After all the foul weather we have had over the last few months, it was a real treat to have a warm day, with outbreaks of summer sunshine and NO RAIN!!!! There were lots of jobs to do on the hub… some painting of added sections and sealing around the joins to keep the rain out.
I had also designed a ‘Bug Hub’ for my Wildlife Hub and Phil had made the frame for me that would sit on the outside of the hub. Today, I made the inner frame with different compartments that I could fill with different materials that would look good and also provide lots of hidey holes for bugs to hide in and overwinter in.
I measured out the distances I wanted the horizontal ‘shelves and cut them to length so they would fit snugly inside the frame.
I then cut out some dividers to create small compartments and I screwed the whole thing together …
and then painted it in the same colour as the frame.
Finally, once the paint was dry, I screwed these shelved compartments into the frame. Now for the fun bit!
I had been collecting materials for a while… I ‘rescued’ some old bricks from the skips with holes in, some log roll, which had been sitting in my garage and I noticed how many creatures were living inside, some moss and hay, twigs, fir cones and some commercially bought bee tubes. I arranged them all in the compartments…
I am thrilled with the final product! It looks amazing and is functional too.
I have also been working on the roof. There is an amazing view from up there…
The roof has a butyl liner (like a pond one) and on top of this I put a a felt-like material that protects the liner. I am going to be planting this roof so I don’t want anything accidently puncturing the liner. I then laid another thin liner layer on top.
As there is not much depth to the roof for planting, I had a trip to my local tyre merchant today and they kindly gave me two small tyres. I plan on using these to plant some nectar rich plants that need more plant depth.
I will start planting this area up next week. IT is going to be a habitat roof… so log piles, gravel piles and planting to attract wildlife.
Once this outside stuff was done, I began to plan and prepare the inside of my hub. I bought a carpet remnant off of the market today, and put some storage units in the hub. Phil had bought me a very special present down from Cumbria as well. He had made a stunning elm table for the show and he gave it to me as a gift for the hub. This table is stunning and it fits beautifully under the window…. what a pleasure it is going to be to work here! Thank you Phil!
Everything is beginning to come together and it is looking so beautiful… I just keep going up the garden and looking at it…Even Jasmine was impressed…
