Locking Bar Eglu Classic

[gongladosh]

Yep, absolutely love your garden!

 

I like Wallingford itself too come to think of it - I stayed in The George in Dorchester just before Christmas!

[bouldercroft]

I have garden envy

 

And I really miss gardening in the UK...its really tough here with harsh winters and hot summers...

Every spring starts with a 'so I wonder what didn't survive this time' check - last summer I tried a fig tree and it was a silly mistake as it was borderline for my growing zone and then we were hit with a vicious winter. Needless to say MrFig was this years victim.

The great thing is that I can grow toms, melons and cukes without too much fuss.

[Olly]

What a gorgeous garden! A couple of questions - do the chooks not kick the slate chippings out of place, or are they too heavy for that (the chippings, not the chooks!)? Also, what do you do about chook poo on those - does it just hose off?

 

I don't like grass and my lawn is in a terrible state, not because of the hens but because it's been neglected. I'm a bit scared of getting rid of it altogether though. A real inspiration, thanks for the pictures.

[Henergy]

I can only dream of a garden as beautiful as yours !

 

I'm lucky that yes, I have a large plot, but its mostly grass due to football loving boys. Anything I do plant gets its head knocked off by a ball !!! I love your dustbath too - well done on the photos. Here's to you now posting many more

[Chortle Chook]

You have all been so kind. BIG THANK YOU

 

What a gorgeous garden! A couple of questions - do the chooks not kick the slate chippings out of place, or are they too heavy for that (the chippings, not the chooks!)? Also, what do you do about chook poo on those - does it just hose off?

 

We have cobble stones around the flower beds and that pretty well keeps the earth in though I think that a bigger breed of chicken would probably hoof over the cobble stones. A bag of cobble stones from the garden centre goes quite far and is not very expensive. You can just see the cobble stones in the picture below.

 

We get the poos off the path each night when the chooks have gone to bed using a bucket and broom. This is not as arduous as it sounds because the garden is small and the chickens would rather poo on the earth than on the path so there are only about 3-4 patches of poo. The slate does get a little bit s"Ooops, word censored!"ed over onto the path and flower beds and in with the earth as this picture of Dill and Dolly shows, but if you have plenty of flowers this does not really matter.

 

The real trick is to have tallish shrubs and mini trees so that you are looking up at those and not down at the earth and craters. I've found that mini apple trees really work wonders. Another trick is to plant things that they don't eat but might get hoofed, such as the irises, next to plant supports (we use metal ones from Leander supports but pea sticks would also work) as the chickens don't like hoofing and coming into contact with a plant support.

[Olly]

What a brilliant idea! I don't find my hens do too much damage in the garden, as I've mostly got established shrubs, but the scratching is the worst problem, rather than eating things. Most of my pots have slate chippings on the top to discourage them from digging - if they can't see any earth, I find they don't bother. All the spring bulbs had spare bits of Eglu run (the little squares and the long flat bits of skirt!) over them so they didn't get scratched out, but it's much harder to protect things in the border. I have plenty of plant supports, thanks for this tip.

[The Dogmother]

That looks lovely C! Why did you not tell me that you'd had a birthday when we met?

[lolimac]

Thankyou..thankyou..thankyou....

I was only saying yesterday that i was fed up with people saying "your garden will never be as lovely as it used to be now you've got chickens"

I have always been a keen gardener and yes even though i say it myself..it WAS beautiful..Now i have 6 chooks and 2 puppies it's looking rather tired!!!

Well things are a changing and i'm adapting to puppy and chook friendly planting and i know it will be great...

Your fabulous garden is living proof...Gold medal to you...well done....

[Chortle Chook]

Many thanks I know you'll get there because as well as my chooks I have 4 dogs

[keyhole kate]

I am with envy what a lovely garden and your chooks are so cute too

Edited May 13, 2011 by Guest

[Cheryl]

Can I be one of your chickens??.. gorgeous garden, gorgeous chickens...

[Kaz1250]

Fabulous garden - and chickens. Any chance of posting the names of plants you have found most successful? I've noticed mine pecking away at the forsythia at times but not much harm done there. Fortunately we have more shrubs than flowers but your tip about plant supports is very good.

