Nature Blog by Jenny Bourne

It has been an eventful, royal and poignant start to the month – May Day, the coronation of King Charles III and the funerals of George Loosemore and Joe Sell

Happy May Day! After a weekend of much welcome warmer weather I’m nursing a sore and aching back from too much vigorous pulling up of dandelions, geums, cleavers, marjoram and other ‘wild plants’ that have over-zealously self-seeded in the plot beds!

We held our annual Plotholders’ Question Time, back to back with a re-run of Seedy Sunday last weekend – we were lucky with warm sun as we were outside. The panellists covered a range of topics from how to grow the best soft fruit to 101 ways of using rhubarb – some delicious suggestions were on offer.

On our 2 April early spring bird walk with Jon Tarlton we saw or heard one or more each of the following around the site:

Thirteen of us turned up for Jon Tarlton’s second Spring Bird Walk of the season. A special shout out to the youngest member of the group who braved the cold and the early 7.00am start, holding out for a good long time before breakfast!