Last week we held an Open Day in aid of Shalom House (our local Pembrokeshire hospice) After a slow start in the morning things picked up and we raised over £100 for the charity. The weather was bright and sunny and the visitors enjoyed the garden and the refreshments. Our next Open Day for a local charity is on 1st June for the St Davids Lifeboat.
From henceforth our garden is to be called The Crystal Garden in reference to its slow but organised growth like that of a crystal and also in reference to some future projects that we have planned here at Golwg yr Ynys. More about that later.
We now have refreshments, tea and coffee and home-made cakes available to garden visitors.
The first bumble-bees have arrived in the garden and we have put up our solitary bee/insect house on the trellis facing the morning sun. On an early visit to Powis Castle the other day we were surprised at how late things were there compared to our own garden. They sadly suffered a very severe winter there in mid-Wales and appear to have lost many shrubs to the frost. Our first visitors to the garden came this week and as the spring unfolds we hope to be inundated.
We are now well past Candlemas (February 2nd, an old quarterday when rural rents were due) and the days are lengthening and the sun is reaching ever greater heights at midday. In sunny sheltered spots in the garden today it reached 16 degrees C. Bulbs are shooting up and early perennials have their first pale green leaves. It is time to think of opening the garden for the season. This year we are going to be open as usual for the National Garden Scheme at weekends and Bank Holidays. In the week we will be open for a range of charities including the Lifeboats.
There is one small bird of the countryside that we rarely see but is instantly recognisable by the meter of its song. Yesterday from the hedgerow we heard the refrain "a little bit of bread and chee-eese" and we both immediately thought yellowhammer. Creeping around a large shrub of willow we spotted him from the upper branches and he obliged us with several more choruses and some fine views of his unmistakeable yellow plumage. It made our day!
Everything is late this year but for the arrival of the chiffchaff. This dear little warbler, a summer visitor, darts around the garden rising distinctively in the air to catch insects. Alternatively he can be heard from a high branch loudly singing his instantly recognisable repetitive chiff-chaff song as a territorial chant prior to the arrival of the females. Small groups of brightly-coloured goldfinches have also been recent visitors to supplement the regular chaffinches, tits and sparrows.
On New Year's Day it snowed for a couple of hours and gave the garden a good covering. Daffodils and snowdrops are pushing up through the snow and the yellow primroses are bravely displaying their joys. The birds are eagerly demolishing the contents of the feeders and lapwing and snipe are visible in the fields around. The covering of snow which persists despite several sunny days allows us to see the tracks of wild animals that cross the grassland part of the garden. We appear to have more than one mole making spoil-heaps in the outer garden.
After an exceedingly successful first year of opening the garden for the National Gardens Scheme in addition to our established openings for the Lifeboats charity, we are very pleased to announce that our total number of visitors for the season was 550. This raised a total of £1406.70 for charity. It was also a fairly encouraging year for the sales of the plants that we grow in the garden which should provide adequate funding for the work in the garden in the forthcoming season 2010. Due much to superb weather in the late May half-term week which coincided with the St.
With the shortening days and worsening weather comes the arrival of many birds to cheer us. Robins follow us as we turn over the soil and tits, sparrows and finches return to the bird-feeders. Enormous flocks of starlings invade the skies and solitary snipe are flushed from ditches as we approach on our walks. The corn stubble has attracted large flocks of young finches and the local population of buzzards can be seen and heard as they gather at dusk over the stand of pine trees at the edge of the moor.
Last weekend we found time to visit Trehylin farm the Pembrokeshire home near Strumble Head of Griff Rhys Jones and the subject of a recent television series. They were having an Open Weekend and Griff was in attendance supporting the Point Project for local youth and signing copies of his latest book on rivers. We had to be early so that we could return to open our garden later that day and in fact we were almost too early as we caught Griff in the kitchen sweeping up from the night before and explaining that his guests were not yet up.