[Chortle Chook]

Any chance of posting the names of plants you have found most successful?

Here are some of the plants that I've found have worked and some that haven't I'm not that brilliant at the names and the spelling may not be quite right for some (Mods, if this list is too long, please feel free to delete)

- acanthus

-alchemilla mollis

-allium - the large ones (a surpise as my chives didn't last more than a day)

-aqueligia / columbine

- artechokes (the ornamental type with big blue green leaves and lovely purple thistle flowers)

-bamboo both niger and the gold one (the chickens do all the hard work of stripping the lower stems so that you can see the nice canes)

-crocosmia (e.g. lucifer but others too)

-daffs in miniature (but not the large ones which got all trodden down)

-daisies leucanthemum - those big white shasta daisies with yellow centres (but not margarite daises which got eaten up flowers included)

-daphnes of all kinds (these are poisonous but my chooks seem to know this)

-ferns (the desiduous ones, evergreen ones have been eaten and hearts tongue totally decimated)

- geum (I've been surprised at this but perhaps they haven't found them yet)

- grasses (the ornamental kind, but for some you may need to protect the initial shoots)

-hemerocallis / day lillies

- hostas of all kinds (that surprised me but as my garden now has no slugs and snails,these have really thrived)

- Japanese anemones

-irises, (they don't need to be covered, but if you put a plant support near them that helps keep the tubers in the earth)

-lavender (but oddly not rosemary which got stripped)

- lillies -regale (plant supports needed again here)

-peonies but not the red ones

-poppies / papaver e.g. Patty's plum

-roses of all kinds

-salvia (the blue ones, but not their close relative, sage)

-sedum

-tulips (blubs put nice and deep by plant supports)

 

Also all sorts of climbers such as clematis, climbing roses,honeysuckle, chaenomeles / japanese quince, priocantha (chooks love to eat the lower leaves of these but despite jumping can't hurt the plants higher up)

 

Certain no nos have been helebores (the chooks loved the flowers but not the leaves); delphiniums and holly hocks (my chooks think these are the next best thing to meal worms); echinops and eryngium (my chooks were not in the least put off by these being thistly), primroses and foxgloves which got tramelled; crocuses and cyclamen hedorapholia as the chooks seemed drawn to their bright flowers. However, oddly my cyclamen coum did well. Nout so queer as chooks

[abwsco]

Intersting that yours ignore your crocosmia. Mine have been completely decimated over the last 3 years of chicken keeping but hoping that now they're not allowed where they were that they might grow back. Mine also jump and fly up to my black bamboos and fern to strip off everything they can get in their beaks-lol Have eaten my red peonies as well in previous years but ignored them this year

[Chortle Chook]

My red peonies got totally eaten (the flowers, not the leaves) but they have left my pink and my white ones. Chooks can be picky beings it seems My crocosmia may be surviving because they are planted close to the hemerocalis and the leaves are a bit similar. I have found that chooks are very visual beings and unlike dogs don't seem to scent things out that they might like to eat.

[Olly]

Interesting, because I have lots of hellebores and they have not been touched! My chooks don't eat rosemary, but have plundered the chives, I had to put an upturned hanging basket over them and they are cropped to the basket and beyond. I've also had no problem with my crocuses, cyclamen or daffodils, snowdrops and so on.

 

I think it partly depends on how much space you have, I've got a largeish garden and they prefer ferreting about under the apple tree and behind the greenhouse where the ground isn't disturbed much. I have a 'wild' end of the garden, with a log pile, nettles and other weeds and they really love poking around there. I'm always amazed that self-seeding things like primroses and aquilegia come up every year, as I certainly expected that they would eat the seeds or the young plants. If anything, I think self-seeding plants have increased in my garden since I got the hens.

[The Dogmother]

My bluebells have been mullered

[abwsco]

I just think that I have garden thugs. Have just been watching them trash my remaining Rhododendron. Wouldn't care but all they're doing is pulling off the flowers

[ElvisFan]

What a wonderful garden, you and your OH must have worked very hard on it and your chicks are dead lucky.

 

I have been back and looked at your pics several times it really does look like an oasis, I can just imagine a nice warm evening and a G&T sitting out and watching the girlies run about - Bliss

[Seagazer]

Wow you have a fantastic garden