One of the joys of working as a gardener, especially in a large garden, is that you get to see a lot of wildlife. In the twelve months that I have been working at the hospice, I have seen frogs, newts, kingfishers and herons (probably why the fish seem to have disappearded), moorhens, buzzards, pheasants and roe deer, to name just a few.

I saw the pheasants today. They are regular visitors to the hospice garden, in the search for food. We have numerous bird feeders outside the patients rooms, which give a huge amount of pleasure to the patients and their families. When you are stuck inside due to ill health it can be very frustrating. Watching the birds feeding outside your bedroom window is very relaxing and therapeutic. We get various tits and finches feeding from the bird stations. They’re messy eaters, leaving seed all over the flower beds. Some of these germinate into various grasses and other plants (yes I know we should probably pay more and get the stuff that won’t germinate), but a lot of the seed on the ground is eaten by the pheasants, or grey squirrels. Earlier in the year, there were only two pheasants. But they had chicks, and now there are five. This afternoon they were all present, hunting for seed for well over an hour. At one point I noticed them chilling out, the male on the ground and two of the now big chicks stood on a picnic table. I had to get my camera from my campervan for a photoshoot, and luckily they were still there on my return.

The hospice is situated next to Amberswood Common , which is 160 hectares of former open cast mines and landfill sites. It is now a nature reserve and is a mix of woodland, grasslands and marshes. There are also ponds of various sizes, known as the Wigan Flashes. Amberswood is home to much wildlife, including the rare Willow Tit. Wigan is home to 10% of the UK’s willow tit population. A patient said that they had seen one in the garden earlier in the year, but I cannot confirm that. Something I can confirm though is the presence of roe deer, because I saw them just before Christmas last year. I like to think that it was Ruddolf and friends checking out the hospice. They were very nervous, but I did manage to get a very poor photo of one of them.

Patients regularly see the deer in the gardens very early in the morning, before I arrive at work. Occassionally the patients come up to me to tell me of their sighting. They are always very excited, and rightly so.

It is important that we encourage wildlife to our gardens. At the hospice we are developing a new area in the garden, which is going to be called The Amberswood Garden. It looks out onto the common and is going to consist of mainly wildflowers. These will hopefully encourage many insects and other wildlife.

In just over two weeks time we are opening our gardens to the public. So if anyone would like to visit, you’d be more than welcome. They are open on Sunday 10th September 10am – 4pm. It would be lovely to see you then. In the meantime, I have a lot of weeding to do!