The orchard meadows were sown in 2019, five years ago. Watching them each year, I am struck by how very different each year has been. This year is no exception. The photos below do not do the meadows justice – go see them for yourself!
Magnificent Roses in the park.
June heralds the start of the rose season. The main area where they are found is in the orchard garden, although they can also be found elsewhere.
Diversity in the Park orchard: A 2024 update.
Back in June 2021, a biodiversity survey of the park orchard meadows was carried out for us by Neil Anderson. Since then the meadows have largely been left alone, with no added nutrients and only a minimum of “weeding”. Time I thought to see what changes of three years of being left mostly to their own devices might have induced. Neil very kindly agree to repeat his survey for us and the results are included below.
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Now it’s the turn of the tulips – 2024.
Again in the orchard area in the raised beds.
Quince blossom in the orchard
In 2019, a fruit orchard was planted in the park. Of all the 24 trees there, one has really taken off – starting last year and literally blossoming abundantly this year – and that is the quince.
2024 – A good year for Daffodils.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that each new season seems to especially favour some species of flower? This year, it seems to be magnolias, cherries and daffodils that are particularly splendid. Perivale park does not have any magnolias or cherries, but it certainly has a nice display of daffodils in the orchard area – thanks to volunteers who planted them last year.
Fruit trees in West London – Lady Gilbert’s orchard.
Since 2019, Perivale park has had its own orchard, now with 35 fruit trees. I thought I might show some photos here of another, much older (1890) orchard which is about 13 km to the north of the park and is known as Gilbert’s orchard, after the wife of W. S. Gilbert of opera fame.
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News for February, 2024 – every little helps!
A stroll around the park has revealed interesting new features for this year.
- A new rubbish bin in the Longfield meadows, next to the bench where you can admire the lakes. Every little helps – but hey Ealing parks, don’t stop there. Put a few more in!
- Two large swathes in the north Londfield meadow appear to have been seeded. I will try to find out what the mix is (two years ago they put yellow rattle in, but it did not germinate).
- The bulbs in the raised beds in the orchard are showing. It’s quite a selection we put in last year, so do pop by when the flowers start in a few weeks time.
- I could not resist showing the mahonia next to the storage container in the orchard. It’s been there for years, having been planted when the area was a bowling green. It is starting to look very nice this year.
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Autumn 2023 fungi, splashes of colour and gardening chores
Hunting for fungi is always great fun in the park – not for eating of course. Here are just a few we found over the last few days.
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Stipa Gigantea
I mentioned in the last post the giant grasses in the orchard area. Here are some photos, that do not entirely show how very tall they are!
Yellow slime mold.
Occasionally, I spot something in the park that I have never seen below. The photos below were snapped in the orchard area, next to the wood chipping mulch pile. iNaturalist tells me it is from the Genus Fuligo, and is probably the delightfully named “Dog Vomit Slime Mold”. With the frequent recent showers, I expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the next month or so.
More splashes of seasonal colour.
The raised beds in the park orchard area are again devoted to spring bulbs at this time of year. Following the annual top-up last November, they are now in full flower – rather later it has to be said than most daffodils!
New Fingerposts and sign in the Park.
Ealing parks have just installed three new Fingerpost signs in the park and an information sign for Longfield meadows.
The orchard garden – Geranium Rozanne.
The orchard garden was originally planted with four rectangular flower beds surrounding the avenue of Crab apple trees, with four larger almost square wild flower and spring bulb meadows (parched yellow below). Last year those meadows put on a fantastic display of flax. Now, a year on all these areas have all evolved.
Unusual happenings (contd.): Spring has arrived (again) in the orchard.
A few days ago I noted that many of the fruit trees in the park orchard were putting out new leaf buds. Well, what happens next? New flower buds!
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Unusual happenings in the orchard.
This year, the spring and summer has been very dry with little sustained rain. July is turning out to be one of the driest on record. No wonder the trees everywhere are suffering. The walnut tree planted as part of the Queen’s Jubilee is looking quite stressed for example.
Perivale Park orchard after three years
Twenty four fruit trees were planted to create an orchard in 2019. Three years on they are now having their fourth summer – which promises to be a scorcher! I have taken photographs of all 24, shown below.
Orchard gardening event – 19th June, 2022 @ 10.00
Well, its been a few months since the orchard garden was spruced by a team of gardeners and so we have organised a session on Sunday 19th June at 10.00 am. All welcome.
Refreshments will be provided and the tasks might include some or all of the below, but you are free to come along with your own ideas!
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A plum job: Fruitwatch
The University of Reading is running a FruitWatch project. Here is how they describe it:
Spring bulb planting in the park.
The Bulbs for London project, together with Richard Spencer-Smith, have come up trumps with two large boxes of spring bulbs delivered on Tuesday. At very short notice, I managed to persuade two members of the “Red Green” park group to come along and help us plant some of them on the Wednesday.
Fruits (and vegetables) in the orchard.
Its early days yet, but already the apples in the orchard are turning red! And we have cob nuts!
