More about the Magic

When I first thought about what mattered to me in my Garden, I realised that planting with a reason went beyond the ‘because I like it’ even if that’s the first consideration. I consider my Garden a place of healing & my sanctuary & so it seemed appropriate to include plants that have herbal or medical uses or are associated with magical protection. Besides the rowan tree, protection comes from my oaks, holly, the apples & ivy in the garden & a slow growing yew.

Hazel is imbued with wisdom and inspiration. There are more than the two entwined in my arch in the garden. Last year there was a dunnock nest within the arch.

I am conscious that the trees will out grow their homes. This is particularly true for my two oaks -one ‘Sessile’ the other “English’ - neither is very big but I’m conscious that the potted one in particular will need rehoming soon.. Oaks are important symbolically e become associated with longevity, strength, stability, endurance, wisdom, power, justice, and honesty.

Most of the ivy now lives creeping over the arbour seat & the fence behind it. Ivy symbolises fidelity and eternal life - it holds tight & remains evergreen. It is surprisingly resilient.

Ben's Catnip

Ben is famous for his love of catnip & the strength of the fresh stuff that is grown in the Magic Garden. He has a patch of it in the corner under where the massive jasmine grew until Storm Arwen brought it and the fence down. I suspect that most of the catnip there will no longer be there come summer. Fortunately for Ben, I grow it each year from seed. I also have a couple of ‘posh’ versions that I have bought as plants .

Catnip or catmint is Nepeta cataria which is attractive to butterflies as well as cats. The other property of the plant is not particularly relevant to the Magic Garden, especially with the new high fences, is that it is repellant to deer.

Ben has been known to destroy the plants by ‘loving’ them too much so when they are still at the seedling & young plants I cover them with wire hoops to try and stop him from squashing them. This year I am going to try growing silver vine as the other plant type that cats are supposed to respond too - Ben doesn’t seem too impressed with the silvervine toy I bought him but we will see whether ‘fresh’ has more effect

The Rowan Tree in the Magic Garden

I have a rowan tree in the front & back gardens. This is because the rowan tree in Celtic mythology is the Tree of Life, symbolising courage, wisdom & protection, and its meant to keep witches out. Twigs tied together with red string to form a cross used to be sewn into garments as protection for the wearer. The wood must not be cut with a knife. The berries also carry symbols of magic as their base have a little pentagonal star.

I have hung some bird feeders in my rowan tree at the back as its branches are at convenient heights. When the berries are on the trees though it is only a matter of time before the blackbirds ignore the suet & strip the berries. I have in the past taken the berries for myself to make rowan jelly, the traditional accompaniment to venison.

Rowan trees had an important role in Norse mythology too as the first woman was made of its wood - this makes entire sense to me as rowan wood is strong & resilient. Thor had his life saved by a rowan tree when he clung to one of its branches when drowning in the fast flowing waters of the river leading to the Underworld. Rowan trees that grow out of crevices & clefts in rock have the strongest magic associated with them.

In Greek mythology the goddess of youth, Hebe, dispensed rejuvenating ambrosia from a chalice. When demons took the chalice the gods sent an eagle to retrieve it. The eagle was hurt in the fight although ultimately successful, but the blood & feathers that reached the ground sprang into life as the rowan hence its leaves look like feathers.

The Thyme Zone

The sundial & its surrounding seven paving stones & thyme plants are at the centre of the Magic Garden & are the Thyme zone . I usually have to replace at least one thyme plant each summer & judging by how it looks at the moment I think I might need to replace all of them this year.

I have already had to replace the central pentagonal arrangement of solar lights as the combination of Storm Arwen & my / Ben’s clumsiness had seen off three of the five. I love lights in my garden & bought more today to supplement those surviving around the remainder of the garden

Grey January Day

Although we are past the Solstice, the mornings are still dark & the light goes early in the afternoons. Today this was accentuated by the pervading greyness. Ben went out to check on the tree I moved & inspect the area where I plan a new raised bed but didn’t stay out long.

I am always surprised at what I find blooming that shouldn’t be at this time of year - at the moment last year’s Cosmos Purity are surviving in the Magic patch. I have just ordered a new packet of these seeds so maybe I will have more of these scattered through the garden. A much needed wee bit of optimism injected into the day.

