bees – Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

The View from my Window

The small patio is shielded from the sun, in a south facing garden, by an Acer palmatum ‘Katsura’. The tree caught my eye while on a trip to Kent. Must have one of those I thought. The sapling was bought and is now well mature. Some of the limbs show signs of viral attack, but it soldiers on.

Early to leaf, in February, the leaves are green and red. It produces sap, which attracts the aphids. With the aphids, the small birds make regular visits to eat the goodies. The birds include Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Robin and Goldfinches. The Dunnocks also pay a visit, foraging in the growth below, together with a variety of bees including the distinctive yellow faced variety. Soon after, it will produce a vast amount of blossom, and after that very small sycamore-like seeds. In time and onto autumn, the leaves go from yellow to orange and then fall, covering all the surrounding ground.

A tale of two gardens

One very warm and sunny Sunday in June, CABAHS members were invited to come and visit our member Juli’s garden in Plumstead – which she generously opened specially for us, in aid of the Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice. Juli’s garden is in the middle of a dense housing estate, but it is pretty easy to spot by the large banana tree sprouting over the top of her wall. Her garden beautifully demonstrates what can be done in a small space with some greenery, lots of care, and a sense of humour!

After the banana, the first things you notice are the Bee Lido and the fish pond, and I also liked the healthy looking lavender – which was a Charlton House reject that has been nursed back to full flower. Juli’s plant range includes her beloved roses, many perennials and even fruit trees. There are so many fun details, it takes much longer to properly appreciate than you would expect!

Thought for wildlife is everywhere in this garden, including Juli’s collection of friendly Bunnies – who were the stars at our Easter “Bunnies in the Beds” event.

Visit to Community Garden in Open Gardens Festival 2023

Given the hot weather for this year’s Festival and that this is our third, we focused on Gardens we haven’t seen before. So this afternoon we set off to Christchurch School Community Garden to see what was going on there. And we were pleased. It demonstrates what can be done with a pocket of land, off a busy main road, with some funding and lots of enthusiasm and knowledge – and effort. The description on the Festival brochure referred to raised beds for food crops, a community orchard, ornamental borders, a Forest School and a covered meeting hub. They also have a hugelkultur bed, a bee hive, a wildlife pond – and they were selling goji berry plants!

Gardening for the Bees

My husband ( a beekeeper) recently treated me to a visit to the National Honey Show, which is sort of like going to RHS Chelsea if you are a beekeeper. Apart from an enormous number of jars of honey, there were talks available, and we attended one from Dr Nick Tew on “The role of gardens in supporting Insect Pollinators”. It was a really good talk, with scientific research explained in easy terms.

A few slides stood out for me – for instance, the time period for flowering plants in a garden, compared with a hedgerow or pasture. Most gardeners love to have something in flower all through the year, so although the volume of nectar/pollen in a garden might not be as high as in a meadow or hedgerow in full swing, it is available for a much longer time span. So in fact such a garden is more useful to insects.

There are some downsides to a garden – Nick calls it “horticultural bling”, a lovely phrase which unfortunately can be applied to a few parts of my garden (but luckily not many!)

A version of the talk is on Youtube, the link is below, it’s a good watch.

The Show was held at Sandown Park racecourse, and it was huge. It reminded me of a Horticultural Show in that it not only had classes for honey, but also eg craft and baking classes. The sunflowers shown here are made of wax!

I bought some sparkling mead from one of the stalls, took down a recipe for “Gin & Tonic Honey cake” and bought a couple of seed packets to convert my lawn into a meadow at some point in my dreams. The final stall we visited worried me a little, as it is giving my husband ideas!

YouTube talk if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdLvAxNuEms

Kathy

OPG Diary – September /October

September started off with the tail end of The Drought and as it became wetter the Volunteers were very grateful to get back to some proper gardening. The great news is that we hardly lost any plants at all.

Old Pond Garden looking towards Long Border in rain — Volunteers on Tea Break

Old Pond Garden towards House — Volunteers on Tea Break

The Peace Garden has benefited from our attention, with the last of the annoying stones on the path edges being removed, and work on the shrubs and climbers along the walls making them look much more defined and trim.

Removing stones in the Peace Garden — Removing the last loose stones, saving the lawn mower!

