Whittington Castle Green Fair

Looking for somewhere to go on Sunday ? Why not visit the Green fair at Whittington Castle. I will be there with my trusty shave horse along with many other crafts. The weather forcast for the day is currently for a nice sunny day, so come along and say hello.

Sweet Chestnut "Jenga" benches

I was recently commissioned to make a couple of benches which I am calling my "Jenga range". The name came about due to their blocky construction.
(3ft "Jenga" Bench 18in high)

They are completely made from locally sourced Sweet Chestnut, that had been wind blown. I have a good relationship with my local forestry team, who extracted the timber and transported it to the saw mill I use. The  Sweet Chestnut was slabbed into 2 inch planks and several lenghts of 3in x 3in  which I used to construct the benches.

(5ft "Jenga" Bench 18in high)

When I delivered the benches the first thing said was the benches were too nice to go out side and would make a lovely coffee table for the winter months and then would go outside when the weather was nicer. I have another commission for a similar style bench, for which they have requested that I use pyrogrophy  to decorate it with scenes from nature. When I have completed this bench I will show you how it looks.

In the meantime if you would like to commission me for a bench or any other item that I make you can visit my web site were you will find my contact details.

Lawley Primary School Astro Turf Garden

Last year Lawley Primary School had a couple of extra classes built. Once work was finished they were left with an area outside one of the class rooms that was covered with astro turf. A low brick wall surrounded part of the area and a gate was fitted. The school contacted me and asked for ideas to improve the area and make it usable.

After discussing ideas with the staff on what they would like the space to be, a plan was drawn up and I would construct the garden during the summer holidays.

Like all of my other gardens I wanted to use as much locally sourced materials and plants that I could. The raised planters were made from a Poplar tree that was felled in Telford. It was taken to a local saw mill were they planked it up into the various sizes that I wanted. I decided to use Poplar as it is  plentiful and not really used that much. I planned to line each planter with plastic so I was not worried about the wood.

The seating between the planters was made from Sweet Chestnut, that was once again sourced from a woodland in Telford.

In total four raised planters were installed together with a raised storage tower and two seating areas.

In the middle of the garden I planned to make a table come bench from a couple of Sweet Chestnut planks that were secured together. 

Each of the planters were lined with plastic and a layer of gravel was added, this was topped off with a moisture mat before the soil was added.

Once the planters were filled with soil they were planted up with a mixture of hardy garden plants and a selection of native wildflowers.

The raised storage tower was planted up with sedums.

I chose the plants for not only their visual beauty but also if they attracted insects. As with most schools the plants in the school are mainly hardy shrubs and this garden is one of the few places within the school that contains flowers.

To help give the area a bit of definition I added picket fencing that matched the already existing gate.

After securing the Sweet Chestnut table/bench together I cut around the edge of the planks and I think you will agree I ended up with a lovely natural shaped table/bench.The legs were made from the rest of the Sweet Chestnut tree.

Once the table/bench was completed, I moved it into position in the middle of the garden.

A week before the school was to reopen for the new school year, I finished the garden. It was handed over to the staff and to say they were pleased with it would be an understatement. The astro turf area has now become an outside classroom that uses the astro turf to it's advantage, in that it can be used in all weathers. I recently visited the school to meet the class who are mostly going to use the garden, while there we watered the plants and talked about how to care for the area. It was clear that the children enjoyed having this addition to their classroom and I look forward to visiting them again soon.

The Wrekin Wakes

The Wrekin Wakes

(click on poster for larger image)

If you would like to be out and about this Saturday why not visit The Ercall in Telford. With live music, bushcraft skills, bug hunts and greenwood working it will most definately be worth a visit. Don't forget to bring a picnic and I'll see you there.

Secret Garden Dawley C of E School

I have recently completed the final Secret Garden project that I was commissioned to install by Shropshire Wildlife trust in three local Telford schools. The last garden was at Dawley C of E Primary School. Working with the school an area was identified as a place that was to be turned into The Secret Garden.

The area was at the front of the school and was a bed of shrubs that couldn't be used by the children. The area was cleared of the fence, wall and shrubs giving me quite a challenging area to work with. Amazingly once cleared the space looked a lot bigger allowing me to include many of the features that the children wanted.

