Happy Christmas 2023!

December 24, 2023 / thehospicegardener / 8 Comments

2023 has been a great year for me, and loads has happened at the hospice. We finally managed to get the gazebo erected. It has been really well received and is regularly used.

We then had the Tatton Flower Show, which was totally amazing! It took me and my volunteers two whole days to plant up our 4m x 1.5m flower bed. In total there were well over 120 plants crammed into it. We were very pleased with the results! A big thank you to Lee Burkhill (the Ninja Gardener) for helping to design it and the four other gardens in BBC NW Tonight’s Community Garden.

Within 15 minutes of the plants arriving on site, bees started to appear in the search for nectar, and butterflies and moths weren’t long behind. During the week I was very excited to see a ‘Silver Y moth’.

As well as wildlife, we also had the public, who were equally great! At least two of us stayed by the garden each day chatting to visitors. We talked about the experience of being at Tatton, the garden we had planted up and lots about the hospice movement. People expressed their gratitude towards hospices, be it Wigan and Leigh, or their local one. It felt very affirming and inspired me to keep focussed on maintaining and improving the gardens.

The weather wasn’t brilliant, but could have been much worse. We had only had one really wet day during the show!

At the end of the show, we spent a day dismantling the garden and taking it back to the hospice where we recreated it. The results are lovely.

On the first day of the show, BBC NW Tonight broadcast their evening news programme from the garden. The public had all left but we were able to stay behind to watch, which was very interesting!

Joan and me with Kay Crewdson (weather presenter) and Roger Johnson (presenter)

On the back of the Tatton Flower Show, BBC NW Tonight have commissioned a whole series of features on the hospice, in fact they are following Wigan and Leigh Hospice every month, for 12 months. So far they have looked at the financial situation that hospices find themselves in (not good – this year W+L Hospice is running at a £1m deficit), the ‘Hospice in Your Home’ team (fantastic) and part of their Christmas show was filmed at out ‘Light For a Life’ ceremony. This year we have had a 35ft tree at the front of the hospice and 93 trees at the back. They look gorgeous, especially when frosty.

Sadly the Rainbow Bridge has had to be taken down as it was getting very rotten and unsafe. In its palce we have a new bridge that has been kindly donated by a local business. It is quite spectacular (large!) and includes a seating area. At the moment it is just grey in colour, but when we get some warmer weather I hope to get it painted in rainbow colours again. When I do I will take some photos of it to share with you.

The other highlight of the year was the result of our entry into NW in Bloom. For the fifth year in a row we were given the highest award… outstanding! We also received the ‘Best Hospice Gardens in the NW Award’. Again, this was very affirming in all we do in the gardens and a good motivator for continuing. I am looking forward to seeing what 2024 brings!

I hope that you are well and have had a good year in your garden. I wish you a very Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2024. If you ever want to visit the hospice gardens, you would be more than welcome! (just message me)

All the best, JIM x

A Busy Couple Of weeks

July 17, 2023July 17, 2023 / thehospicegardener / 7 Comments

The last couple of weeks have been really busy at the hospice. We’ve had a new gazebo erected, the BBC have been to film our gardens, and we’ve planted up our part of the of BBC NW Tonight’s “Northern Star” garden prior to the Tatton Flower Show.

Firstly, the gazebo. It has been a long time coming, but definitely worth the wait. In was donated in memory of Tracy by her family and friends, and made by Woodmines, a local company specialising in bespoke gazebos. It arrived two days before the BBC came to film, and was constructed within the day.

The roof is made from sweet chestnut shingles and looks beautiful from both the outside and the inside.

We, and the family, are delighted with the final product.

The BBC came to film our gardens on the Friday. Thankfully the weather held out and they looked fabulous. We were due to have the weather forecast from the gardens, but due to unforeseen circumstances this sadly wasn’t possible.

