The Volcano - not the one in Iceland

Wow... wonderful work...
a definite for GoYpedia Design Ideas and Sloping Garden Ideas...

sorry.. no GoYpedia Rabbit Garden page ... yet :o)

Thanks TT! I haven't done a blog before & didn't know if anyone would find it!
Wot no GoYpedia Rabbit Gardens! :-) Perhaps it could be more comprehensive - "Coping with Pests" for example. I've got a squirrel problem intermittently, and other people have deer, slugs (well, we have them too..) there must be more.

I'm glad you like it, anyway! :-))))

Well done on your first blog, Beattie...
I edit a GoYpedia category called Pets in the Garden...
...but not Pests in the Garden. ;o) lol.

... but Denise edits a page called Pests so I'll nominate your blog for that ...

Great blog. Very imaginative gardening !

Thank you T - that would be an honour! Glad you like it Cinderella. I'm looking forward to seeing everything when it's grown some more. :-)

Lovely photo`s, you have been very creative and its worked, looking forwards to seeing more.........

Lovely blog and planting

That's a wonderful idea :o) It's going to look fantastic .

Well done Beattie,such a lot of hard work.
After all that eye watering colour on the way down the rabbit garden is so gentle on the eye :)
It will be constantly changing over the years as new ideas pop into your mind.Will look forward to more :)

Like your ideas.

lovely planting and a great first blog :o)

Thanks! I got some bargains at a car boot sale today, and a stall at the market had some "eye-waterers" reduced which I snapped up as well, so the volcano's erupted a bit more. Might take some more pics when they're all in and settled.

What a super novel idea, you must have had some really hard work to do all that designing. It's going to be fabulous! I will be keeping an eye on your progress.

Thanks Bellflower! The really hard work was digging all the post holes - what we have for "soil" is the rocks tipped from a nearby tin mine covered with a layer of leaf litter. I have to use a crowbar to get the rocks out in most places, add compost and hope for the best.

Well it seems to be working Beattie.

Thanks! :-)

This is a great idea ... a volcanic garden ... good luck Beattie will look forward to seeing the flames ... how about red hot pokers ? lol

Slugs and snails just LOVE red hot pokers April violets, and we have world class slugs and snails! I've taken a few more pics recently and I've added them on the end of the blog.

Beattie your new pics are full of colour and the designs are great too! Well done you!

Hi Beattie ..the colours are striking, good choice, dont think Ive ever seen black poppies ... but I want some lol I did have poppies (orange) growing in my garden but they have mysteriously disappeared :( I absolutely adore dahlias but not the beasties inside them and I didnt know red hot pokers attracted them either eeuugghhh lol !!!

Ive been thinking lol have you seen a stag's head sumach in the autumn Beattie ? Its the most stunning shrub I have ever had, I had it removed from my garden as it was completely taking over and since then sooo many little shoots have been appearing all over the garden, the roots are never ending in their battle to survive and show off !!! The colours would look amazing in your volcanic garden and it grows tall and spreads lol ... was just a thought :)

Thanks for your comments and suggestions April Violets. Sorry for the delay in replying, I've been away. We had a sumach in the garden of a house we lived in 25 years ago and I know what you mean about the suckers. Ours was quite old and was a great tree for kids to climb. It had wonderful horizontal branches that even a toddler could use to get off the ground, and 10 year olds could get high into the branches. The volcano is only 12' x 12' so much too small to plant a tree in, so I'll stick with the herbacous stuff. :-)

Love your garden Beattie. We have a squirrel problem here in North Herts, (black as well as grey) but rarely a rabbit. Apparently my alliums keep them away as they don't like the smell of the bulbs! But then deer are also supposed to dislike alliums, and we had a pretty muntjac deer resting at the back of the garden for an hour the other day.

Thank you very much Sheilabub :D We used to live in North Herts too, not that far from Letchworth where there are lots of black squirrels. We have squirrels here too - I saw one today. They've stripped all the bark off a sycamore sapling this summer. It was only a self-seeded one, but I'd placed the gate into the rabbit garden between two sycamore saplings of the same size so it was framed. Now I'm expecting the one on the right in the first photo to die as the bark's all gone, all round, from about 1 foot from the ground to about 5 feet up.

Rabbits LOVE alliums! And I haven't seen any muntjac, but I thought I'd identified some prints in the snow last winter as theirs. My OH's theory is that the prints were from jumping mice -if only!

We have a squirrel problem in town. They visit our Hazel tree in season and plant the nuts all over the garden. Just pulled out lots of mini hazels earlier today. Shot up after the recent heavy showers and couple of hot days. The first nutkins will be doing a nut check any time now..... ready for being Green man's little helper! Glad there are no bunnies so far Beattie. Like the idea of a red area.

Thanks Dorjac. Sorry about your excess hazel seedlings. I find a lot of oak seedlings - I read somewhere that jays bury them, but we have squirrels too, so it could be either in our case.

We had an incursion into the rabbit-free area a little while ago. I was weeding and found plants that had been nibbled... I checked all round the fence & found nowhere where a rabbit could get in. After a few days I spotted a baby rabbit trying to hide behind a bush - I was pootling around quietly & it didn't know I could see it. So & got my OH & son, we propped the gate open, and we flushed it out of its hiding place and out through the gate. Phew. We decided it must have crept under the gate when it was tiny and had got fatter inside. Time for a small modification to the bottom of the gate.

A couple of days later I was weeding again and found that the plants that had been nibbled before were recovering, but new plants had been "got at". So we did a repeat performance, but couldn't find any bunnies and no way in under the fence. My OH did point out a sort of "diggings" under a hydrangea, which I filled in a bit & smoothed the top over with a plank, like icing a cake. I came back a couple of days later & nothing had dug in or out, but even MORE plants were looking "got at". Another search still revealed no culprits, but the next day I found - a LEG! A rabbit leg!! A small rabbit leg!!! So I guess a buzzard or a fox sorted out my problem for me in the end.

The bunny we chased out of the fenced bit of the garden had set up home in the garden outside the fence, but I haven't seen him now for a few days either. But we do have lots of buzzards overhead. Circling, circling ....
Thanks, guys!