Adam's Garden

In these parts bracken is generally regarded as a nuisance, covering much of the marginal farmland if left unchecked and taking hold of higher moorland completely. Cattle can go down with fatal bracken poisoning when pickings are lean and they resort to eating ferns. Ornamental native species like foxgloves are crowded out by the rapidly unfurling fronds in summer and the dead foliage forms a dense decaying carpet in autumn and winter. Like any dominant plant in the landscape it is regarded as a pernicious weed.

However, in isolation the plants can look incredibly beautiful and grow to a large size. Because they usually grow en masse the individual plants are lost amongst their peers and rarely stand out but when grown as part of a garden they can be controlled and shown at their best. On part of the farm there is a stream cascading through granite boulders, descending quite steeply for about fifty yards. The top half is shaded by ash trees and among the water irises and astilbe there are a few large native ferns, left to reach a good size in ample space. The effect is further enhanced when, after heavy rain, the stream is in full spate and the ferns stand firm as the water roars between the stones beneath. Sitting above the water they are out of harm's way, unlike the irises which are rather exposed to the torrent and occasionally battered down and part covered in gravel and silt carried down from higher up the valley.

For the past couple of weeks I have been working on a project at the back of the farmhouse to repair an old granite wall. The house is built into the side of a steep hill and a ramshackle retaining wall a few feet from the back of the house keeps the earth from tumbling down on to the building itself. It is quite old and no mortar was used in the construction. Consequently the joints between the stones had over time filled with earth and in some cases stones had become dislodged altogether. Ivy and ferns love such conditions and periodically the task of clearing these out was necessary to prevent complete dilapidation. This has always been a stop-gap measure and this time I decided to clear it up once and for all by repointing along the entire length with cement based mortar.

A further complication was the old post and rail fence above acting as a trap for silt washed down from the sloping paddock above, causing a large build-up of fertile topsoil on top of the wall either side of the fence. This topsoil was a magnet for weeds and even some small trees all of which had to be disposed of after the fence was taken out. The amount of good topsoil that came out was quite remarkable and explained why the slab path alongside the fence undulated so. With the path lifted and the fence gone, and every vestige of greenery taken away there was a blank canvas. Having said that the finished article will not look a great deal different to what was there first, although I will have to put in a drain to carry away surface water because the area either side of and under the fence will be hard standing - a measure designed to obviate weeding. I have almost finished pointing the wall, a major task in itself because it took so long to prepare the ground.

Scraping out the joints of the wall took an age, partly because of the irregular shapes of the stones and partly on account of the numerous roots. After manually raking them out and clearing off moss with a wire brush a high pressure hose did a good job of blasting out the remaining loose soil and cleaning the stones. This may sound more like an article about DIY but there is a point to all this from the gardeners perspective and I have now come to it! As well as inserting a number of short lengths of pipe to act as conduits for water trapped behind the now impenetrable wall I have left several holes for plants. As ferns had been growing so well here I thought it might be a good idea to make the wall into a fernery and I shall seek out some good varieties.

A good collection of native species would obviously thrive well but may be rather boring considering the number that grow elsewhere on the farm so I may just go for some more exotic New Zealand or South American varieties I'll see how much money is left over after the work has been completed.

Whatever decision is reached I can't wait until the work is done and I can relax with a drink and admire the new plants, which is what I would recommend to all gardeners wherever they are!

You can find more articles in the archive under Soiled Hands.

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