Bulford

About

In 2016, local residents of Bulford and Mount Pleasant approached TTW with a request: could Transition Town help in making the rather unsightly rubble and weedy patch in front of their houses into something more beautiful and useful? We set about choosing low-growing perennial herbs that like dry, well-drained soil and are fairly hardy.

The patch is now a beautiful mixture of lavender, rosemary and sage bushes. It is regularly weeded and watered by the local residents, and is a popular spot for bees and other pollinators.

Directions

This is on the corner where Bulford meets Bulford Lane. It’s actually on a tiny road called Mount Pleasant, TA21 8DA. What3words: justifies.bags.revise. Please try and walk or cycle and avoid parking in the tiny car park as this is for residents and their carers. If you have to drive, Bulford car park is a short walk away.

Design

Lavender forms attractive clumps. These are interspersed with sage and rosemary bushes. There is a weed suppressant membrane throughout, and woodchip has been laid to help keep the weeds down and make the place attractive.

Implementation

With perennial herbs like this, maintenance is relatively light. We do remove plants such as dandelions and plantain that can spread vigorously. Picking the herbs for culinary or medicinal use helps to encourage new growth and is encouraged.

Biodiversity

Pollinators such as bees, wasps and butterflies gravitate to the herb bed particularly in the spring and summer when the rosemary and lavender are in flower.

iNaturalist Bioblitz (Coming soon)

2016

Acquired

100m²

Size

250

Plants Added

Plant Species

Existing Mature Trees

2x Flowering cherry

Added Trees (Large)

Added Trees (Medium)

Added shrubs

Planting Plan

The herb varieties were chosen both for their usefulness and also their height and maintenance requirements. Very vigorous self seeding herbs such as marjoram and lemonbalm were avoided because they can soon take over. Tall herbs such as fennel were also avoided because they would block the view from the neighbours windows.

The herbs are planted in rows of prostrate rosemary, (which has superior oily leaves great for cooking), lavender, thyme and chives. A form of low growing “silver” sage was planted on the edges a couple of years after on request. Initially we planted echinacea, however the plants were small and, apart from one plant which has since self seeded, they didn’t survive the slugs.

Later on the planted area was extended along the wall at the side of the parking, on request of the neighbour who overlooks this part. Fruit bushes were added here because the soil was deeper and richer, and height wasn’t as much of an issue.