The site they worked on was initially overgrown with tall herbs and brash, which they strimmed and tidied up efficiently. The strimming work carried on all week in other areas of the Garden. The teams also stacked the brash to make new habitat piles in the area. One of the advantages of the site chosen, is that there is a large holly hedge nearby, which provides a refuge for the small woodland birds to retreat to after feeding.
Whilst they were waiting for the materials for the bird viewing hides to be ordered, the team kindly took on a wide range of other jobs in the Garden, which helped us immensely. These included a major project in the Batty Langley Kitchen Garden, edging and weeding round borders, and planting out late summer vegetables such as squashes, and pumpkins. They also lifted three borders of box hedging in the Lower Wilderness area, as part of our programme to improve access to viewing the snowdrop & hellebore collection in the deciduous borders, and helped to prepare the Dahlia border in the Best Garden. On the final day the bird hides were put in place, complete with feeders, and a new compost viewing area with a Perspex screen was constructed. This should help children and families to observe the insects, invertebrates, amphibians and small mammals, which will hopefully start to use this habitat in the future.
Bird viewing Hide, showing the bird viewing windows,
set at different heights, for adults, children & disabled visitors
New compost viewing habitat, with Perspex screen
for youngsters and visitors to observe the wildlife making
use of these areas in the Garden
The Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens Trust is very grateful to Jaguar Land Rover for all the excellent work carried out to achieve this project, which will in time become a great new feature in the Garden, as the birds & wildlife start to make use of this habitat and the feeding stations.
We also appreciated all the additional work in the Garden which the team carried out, throughout their project at the Garden.
Chris Hitchcock
Head Gardener
