I was talking at work, like you do, about the various permutations of January. Veganuary, of course. So far, I've eaten a Greggs Vegan Steak Slice when I was hungry after going up to the allotment, so I'm participating there. Dry January, but sadly I don't like Seedlip, and not just because I grew up in a rural area where "Seedlip" was a very unpleasant insult, though that doesn't help. Then someone brought up Januhairy and firstly, what a lovely word, just try saying that, and secondly, not shaving body hair sounds actually quite practical for midwinter.
It was with this in the back of my mind that I was reading Rebirding, a lushly textured love story to a wild Britain, potentially reclaimable, rewildable, and MacDonald (the author) was talking about thickets. While lots of birds like to nest in scrub (from robins to yellowhammers), Nightingales need really dense thickets. Nice big thickets of bramble and/or rough scrub trees, ideally "extremely dense, almost impenetrable,thickets of vegetation within two metres of the ground" (That links to "Managing Scrub for Nightingales" sixteen riveting pages, with diagrams and photographs.) And I'd like there to be more Nightingales, wouldn't you?
This brought to mind the times in my life I had seen those dramatic two-metre tall clumps of bush and bramble. I'd seen them on the farm, usually in the context of cutting them down. But I'd also seen them in neglected gardens of city houses, including two I'd lived in -- large messes of bramble, elder, hazel, the usual rubbish, occasionally clear-cut by the landlord, but more often than not left all year round, and sometimes choking the whole garden. In one of the gardens I had cleared the bramble myself, partly. Suddenly I felt guilty. If only I'd let the garden stay Januhairy. If only I'd learned the ways of #loveyourthicket - my birds would surely have thanked me.
If it sounds a bit wild and dirty, that's fine. #loveyourthicket is a bit of a wild and scruffy idea. Don't just leave a bit of your garden slightly wild. Let it sprout with the bad stuff, the thistles and the brambles and the nettles. Let is go lushly brambleicious. Let it be an active menace to your guests and your roses. Your thicket should be a third of your garden (tying back to Hunderwasser's rule of thirds, which stated that a third of the garden should be for native planting, a third for human planting, and a third left entirely wild) but should constantly menace the rest, the guests, your pets. The birds and the bugs will live in this space, the hedgehogs and the foxes. It will be your own private wildlife reserve. It will brim with life. It will be the green backdrop to your outdoor life. Your wilderness.
Of course, like all wildlife reserves, it may need a little light judicious trimming. Managing Scrub for Wildlife recommends some cutting to ensure a mixture of habitats - but also that cut vegetation is reserved, to encourage the insects. So you can head in there - carefully - out of season, to keep your thicket properly thickety. But no need to burn or recycle your trimmings. Just shove them in the thicket - that's what it's for.
It was with this in the back of my mind that I was reading Rebirding, a lushly textured love story to a wild Britain, potentially reclaimable, rewildable, and MacDonald (the author) was talking about thickets. While lots of birds like to nest in scrub (from robins to yellowhammers), Nightingales need really dense thickets. Nice big thickets of bramble and/or rough scrub trees, ideally "extremely dense, almost impenetrable,thickets of vegetation within two metres of the ground" (That links to "Managing Scrub for Nightingales" sixteen riveting pages, with diagrams and photographs.) And I'd like there to be more Nightingales, wouldn't you?
This brought to mind the times in my life I had seen those dramatic two-metre tall clumps of bush and bramble. I'd seen them on the farm, usually in the context of cutting them down. But I'd also seen them in neglected gardens of city houses, including two I'd lived in -- large messes of bramble, elder, hazel, the usual rubbish, occasionally clear-cut by the landlord, but more often than not left all year round, and sometimes choking the whole garden. In one of the gardens I had cleared the bramble myself, partly. Suddenly I felt guilty. If only I'd let the garden stay Januhairy. If only I'd learned the ways of #loveyourthicket - my birds would surely have thanked me.
If it sounds a bit wild and dirty, that's fine. #loveyourthicket is a bit of a wild and scruffy idea. Don't just leave a bit of your garden slightly wild. Let it sprout with the bad stuff, the thistles and the brambles and the nettles. Let is go lushly brambleicious. Let it be an active menace to your guests and your roses. Your thicket should be a third of your garden (tying back to Hunderwasser's rule of thirds, which stated that a third of the garden should be for native planting, a third for human planting, and a third left entirely wild) but should constantly menace the rest, the guests, your pets. The birds and the bugs will live in this space, the hedgehogs and the foxes. It will be your own private wildlife reserve. It will brim with life. It will be the green backdrop to your outdoor life. Your wilderness.
Of course, like all wildlife reserves, it may need a little light judicious trimming. Managing Scrub for Wildlife recommends some cutting to ensure a mixture of habitats - but also that cut vegetation is reserved, to encourage the insects. So you can head in there - carefully - out of season, to keep your thicket properly thickety. But no need to burn or recycle your trimmings. Just shove them in the thicket - that's what it's for.
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