvenate the large planters on the Sainsbury Building balconies continued today. The challenge to fill three neglected planters with soil without going through the building via corridors, kitchens and bedrooms to reach them. The answer, ropes and trugs pulling the soil up from the outside. 

Also adding to the challenge, the various changes in levels from where the soil was located. The soil was transported by wheelbarrows up planks that covered the stairs, shovelled in to the trugs and pulled up to the planters.

Working together the gardeners and groundsman completed this challenge by the end of the day, five tonnes of soil in three planters, ready for the next step to reattach the old watering system and covering the soil with a weed suppressing membrane. 

Cutting Down Low Maintenace Ornamental Grasses

 

Two of the borders up at The Canal Building are full of low maintenace, ornamental grasses which have turned to a straw brown in colour and are well past their best display.

This morning they were cut down using the petrol hedge trimmer. The dry stems were then raked up and taken to the compost heaps where they will be mixed in with grass cuttings, leaves, herbaceous material and shredded paper.

Once the two borders had been raked clear a top dressing of wood chip was added. These low maintenance, ornamental grass borders will be visited again this time next year.

Low Maintenance Lavender Planters

Lavender Planter - August 2014

In August 2014 the project to convert the large planters on the Sainsbury Building balconies to low maintenance lavender gardens began. Three of the planters had all the weeds removed, new top soil added, the leaky pipe watering system renewed and reconnected, and weed suppressing membrane placed over the new soil but only one had lavender planted through the membrane and a layer of gravel spread on top. Five months on, the completed planter has matured well so the other two have now been planted up, leaving three left to be completely rejuvenated next week. 

Lavender Planter - January 2015 (5 Months Later)

The plants were positioned in their pots, crosses cut in the membrane sufficient for them to be planted through and the edges folded back. The soil was carefully removed, the lavender placed in the holes and the edges folded back around each plant. A top dressing of gravel was added and the plants watered in. (One of the planters is planted up with Cornus and Bay as well as Lavender)

Coppicing At The Harcourt Arboretum

Coppiced Birch

Processing

Last year Ali spent a training day at The Harcourt Arboretum coppicing birch that is used to make the plant supports for the herbaceous border, see blog entry 26th February 'Coppicing Birch'.

A Cleared Coppice Wood

Today she returned with Callum and Danny to work with the team from the Oxford Botanical Gardens, coppicing enough birch and hazel for this year's plant supports. Coppicing is the repetitive cutting down of multi stemmed trees which then regrow from dormant buds from the stump that is left behind. Using sharp saws they made their way through a small birch wood cutting down young stems, processing them for use as supports and binding them up in groups of ten ready for transporting to Worcester and the Botanics. Once sufficient stems of birch had been cut they moved on to the hazel coppice. All the off cuts of wood from the processing were burnt in a controlled bonfire.

Birch Bundles

Controlled Burning

Goldfinch On A Teasel

Not the best of photographs but it captures a moment Ali has been waiting for, a Goldfinch on a teasel head. The teasels have been planted out in the garden for a few years now but this is the first time a goldfich has been spotted feeding on the tiny seeds in the dry, prickly head. Thank you Mr Beardmore for proving the teasels.

Moving An Apple Tree

In an area that was once the student vegetable garden but is now derelict and awaiting the start of the building of a new lecture theatre, an apple tree is in need of a new home in the college orchard.

Best transplanted when dormant, Ali and Graham carefully dug around the roots hoping to keep as much of the root system as possible. The tree was then taken to the bottom orchard, a large hole dug and some organic matter added to the hole. The tree was then gently placed in to the hole, the removed soil back filled and heeled in around the root ball. A wooden stake was inserted at an angle next to the tree and a tree tie used to secure it to the stake to prevent it moving while the new root system is established. The branches were then pruned back so there will be less for the roots to support when the tree goes in to leaf. Finally it was given a good watering in.