Over the last couple of days four of us have been at Tatton planting up our garden, with a bit of guidance from The Ninja Gardener. I was surprised at how hard work it was and how long it took. The flower bed is 4m x 1.5m and contains a tree, two large hydrangas, two chairs and about 120 plants! We enjoyed ourselves and are delighted with the final garden, which I can’t show you until after the show opens.

As you can see from the above photo, it was VERY windy on the Friday and Saturday, which proved somewhat challenging. But thankfully we avoided most of the heavy rain showers. I’m so excited about the show opening!

The other thing that has happened in the midst of the gazebo, filming and Tatton, is that we have been judged as part of NW in Bloom. The two judges came on Wednesday and all seemed to go really well. They were both very impressed and one said that it was definitely the nicest garden that he had judged this year! Here are a few photos from this week.

We have had a lot of evening primrose growing this year. They tend to spread rather a lot, but look great and add some height to the flower beds. Another plant that does this are the Crocosmia ‘lucifer’. They have done really well this year, but my phone’s camera seems to struggle caputuring them (red very saturated).

I’m heading off to work now. Tatton starts this Wednesday (19th July) for RHS members, and is open to the general public from Thursday to Sunday. If you are going, come and say hello to me or my team who will be stationed at the BBC’s Northern Star garden.

RHS Tatton Flower Show

July 1, 2023July 1, 2023 / thehospicegardener / 10 Comments

It is with great excitement that I can announce that Wigan and Leigh Hospice has been asked to be a part of BBC NW Tonight’s show garden at the RHS Tatton Flower Show, which is held between 19th and 23rd July. There are going to be five community groups from the North West involved in the garden, which is being called “The Northern Star”. It has been designed by Lee Burkhill, aka The Ninja Gardener, from Garden Rescue fame. This coming Friday (7th July) BBC NW Tonight are coming to the hospice to film a short piece about the hospice gardens and their importance in helping patients and their families. And Kay Crewdson is going to present the weather from the hospice. I am so excited about it all. It will be lovely to show off our gardens to a wider audience, and especially great to be involved at Tatton, where I will be out of my comfort zone.

A few weeks ago we had a training session at RHS Bridgewater, where we were able to meet Lee and Kay and the other community groups involved.

Me with Lee Burkhill and some of the volunteers from the hospice

In order to get the gardens looking in tip top shape in time for the BBC, we had 23 volunteers come and help out, planting up hundreds of bedding plants kindly donated by Wigan Council. There were two seperate groups that came. The first was the “Early Engagement Team” from Wigan Council.

And the second was from Atlanta Insurance, who have been several times before helping to put up the Christmas trees.

The volunteers were amazing and got so much done in the day. I am very grateful!

This week is going to be exciting for another reason. A year ago the family of a young woman who sadly died at the hospice offered to buy a wooden gazebo for the gardens. It has been a very long process , but I think that it finally going to be put up this week. It has been made by a local company called Woodmines, who have so helpful. This is where it is going to go…

The base has been kindly donated a local company.

Once the gazebo has been put up I will post a photo.

The wildflower garden, which the gazebo is going to be in front of, continues to do well. A new plant that I haven’t seen in it before is Betony. Hopefully it will spread in the coming years.

Another wildflower that I hadn’t seen in the gardens before is common Centuary, a pretty, delicate pink flower.

One flower which we don’t have at the hospice, but which I recently saw in Suffolk whilst on holiday, is Tragopogon porrifolius, or salsify. What a stunning flower, and one which I may try to get growing at the hospice.

Last week Elaine, one of the regular volunteers, noticed a beautiful 6 spot burnet moth amongst the wildflowers. What a beauty!

I spotted another insect recently which caught my eye. A sabre wasp…

Back in March I posted about an ophion wasp which had stung me. The sabre wasp is another member of a group of parasitoid wasps known as the Ichneumons. Ichneumon wasps they lay their eggs in, or near, a living host, usually a caterpillar or other insect larvae. When the eggs hatch, the grubs start to eat the host alive, starting with the muscle tissue and leaving the vital organs till last, thus keeping the host alive for as long as possible. The female sabre wasp lays her eggs on the wood boring larvae of the large horntail wasp. In order to do this, she has to drill a hole into the wood using her long egg laying tail. This may take up to an hour, and if she finds a suitable host, she will lay her eggs on them. As grusome as this is, I was excited to see one as it justifies leaving log piles around the grounds. And it is lovely to see such a diversity of species.

