Sound

The sense of sound is possibly one of our more complex senses and operates largely on vibrations. Not the Om kind, but through our body’s ability to interpret sound waves through the ear and our nervous system operated by, you guessed it, our brains! There are very tiny bones in the middle of the ear that help not only to hear, but also to keep our equilibrium, our balance, and to help us maintain awareness of our environment as well as communicate.

In this trough

This trough is mainly about the grasses that make a rustle in the wind. But we’re also looking at the sounds of nature. Grasses produce seed heads that birds like to eat. We’ve also got some flowers on the Persicaria spictis for our Queen Bees, who make a lovely humming noise, and other hibernating pollinators who are no longer going into full hibernation anymore due to more mild winters. We will underplant this trough with lots of early flowering bulbs for all the pollinators to help them with high pollen and nectar sources and bulbs really fit the ticket for this problem.

We start this trough with a Miscanthus Red Chief that almost looks like it has been hair crimped! It’s got red stems on it which will be cut back to make room for the bulbs in spring. Next we’ve got a little evergreen called Carex Praire Fire that gets more orange as the weather turns cold. We have a Japanese blood grass Hakonechloa macra Aureola which starts with a lime green base but ends up at the tips being a beautiful glowing red. The wild ones are used for thatching. The leaves are very waxy, so make good rooves. We also have a Persicaria (amplex’ Speciosa) which is used in lots of prairie plantings that mixes really well with grasses as it gives an elegant spire of flowers to feed the bees, plus the leaves are so beautiful and give a really good rattle with lots of different sounds. The underplanting will be large crocus and large species flowers like irises and Anenomes (Blanda mixed Narcissus Minnow, Blanda blue) along with more multiheaded bulbs that are high energy food for our bees and butterflies.  

 All video content is provided by Ann Evans of Barters Farm Nurseries Ltd.