Composting to help improve the soil.

 As part of the work our volunteers carry out in the Rose Garden, we are very keen to recycle whenever possible.  Composting plays a vital role in providing us with part of our potting mixes, as well as for use around the park and when planting roses and perennials.

 

We compost all the organic waste material that we can from the park and include brown materials such as cardboard and paper into the mix.  It is important to get the right mix of both green and brown in order to create a good compost. Anything that was alive, plant wise, can be added to the compost bays.  Egg shells, grass cuttings, plant stems etc.  Each year in November, we empty all the hanging baskets from Oxton village into our compost bays, then return the wire baskets ready to be used the following Summer.

The compost is then used wherever needed in the park, such as under roses, in the borders, when planting and potting up.  It provides the plants with nutrition and also improves the overall texture of the soil.

 

An essential Autumn job carried out by the volunteers is collecting fallen leaves, especially from lawned areas.  These are stored in separate pens to convert into leaf mould.  This is low in nutrients but is wonderful for mulching, adding to potting mixes and borders to improve the water retention of the soil. While compost is formed by bacteria, with help from worms and bugs, leaf mould is formed by the action of fungi over a longer period of time.

Another project we have begun is the creation of a dead hedge. Dead hedges are an easy way of constructing a fence, which can act as a windbreak,  at the same time as providing a natural habitat for wildlife.  They are made using materials to hand such as fallen branches after strong winds, fallen or recently coppiced branches, thicker prunings from deciduous shrubs and many types of garden waste which would take longer to rot down in a usual compost heap.  As the materials in the dead hedge rot down, new prunings and branches are continuously added. All the nutrients go down into the ground below.  Insects, birds and small mammals can use the dead hedge as a habitat, in just the same way as a living hedge, both for shelter and a source of food where woodlice, slugs and the like would naturally be readily available, as they are there rotting down the decaying material.