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.