As with all of the other projects I was determined to use only locally sourced materials. All of the wood was locally sourced, with hazel being the main wood used, together with oak for the habitat tower uprights and poplar for the trays.

Once the trays were added to the towers it was time to fill the with logs from various trees

The whole area was mulched and the planting was added. The plants were chosen for their ability to attract butterflies and insects and the habitat towers were planted up with sedum.

I used sweet chestnut to make four benches, which were dug in and dotted around the garden.

In the hut area the hazel weave was left open so that the climbers that I had planted, would be able to use the hazel to climb over and come next year the hut will be completely covered by various honeysuckles.

This image gives you an idea of the garden as a whole.

At the entrance to the garden more hazel was used to enclose the garden and I made a gate to fit.

At the entrance some of the planters the children had woven were added to finish off a garden that the children and I are mighty pleased with. This has shown that from a disused area of the school a peaceful woodland clearing can be created and will  become an integral part of school life.

Ercall Nature Reserve

I have just spent the most beautiful days working that I can remember for a long time. I know that the two don't go together very often, but on this occasion they did.

Just in case you are wondering where I was, the answer to that is The Ercall. It is a place that I like to spend time in, as it is a a lovely wood and has great diversity. It is a place that geology students would be well familiar with, as it is well know for it's interesting rock structures that date back some 500 million years.

Getting back to why I was there. I was installing a green oak information board on behalf of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust that I had made the previous week.

(information board with rock structures behind)
The reason why it was such a beautiful day, was that even though I was not far from the M54 motorway, the only sounds to be heard was that of bird song and insects, which is not something that happens a lot in today's busy life. So even though it was hard work digging the holes and lugging the oak around I felt quite refreshed once I had finished. The information on the board was all about the geology of The Ercall and you can hear a audio guide by following this link and scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Just as I was wrapping it up for the day I met a group of people from Kent Wildlife Trust who were visiting The Ercall. I was chatting to them when one of the group wanted to know how I was on Lepidoptera. I had to confess that I was OK on butterflies but not to good on moths. Anyway he shown me a picture he had taken and I had no idea what it was, apart from a moth. He took me to where he had found it and I got some pictures of it sitting on some bramble. When I got home I searched the UK Moths site and found it to be a Clouded Magpie who's main food is Wych Elm.

So you can see that by spending a day working in a lovely place, meeting new people and seeing an insect that I haven't seen before certainly put a smile on my face.

Garden at Southall School.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been busy completing various commissions. The latest of these was a garden at Southall School, in Telford. The school has around 150 students who have a range of moderate and complex needs.

The brief for the garden was to provide a place within the school were the students could chill out for a while away from the hustle and bustle. A location was found within the school and after working with the students and teachers a design was formulated.

The area chosen was between four trees and measured around 16ft x 14ft. The first task was to remove the turf from the area, a job some of the students ably assisted with. The removed turf was left at the edges as it would be used later on.

Next job was to split the 7ft lengths of oak into four, as these would be used to create a boundary around the garden.

The oaks posts were sunk in around 2ft and 26 were used. The oak post off to the left side was also 7ft and this was sunk in around 3ft as it was to be the main support for a kicking post.

The turf that was removed was used to form a bank around the base of the posts to help retain the soil for the raised beds. Willow was used for the front of the beds. The turf that remained was turned upside down and placed in the area where the main flower bed would be situated. The oak for the kicking post also turned out to be a handy spot to put my cup of tea and lean my tools against.

Once I had finished weaving the willow and filling the beds with soil, more students came to help with planting them up. They also helped with the mulching.

The garden was nearly finished and I only had the tyres to add to the kicking post and 3 sweet chestnut benches to install. The tyres were sourced from a local motorbike dealer who was only to happy to donate 8 tyres. The kicking post is to be used to help the student release some of their frustrations, then hopefully chill out within the garden.

The students and teachers who were involved in the project are really pleased with how the garden turned out, and can't wait to put it to use. On a personal note I too am pleased with how the whole garden came together. I have once again sourced all the materials for the garden from local sources, and apart form some coach bolts used in the benches, everything else is natural.