On this note I am going to sign off to start getting ready for the busy week ahead. If you want to see the gardens, they will be on NW Tonight on Friday 7th July at 6.30pm. For those who don’t live in the North West, it can be watched on BBC i-Player from just after 7pm, but it is only available for 24 hours. And it would be lovely to see you at the Tatton Flower Show between the 19th and 23rd July.

Take care, JIM x

Cordyline Carnage

March 24, 2023 / thehospicegardener / 4 Comments

Spring has finally arrived, although there can still be four seasons in one day. Today is warm, windy and wet. Tomorrow might be frosty, calm and dry. Who knows? But what I do know is that the weather has caused a lot of damage to many plants at the hospice this winter. Most of the damage was done in the two week cold snap just before Christmas. All our cordylines have died.

After this photo was taken there was another cold snap, killing off the other cordyline. The frost makes the stem go soft, causing all the leaves to die back. I have cut back the stems, and am waiting a little longer to see if they re-sprout. My fingers are crossed, but I’m not that hopeful. Other plants have been affected too.

This bottlebrush plant was kindly donated to us after it had outgrown the person’s garden. Although a bit leggy, it was doing well in its new home. That was until the frost got to it, causing its bark to split.

Again, I have cut it back to see if it might regrow as the weather warms up. A similar fate occurred with our large hebe hedge. I fear I am going to have to dig it all up. The frosts were so severe it even caused damage to a large area of bamboo. Nearly all the leaves turned brown and dropped off, making it look very unsightly.

With it being bamboo, it will come back, probably with a vengence! I have cut much of it back, but left an area where a group of long tailed tits were hanging out. I love long tailed tits, they are so pretty.

Enough of the destruction that has occurred. Let’s focus a bit more on the positive. I know that I have posted a lot of photos of the Rainbow Bridge, but here’s another, during one of those frosty periods.

It always makes me smile and reminds me that there is always hope. Last week when we were having lots of showers, I saw a real rainbow. I become a kid again when I see a rainbow, getting all giddy!

Whilst weeding and tidying up a flower bed, I looked down into my trug and saw this toad looking up…

The frog and toad spawn has has been laid again in our ponds, although a couple of weeks later than last year. We’ve had some other visitors recently. The local roe deer have been getting in on a regular basis. They seem to be able to jump over our 6ft fence to get in, but are then unable to jump back out again for some reason. One day there were four in. They’re beautiful to watch, but a bit scary when running past you at high speed.

Whilst weeding earlier this week, one of the volunteers found this insect…

None of us were too sure what it was. One of the volunteers was trying to indentify it with an app on their phone, but were unable to get close enough. So I let it climb onto my hand so that she could get a little bit closer. That was a mistake! It turns out that it is an Ophion wasp (or maybe a Netelia wasp – they seem quite hard to tell apart) and it had stung me. Thankfully it didn’t hurt much. They are largely nocturnal, so I suspect we had disturbed it from it’s sleep. They are parasitic wasps in the grizzly business of laying their eggs on, or inside, caterpillars. In the latter case, when the eggs hatch the unfortunate caterpillar, often still alive, is eaten from the inside out. I just hope it didn’t have time to lay it’s eggs in me!

There are many flowers now out around the gardens. There are lots of beautiful daffodils in bloom, but my favourite flower of the moment are the hellebores. We have several varieties growing, showing off their good looks in winter and early spring.

There are also a couple of daphne shrubs which are in bloom. As well as their pretty flowers, they also smell amazing.

I’ve been working throughout the winter at the hospice, and am enjoying the days getting a bit longer. My private gardening jobs are now getting busier as it warms up. So it is time to stop and put my feet up. I’m hoping that soon I can tell you some exciting news about the Tatton Flower Show!

