Not a post about Brandon Lee...

If I could get away with a post all about the film then I would but alas this is a gardening blog.
I spotted a couple of crows hopping about next to the Priestley building as I was working there, so here is my bird of the day.
The carrion crow (Corvus corone) is part of the Crow family (Corvidae).

It is one of the cleverest and most adaptable of our birds. They are usually solitary creatures and often found alone or in pairs. They will come to a garden for food and can very quickly work out whether it is safe, and will return often to take advantage of whatever is on offer. Their diet consists of carrion (dead and decaying animal flesh), insects, worms, seeds, fruit, and any scraps they can find.

They can be found all year round almost everywhere, from cities to moorland, and woodland to seashore.

(Photograph taken by myself, Thursday 31st March)

(Information taken from the RSPB website, www.rspb.org.uk)

A thorn in my side...

After the Easter break it was straight back to work on Tuesday and the team was working on the two rose borders in front of the James Graham building.

We cut these down around this time every year to give the roses chance to grow and bloom in time for summer and graduation. We try to cut them down to two or three buds from the base preferably outward facing to create a globe structure. By creating space in the centre it allows air to circulate more freely and decreases the chance of disease.

 

The team consisted of Carl, Sam, Rach and myself and between us we managed to cut down all the roses in two days without too many scratches. I remember a couple of years ago I was absolutely covered in scratches so I'm pleased I didn't receive many this time round!
In the next few days we'll put a light covering of bark on the borders to suppress the weeds and make it easier to maintain in the coming months.

So fingers crossed, come summer, we'll have two lovely flowering rose borders ready to accentuate those graduation photographs.


(Photographs taken by myself on Wednesday 30th March)

Grounds team to the rescue!

Last weekend there was a sporting event called The West Yorkshire Youth Games and the turnout of visitors was such that it meant people had to park on the Acre in the centre of Headingley campus. Unfortunately it hadn't been taken into account that the lower half of the Acre doesn't always dry out as quickly as the top half and a little bit of a mess occurred.

So on Monday the team of Carl, Sam, Rach, Paul and myself took some new soil out to the acre where we flattened out what we could, and placed new soil in the holes. It was tough work trying to flatten out the grass and remove the tyre marks but we managed to do the best we could. If anything, it was a brilliant workout!
The next day Rach took the tractor out with the roller on the back and used this to flatten the ground more so to make it easier when it comes time to cut the grass. Should the grass not recover then we will put grass seed down to help it come back to life. Fingers crossed we have some brilliant weather coming up to bring the acre back to its former glory, ready for graduation in July.


(Photographs taken by myself on Monday 14th March)