• Birdsong and ghostly owls

    Shirley Boyle

    We hosted a guided walk starting at the garden on Sunday evening a week ago, walking downstream from Flatford to 56 Gates, part way to Manningtree. After a weekend characterised by torrential showers, it was a beautiful sunny evening, with picturesque cloud formations worthy of one of Constable’s masterpieces. Kestrel hoveringThe wind had dropped, and the graceful old buildings of Flatford were reflected in the tranquil surface…

  • The Patter of Tiny Feet

    Liz Cutting

    Yes it’s that time of year when our bird numbers are swelled by broods of youngsters coming to terms with the world. There are a numb er of birds breeding in the Garden, including a pair of blue tits that have successfully raised a family in one of the boxes we’ve put out and they fledged a couple of days ago. Putting up nest boxes in your garden for a variety of different birds, is one of the simple things you can…

  • Mayday!

    Shirley Boyle
    First of May already, difficult to believe. And what a delightful month April was, long, dreamy sunny days, birdsong and lilac-scented air… The plants arrived by the lorry-load, and were decanted by my enthusiastic team of volunteers into a rabbit-proof compound beyond the garden. What an exciting sight, swathes of lovely healthy plants, fresh green ferns, herbaceous perennials bright and full of promise for the season…

  • A Splash of Colour

    Liz Cutting
    With a newly created garden, it’s not always easy to ensure a riot of colour in the initial stages. To help things along, we have enlisted a little help from a remarkably colourful male pheasant. Well in fact there are two and they are often seem strutting around the garden while people are working there. I think they are suitably impressed with things – well they spend plenty of time there. They are melanistic…

  • Spring is sprung.....

    Shirley Boyle
    The last week has really begun to feel like spring, there is real warmth in the sunlight, and the buds of the cherry plums and willows have burst, giving us a taste of what the season has in store....

    A walk in my shirt-sleeves a few mornings ago yielded a blackbird bathing at the edge of Washbrook stream, splashing with abandon, and celandines turning their faces to the morning sun on the bank. Further on a warm sandy…

  • Leaps and bounds!

    Shirley Boyle
    Tea room being demolishedWell, the landscapers have been on site for just over a month now, and the bones of the garden are beginning to take shape. It has certainly come a long way already from the bare site studded with tree stumps and graced by the ruin of the old tea garden, being quietly consumed by a rampant wisteria! The tea room building is gone now, and on the site an area has been cleared and prepared for the barn that will be built…

  • Calm before the storm

    Shirley Boyle
    Drift of snowdrops at the western end of the gardenIt’s morning, not long after sunrise. I wind down the hill from East Bergholt, and disappear down Tunnel Lane to Flatford. Climbing out of the car at the garden, I am struck by the peace of the place, no noise but birdsong... I love the quiet, secret feeling of early morning.  
    The sun is just struggling free of the Constable clouds on the horizon, gilding the tops of the trees above. A greater spotted woodpecker…

  • Breaking new ground in Constable Country

    Shirley Boyle
    I open the gate, step into the garden and look around me with a mixture of excitement and trepidation…. You see, I’m the new Project Officer for the Flatford Wildlife Garden-to-be, and this is my first sight of the garden….
    The garden is in the grip of winter now, the trees a tracery of twigs against the pale sky, the ground bare and scoured after the weeks of snow cover. The old tea garden roof…