ponds – Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

Centre for Wildlife Gardening

28 Marsden Road SE15 4EE, Open Sunday to Thursday inclusive, 10.30 to 16.30. No charge

We are members of the London Wildlife Trust, which runs the Centre for Wildlife Gardening (CWG), but it was word-of-mouth from a volunteer at Christchurch Community Garden that made us aware. We visited on London Marathon Day, passing through a crowded Blackheath Station on our way to Peckham Rye Station.

Marsden Road itself is remarkable: its houses all along have designer ironwork gates & railings on wildlife themes, and each lamppost has a ‘squirrel’ high above. These, and the wildlife-themed iron gates to CWG, were designed by Heather Burrell: bollards at the entrance and within were designed by Antony Gormley: a gable-end has a large mural of a Goshawk.

Pat’s Jobs for April

1. Prune hardy fuchsias now both in pots and in the ground to promote new growth and to prevent the plants from becoming too woody.

2. Plant out pot grown sweet peas now making sure to pinch out the shoots to promote bushy plants. You can also sow directly in the ground now if you didn’t sow earlier but watch out for slugs munching new seedlings.

3. Someone said the other day that they hadn’t cut back their clematis but I don’t think its too late as the growth on them is phenomenal. It just means they will flower a bit later but then that extends the season.

Pat's unpruned clematis already at the top of the arch! — Pat’s unpruned clematis already at the top of the arch!

Pat's cosmos seedlings - germinated in under a week — Pat’s unpruned clematis already at the top of the arch!

February 2024 Talk about Working in Greenwich Park

Tom Stanier, the Horticultural Team Lead at Greenwich Park, gave a talk about his life as a gardener at the Park and a behind-the-scenes look at working there in these challenging times. He described how he came into gardening, his training and work at the Park and some of the Park infrastructure, policies and projects. It was great to hear from someone with hands-on experience there.

He said he felt a connection with Charlton House as he had been married there in 2018. His interest in gardening really took off in 2017 when he moved into a flat in Lewisham with his partner and began to grow plants on his balcony and indoors. He had a radical rethink of his life in 2018. Having a child particularly refocused his life on his choice of a future career. Having been in retail for ten years, he decided he wanted to work out of doors and do something flexible and tangible. He successfully applied for the 2 year Royal Parks Apprenticeship Scheme which is part practical and part college-based course and chose to work at Greenwich Park as he thought it was more interesting. He completed an RHS Certificate and has since taken over leadership of the Horticultural Team at the Park, working closely with the head gardener.

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.

My other (sort of) walled garden

In a previous life when I worked for garden charity Thrive*, I was involved in replanting the Old English Garden in Battersea Park and last week I and a former colleague went back to see how it is looking now, some 10 years later.

Although it has a similar feel and look to the Old Pond Garden, it is only walled on one side, but it does still have a large pond in the middle, which is full of water lilies in the summer – spot the heron !

Pond in Old English Garden in Battersea Park

Much of the funding was provided by Jo Malone London (JML) and many of the plants are those used in their fragrances including lilies, rhubarb, pomegranate, jasmine and, of course, roses. Some replanting has been done in the intervening period and it continues to be well maintained and supported by JML, volunteers and Thrive gardeners.

Is today the day?

I have had a worrying time recently, and have bored my husband half to death with my constant observations along the lines of “I wonder if one has arrived yet?” and “Perhaps today is the day”.

As we are awaiting the appearance of our first grandchild, you might think that’s the reason for my anxiety? Well of course that’s very important, but in fact the problem has been that for the first time in 30 years, the toads have not arrived in our pond.

I have been pondering (ha! pond-ering) whether it is the new fence that has stopped them or whether I have been too tidy in the shrubbery and whether I should not have got rid of the overgrown irises at the pond edges. To try to make amends, I have crawled along the new fence and created nice deep tunnels underneath (to the interest of my two terriers and the annoyance of my husband, who has no engineering knowledge and thinks this will weaken his expensive fence).

My neighbours on the other side have known me for a long time, so they have already assured me they will put any lost toads they find through the hole by our shed so they can find their way home.

Toads can travel up to 2 km to come back to the pond they grew up in to spawn, so imagine how many fences and what obstacles we humans put in their way on that journey? They live about 10-12 years, so in theory you should get more coming back each year. I am afraid my little band has been dwindling in recent years, and I worry that the new fence may just make them give up and change their permanent address to a pond down the road.

Luckily, I am able to tell you that today there has been movement in the pond! It’s not heaving, like Monty’s pond on Gardeners World, but there are definitely a few happy toads in there, making their “chirrup” noises and sounding pleased (relieved?) to be home. No spawn yet, but I expect a happy ending to this story, any day now.

https://videopress.com/v/ACbGWR3M?preloadContent=metadata

Kathy

Pond life

There is something very soothing to the soul to live near water, and if you can’t get a sea view in London then at least you can sit by a pond. (By this I mean a wildlife pond, not some unnatural Koi fishpond, you won’t get much wildlife around that!) I grew up with a mother who was a primary school teacher and every Spring we had to go frog spawn hunting so that she could teach the cycle of life to a new generation of pupils. It’s actually a rather horrid lesson, when you think of the thousands of tadpoles and how many actually make it to Froghood. Everything eats tadpoles! I used to spend my days trying to save them from newts and blackbirds etc., only to find they did something stupid like sunbathe on a lily leaf until they frizzled up.

Pond Tadpoles

Hooking duckweed etc out of my pond was a lengthy process as I had to help each little black blob back into the water. I have great respect for Gardeners World and Monty, but he’s absolutely wrong when he says to just “leave the weeds on the side of the pond for a while and the creatures will crawl back in”. They jolly well don’t, and you go back to find these poor little Ramshorn snails and water slaters gasping away on the bank, or worse, idiotically crawling away from the pond. The only things that seem to be able to wriggle back in are leeches and diving beetle larvae (– which also eat tadpoles…).

Anyway, I am now older and wiser, or perhaps just have better things to do. We have so many toads and frogs that come back to our 30 year old pond every year that it has dawned on me nature carries on working without needing my help. I do still net the pond at mating time when the Heron and Crows come down for party snacks, and I don’t mow near the pond in July when the froglets are leaving to make their way in the Big Wide World, after one traumatic year.. It seems to work!

Apparently 1 in 7 of us now have a garden pond, which act as a network for wildlife since so many agricultural ones have gone. Our recent survey of CABAHS members showed that 32% have a pond, so we are much better than the average! Apparently in 1890 there were 1.25 million ponds in the UK, a mix of natural ponds and dew ponds created by farmers for livestock. About 70% of those have been lost or are polluted with fertiliser and pesticide run-off. Or salty runoff from de-icing the roads. So garden wildlife ponds are increasingly important, not to mention a whole lot of fun!

Here are some pictures of mine, trying to turn itself into a bog garden at this time of year, but very full of life.

pond

Kathy A