26th February 2015

Team: Woody
Weather: Another wet miserable day.

Med Terrace. 

Woody tends to the leave fallen leaves on the beds, but when there is too much of a build up around the base of plants they do get cleared around those areas, so that plants are not constricted or suffer from them. We raked up all the leaves though that was about 3ft into the beds to make the bed appear 'tidier'. This puzzled me a little as I wasn't sure how clearing the leaves up from the edge up to this point would help allude to this.

Photo 1: the Acacias on the Australian and New Zealand Terraces were flowering. The one pictured is Acacia pravissima, I have never seen this in flower before and one of the biggest ones that I have seen. Acacia baileyana is a more vibrant yellow.
The big English oak trees that these terraces were built are very unyielding and incongruous to the scene. Oak leaves amongst, fallen onto and into plants from New Zealand and Australia seemed a bit strange. One couldn't help but think that the Eucalyptus nearby should be the big trees around these plants. Many of them fell down last winter because of the storms and also because it is not possible to plant so deeply in Battleston Hill. It's hard to imagine that this area with the busy noisy road would ever be a spot that people would find peaceful and linger around in, which is a shame. I cleared leaves out from plants that were particularly affected like Astelia, Phormium, Hebe, Muelenbeckia. 

Photo 2: Rhododendron dauricum 'Midwinter'


In the interim I worked with team leader Alistair. There's an old winter interest area that is being cleared and developed into a new Chilean Glade to continue the theme from the Chilean Terraces. Plants that don't like being moved are Hamamelis and Daphne. Camellia are great for moving too, but have proved alright for the Woody. We dug out some Rhododendron dauricum 'Midwinter' (Photo 2) and placed them in an area that had space. They had quite shallow roots, had layered themselves abit, but was relatively easy to dig out. As it's winter and the ground is still quite moist, we don't have to water them in, but have to be mindful in summer to give them a bit more water.