Gardener’s Cuttings
Time to hear the nightingale This is the time of the year to celebrate the song of the nightingale, says Cornwall’s Wildlife Trusts. In late May and early June special early morning and evening guided walks are held by The Wildlife Trusts to help visitors capture the beauty of its song. Nightingales arrive in April and sing until late May and early June. They leave between July and September and can be heard singing throughout the day, as well as at night.
Paul Wilkinson, head of Living Landscape at The Wildlife Trusts, said: “This secretive bird’s song is of such high quality few other species can match. Close your eyes and be spellbound by the nightingale’s call. Hearing it give its all is good for the soul!”
Take a walk on the wild side at Rosemoor
To coincide with International Biodiversity Day on 22 May the RHS is launching summer wildlife trails at its gardens to encourage the public to get out there identifying, monitoring, conserving and celebrating the variety of living things in gardens. Visitors to Rosemoor in Devon will be able to see things that the RHS is doing to attract and nurture biodiversity, with plenty of ideas that they can take home to use in their own gardens. circular trail will be mapped out and visitors can take the self-guided tour at their leisure, making it a great way to see the gardens. Points of interest include ponds, compost heaps, log piles and hedges, which provide varied habitats for an array of wildlife. Visitors can learn how to make a success of home composting and how to make bug homes. And promoting biodiversity doesn’t have to be hard work – having even a small, low-maintenance area where you don’t cut the grass allows wild flowers to grow.
Rosemoor is
specially known for its dormice and bats. The trails will run throughout the summer at, until the end of August.
www.rhs.org.uk/gardens
Katy Bryce and Adam Weismann – a love of natural building materials Love of natural building wins couple Duke’s award
Apart from being a significant date in the Cornish gardening calendar. The Royal Cornwall Show held in Wadebridge from 10th to 12th June will honour a couple who are making a real name for themselves working with natural building materials.
Katy Bryce and Adam Weismann, who live near Manaccan, Helston, set up their business in 2001. It now employs seven people and there is expansion ahead. They will receive this year’s Duke of Cornwall’s Award at the show.
It was created to generate opportunities for young people to learn traditional rural skills.
Adam and Katy’s firm was originally called Cob in Cornwall but has now been re-launched as Clayworks. Their enthusiasm for natural building methods and products led to them meeting on an apprenticeship in America.
As well as falling in love, they got involved in practical studies, using earth, stone and wood for construction projects.
Next stage was to move to Cornwall as apprentices on a project at Manaccan. And they never went away.
Adam, from the Chicago area of the US, said: “We set up in cob restoration and lime plastering. That’s where the market was in the beginning. And I guess the more we did it, the more we coincided with the raised awareness of ecobuilding using traditional techniques and materials.”
Currently the Clayworks team is working on “a number of larger, challenging projects” and has just finished work on a scheme involving five 17th century barns.
They have run courses and have now launched their new venture - Setting up a new factory in west Cornwall producing unfired clay blocks, basic clay plasters and pigmented top coat clay plasters.
www.royalcornwall.co.uk Country Gardener 5
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