In the Old Pond Garden, many perennials went to seed earlier than usual, due to the drought, but the seedheads are quite spectacular.

The Volunteers were thrilled to receive a donation of jars of honey from the Charlton House Beekeepers. The bees had a bumper year, partly due to our lovely gardens. To stop any squabbling, we held a raffle to decide who got a jar and the happy winners are shown here:

Volunteers with Honey — Thank you for the lovely Honey!

OPG diary – October 2021

A rainy start to October! Autumnal tones everywhere now. The bees are still out in force though.

Our Halloween Spooky Spiders Trail went down well with Charlton House Explorers this half term. There were 10 spooks to find around the garden, and it kept them all busy after their Ghosts and Gargoyles session in the Long Gallery. We had 140 children through the gardens over the two days, phew. Great fun, although we didn’t do much gardening this week!

Young Explorers on the Charlton House gardens 'Spooky Spiders Trail', Halloween 2021

CABAHS volunteers present the Charlton House gardens 'Spooky Spiders Trail', Halloween 2021

Members’ gardens, July 2021

CABAHS member Jean R thinks her garden is out of control! She says:

I’m a true amateur gardener and have watched aghast as nasturtiums, chinese lanterns and the leaf cutting bee have almost destroyed all my carefully laid out spring plans! In fact I love those bees, but do they really need so much leaf to line their nests? I also love nasturtiums and Chinese lanterns, but how dare they spread so prolifically!

Then to cap it all, intrepid visitors searching for my garden path find that only a sideways crab-like advance is possible to reach my front door! You can spot my front garden in Vanbrugh Park if you are passing by…….

Jean’s front garden path (somewhere in there)

An unusual shrub in Kathy’s garden – this is Sphaeralcea (Globe Mallow) Newleaze Coral. A real toughie, it loves this dry sunny weather.

This is Angela’s pretty Monarda (bee balm), the photo doesn’t really show it but Angela says it is now 5 feet tall!

Rambling Rosie looking great in Carolyn’s garden. Love the name, really suits it!

OPG diary – May 2021

Early May
The rainiest May for years, wet volunteers still working away. (They come for the Lotus biscuits at half time…). The gravel garden looks rather good in the rain actually. But for heaven’s sake when is that Alianthus (Tree of Heaven) going to come into leaf? It’s almost as slow as the Mulberry.

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Bird bath being used, and our lovely Cotinus (Smoke Bush) is coming out.

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Sunday 30 May
Our Plant Sale and Community Day was a great success – all those pleas were answered and the sun did come out. Thank you so much to everyone who donated plants or gave their time on the day to help. This was the biggest plant sale CABAHS has ever held, and has raised over £950 for the Hospice, plus more funds to continue the garden revival.

Plant sale and community day in Charlton House gardens, May 2021 — The stalls all set up, selling about to start!

OPG diary – April 2021

The gardens opened to the public on18 April for our ‘Bunnies in the Beds’ Easter trail, and a plant sale in the Long Borders. We were very impressed to receive a visit from keen gardener, the Mayor of Greenwich, Linda Bird. The gardens are now open Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm.

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: Mayor Greenwich, plant sales stall.

More pics below: top right is Viv in front of her re-located driveway, now the gravel garden. And the bottom left picture is of Bunny number 4, Borage, or Panic Bunny as he is better known since we discovered rather late that there was no Borage in the Peace Garden, so we had to hastily plant some!

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: gravel garden, Bunnies in the Beds Easter trail, CABAHS volunteers

Flowers out! And thirsty bees out too.

Charlton House gardens, April 2021: bees, Epimedium, Narcissus, blossom

OPG diary – February to July 2020

Remember the central lavender bed? Here it is in June 2020

Central lavender bed, Old Pond Garden, June 2020

Lavender bed in the Old Pond Garden, July 2020 — We discover more pathway!
The lavender has stolen at least 2 feet

CABAHS volunteer in the Old Pond Garden, July 2020 — We discover more pathway!
The lavender has stolen at least 2 feet

Central bed, Old Pond Garden, July 2020 — We are rather proud of this! All ready for plants.

Back in June, we met Vlad the Beekeeper, who looks after the hives on the roof of Charlton House. He gave us some great advice about what flowers his bees like. You can download the recommended list of bee-friendly plants here: BestPlantsForBeesMatrix