I was delighted to be invited as part of the Garden Media Guild to the launch of Jordons 10% Garden Wildlife Challenge at Jimmy's Farm near Ipswich. Bill and Jimmy talked us through Jordons initiative of encouraging gardeners and smallholders to have at least 10% of their garden devoted to wildlife. I totally agree and here at Rushbrooke we are all for it. Not only do we have wildflowers here and as they touched on in the launch to encourage gardeners not to be quite so tidy thus leaving areas for animals and insects to find homes to hibernate in. They talked about using plants to attract butterflies, bees, moths etc and also using lots of autumnal/winter berrying trees or shrubs in your garden for the birds so plenty of Sorbus (Mountain Ash), Crab Apples and Hawthorn. I am a great lover of seedheads and our 20metre Celtic Racetrack houses a collection of Agastache Liquorice Blue with its tall brown flower spikes which not only look fantastic throughout the winter in the snow and frost but provide seeds for wildlife. Our free ranging chickens are also enjoying scratching around in the fallen leaves.
It was fantastic to meet Bill Jordon who started Jordans cereals and I thoroughly enjoyed the tour around Jimmy's Farm which I last visited two years ago when a fantastic violinist I follow - Seth Lakeman was playing at Harvest (If you like 'Raw' dramatic violin playing he's your man!. I also hadn't seen the beautiful barn Jimmy has converted into a stunning restaurant and farm shop. It was a fun and delicious morning and 10% Wildlife Challenge is a good initiative I also back!
