As part of the ongoing improvements to both the Powburn Play Area and the Powburn Community Garden, we’ve bought new bulbs (snowdrops and bluebells). The children of Branton School have kindly agreed to help plant them. Of course, the more helpers we have, then the easier it will be. So, if you’d like to join in we’re meetings as follows (weather permitting!).
Flowering from June -September, this annual perennial can now be seen carpeting the hedge banks and, in particular, the roadside verges along the Breamish Valley. It grows about 30cm tall and, belonging to the Rubiaceae family, it has distinctive whorled leaves. Whorled leaves are three or more leaves all growing from a single node on a stem (compare it to, for example, ‘opposite leaves’ where just two leaves grow opposite each other on a stem). Lady’s bedstraw can have 8-12 leaves growing in a whorl.
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
In addition to the new wall to protect the well in the Powburn Community Garden, further improvements are well underway.
A planter that will be used to create a bed of red roses has been constructed and installed at the Breamish Valley War Memorial. The angular, U-shaped wooden planter was made to the same high standards as the Bolton Road Sign Planters and the Powburn Road Sign Planters by Chris Armit from Newcastleton (Chris constructed the Bolton and Powburn planters).
As we move through Spring, one of the distinctive features of the Crawley Dene landscape is the re-growth of swathes of wild garlic. The pungent smell of garlic drifts through the Dene, carried on light, warm breezes.
The Red Admiral butterfly (scientific name: Vanessa atalanta) is a commonly seen butterfly in gardens and along the Breamish Valley usually from Spring and right through the summer months. However, these timings are extremely variable and, perhaps like me, you’ve seen these distinctively coloured insects nectaring in your garden, along the valley or in My Autumn Dene into early Autumn?
After the Spring colouring of My Green Dene in April this year, the autumn colours have now arrived: sumptuous yellows, reds, deep purples, and golden browns. And, in the right light, you can still see some of those exquisite chocolate shadows under the tree canopies along the disused railway line of Crawley Dene.
Following the installation of the Road Sign Planters in Powburn at the end of June 2020, two well-crafted planters have now been installed in Bolton.
Chris Armit from Newcastleton (in the Scottish borders, near Kielder), who made the six planters for the road signs in Powburn, also made two for Bolton. And yesterday (Saturday 18 July 2020), he delivered and installed them.
Hot on the heels of making Powburn bloom-ing beautiful (see what I did there?) with planting flowers and shrubs in road sign planters – including a donation from Dobbies – May Wilson has been out and about again improving our environment by putting bedding plants into the flower bed just at the entrance to the Plough Inn car park. She was helped by Noreen Birnie and Mary Wealleans.
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