Until then, happy gardening! X

June to November 2022

November 17, 2022 / thehospicegardener / 3 Comments

OK, so I’m a bit of a failure when it comes to blogging! Yet again I haven’t written anything for months. I had a good excuse for June… I did no gardening. I was on holiday with Sam for the first couple of weeks, in the south of France. We got the train down to Carcassonne, which is beautiful. The train journey down was great, but the train journey home was a bit harder work. Whilst travelling from Paris to London on Eurostar, there was a passenger behind us who kept coughing. She announced to everyone that it wasn’t COVID. Lo and behold, three days later I started to feel unwell; tired, feverish, a bit of a cough and generally lousy. I had finally succumbed to the coronavirus and had to take the next two weeks off work. So no gardening in June, and no blog.

After June there were no excuses, other than being very busy and tired. In July we were inspected by NW in Bloom. The day of the inspection was the hottest day of the very hot summer. Due to the dry weather, the council hadn’t been for a couple of weeks to cut the grass. It was looking a bit tatty, so I decided to cut the lawns near the patients rooms prior to the judges visit. By the time they arrived I was very hot and sweaty! The awards ceremony was held in October and for the fourth year in a row we have received the highest award – ‘Outstanding’. I felt very chuffed to be a part of the team who look after the gardens and am extremely grateful to all my volunteers, who have been slowly growing in number. I even have a fellow man in the team now!

We also opened our gardens for the National Garden Scheme in July. We were lucky with the weather and the predicted rain didn’t arrive until mid afternoon, although this did affect our numbers a bit. Those that came seemed to enjoy themselves. Again, the heatwave and dry weather in the run up to the day made it quite challenging. But we did our best and the gardens remained full of colour.

The weather seems to have affected the plants in several ways. Some of our trees dropped many of their leaves in July in an attempt to preserve water. Now that it is so mild in mid November, other trees are still holding onto their leaves. I am still going in having to pick up the next batch that have fallen off. A few weeks ago I noticed that many of the beech leaves had a strange and very hard growth on them. I googled to see what was causing them. It turns out that they are beech leaf galls in which the larva of a midge lives. It doesn’t seem to affect the leaves too badly. The gall falls off in autumn and pupation then takes place within the gall. The midge will emerge next spring and the life cycle starts again.

Other plants are flowering out of season or well beyond the regular season. There is a poppy flowering in November, alongside a blooming achillea and the verbena bonariensis, which just seems to be going on and on this year.

The sunflowers came out very late, but again went on and on. We have only finally taken down the last ones this week. They have been very beautiful and very tall.

The bed in the photo above has been a great success. This time last year it had three hideous pampas grasses in it which I dug out back in February. Now when you drive into the carpark you are greeted with a bed full of colour.

There has been plenty of wildlife this year, but not so many butterflies. I did photography a some back in October, a rather tatty red admiral and a gorgeous comma, both feeding on the verbena.

There have been lots of other insects too.

The greater knapweed did really well in the wildflower garden this year.

Normally I am not so keen on slugs and snails, but this one took my fancy. It’s a white lipped snail travelling up a phormium leaf.

There have also been wild mammals in the garden. There was this litle cutie hanging out in a bag full of leaf mold with it’s sibblings, who had already scarpered by the time my phone was at the ready.

We’ve also had a roe deer in the gardens. I am presuming that it can jump over the fence, but often seems to struggle to get out. Finally, we did see it leap out, but it was back in a couple of weeks later.

This autumn there have been lots of different mushrooms growing in the gardens. Here are a selection.

I enjoy watching the seasons move from one to the next. We are almost in winter, but not quite. I continue picking up the leaves (nearly all done) and I have just finished putting up 87 Christmas trees in the grounds for the patients to look at over Christmas. Once they are lit I will try to pust some photos.

Until next time, take care.

Jim, The Hospice Gardener X