peckham rye
A garden centred around recycling every element possible, from the concrete pavers to create a raised wildlife pond, to logs and wood-chip mulch sourced from a local tree surgeon. The raised pond doubles up as a seating spot and includes varying niches within it to host a variety of invertebrates, such as lacewings, bees and ladybirds, with female emperor dragonflies spotted also. A solitary bee nesting post and logs with niches below and behind provide habitat for aerial and ground-nesting bees, and the self-binding gravel was direct sown with a Pictorial Meadows wildflower mix. Edible crops were planted in the perimeter raised beds, including cucumber, tomato, currants, fennel and courgette.
before
the slabs down in this photo are the same ones that were cleaned and all reused in the raised pond. They were mostly cut in half to give the correct depth required and also produce enough material to combine with the other recycled elements to give enough height to make it at seat height around the pond.