Rosemary Beetle

One of the most important elements of the Magic Garden is the lavender. At the moment these are predominantly ‘English’ lavenders although I do have the French type in pots. The reasoning of having a pentagonal arrangement of lavender is to create a silver line pattern. This structural role in the Magic is almost as important as its role in attracting bees & other insects to the garden

Unfortunately I have found increasing numbers of Rosemary beetles (Chrysolina Americana). These are attractive metallic iridescent leaf beetles that feed on the foliage and flowers of rosemary, sage, thyme & lavender & can cause sufficient damage to kill the plants. I have only ever found these on my lavender plants & mainly have operated a policy of toleration. I have though noticed during the last year that one of the more mature plants has been dying back. I plan to do some replacement planting this spring.

Thinking about the Birds

I’ve been pleased over the last few years to have started attracting more birds to the garden with regular visits from long-tailed tis & goldfinches as well as my resident robins, wrens, dunnocks, blackbirds & coal tits. My blue tits originally arrived with the long-tailed tits and seem to be part of their extended family.

Both dunnocks & blackbirds feed at the feeders which is unusual although the dunnocks spend most of their time on the ground. The gooseberry bush, which is one of the first things that I planted in 2004, is a favourite place for the smaller birds. They used to like the jasmine for its cover too. The native hedging that I’ve put in this winter is going to take a while before it can provide as much cover.

Although the feeders are still in place in the rowan tree & the original pole, I have lost my bird table. I have a new set of feeders to put up now which will go into the other side of the Magic Garden.

Back corner

Before I gave up on Magic Garden for the afternoon I did notice in the central square that I have scattered snowdrops coming up. These are in their second year after I had a mega-bulb planting session in October & November 2020. There are other signs of spring with daffodils coming up & unfurling rhubarb. This is a time of year when these small signs are so welcome as a reminder of better times to come & also that there is always more to do in the garden

In the back corner of the Magic Garden today I decided to move one of my apple trees about a foot sideways as where it originally was, it was too close to a magnolia stellata & sambucus nigra (black elderflower). This also meant moving the hedgehog house, currently empty as (the hedgehog is asleep in the blueberry patch by the backdoor. I moved the cat first and then the hedgehog house went into the space where I’d had one of the water butts. I then dug out a hole where I wanted the apple tree to go & put in a scoop of mycorrhizal fungi before digging up the apple tree and moving it across & backfilling the hole from the soil around it.

Tha new configuration means there is a paving stone between the apple tree and the black elder allowing me to step through to where the hedgehog house is now. I planned to do the pruning of my apple trees this afternoon too but it promptly tipped it down with rain so that task was postponed

Recovering after Storm Arwen

The Magic Garden took a battering with Storm Arwen. We’re used to gales living by the North Sea but the wind direction was unusual & the force extreme. I was relieved & lucky that it was just my garden that came to harm.

Tha addition of snow the next day was fortunately just a short-lived flurry and I was blessed with a local firm rapidly able to give me new fences. They do look stark compared to the old weathered ones,, an effect greatened bu the loss of my jasmine & climbing roses

The new fence has given me an opportunity to clear out the back of the garden and so I plan to re-build a raised bed all the way along the back so I can grow more vegetables than I currently manage in my pots & containers

Ben's Magic Garden

The Magic Garden came about in 2014 as I wanted to create a healing space for myself and attract bees to feed my photographic habits. I also wanted a garden full of symbolism & magic. At the centre of the Magic Garden is a wee sundial enclosed in a circle of 7 stones & 7 thymes. There are 4 paths leading out to the four compass points.

Around the Thyme Zone the next layer is the pentagonal arrangement of lavender plants. The other key features of the Magic square are the rowan tree on the outward south corner, the holly in the west & oak in the east. Originally there was a yew in the north corner but it was growing too fast so now the north corner is full of michaelmas daisies representing St Michael fighting off the Devil.

When Bengamaine joined Twitter during the first lockdown of 2020, I started posting pictures of him in the Magic Garden including with the various catnip plants. At the end of 2020 my old shed was replaced with the summerhouse. Ben’s adventures in his Magic Garden with his #Hedgewatch furrends have become part of the #CatsOfTwitter world.