Touch

Touch allows us to perceive the world through direct skin contact that delivers information to the brain such as pain, pressure and vibration. These notifications allow us to make choices about our emotions and safety. Touch enables us to interact with our environment and develop emotional bonds. Our nerves in the skin are connected to proprioceptors in our muscles and joints which enable us to maintain body awareness that allows for mobility and coordination. The earliest days of our human cognitive and emotional development are based on sensing the world through touch.  

This trough has highly tactile plants, starting with the beautiful grass called Foxtails (Pennisetum Hameln/fountain grass) that also provide in its grassy base a great habitat for lots of little beneficial insects. Next we have Achimilla mollis that has acid green flowers that create a great big froth the bees love. You can have a feel of these very soft leaves. The next beautiful plant is Lamb’s Ears which also has lovely soft leaves that are quite fluffy looking and covered in what looks to be tiny little hairs that act as the plants natural defence to preserve water, and these tiny hair-like structures allow them to grow in very hot climates (and also act like Factor 50 sunblock for the leaves!). Then something a little bit coarser nearby that has tall stems that come up to these gorgeous flowers on the tip – called Verbena. This one is a shorter variety called Vanity and the pollinators are going to love it! Then we come across the little conifer Cupressus Goldcrest that can actually be very easily trimmed into little shapes by any helpful volunteers. As it’s trimmed, the reward is a lovely citrus smell that is really fresh and vibrant. Please stroke it, even on a cold day, your warm hand will release that gorgeous fragrance into the air. Our Nepta Purrsian Blue is a dwarf catmint and it is absolutely adored by cats as it relaxes them (and humans, too), but more importantly, loved for a long time seasonally by bees and butterflies from early spring to autumn.

We are underplanting this trough with spring bulbs for the pollinators and we have some short tulips as well as multiheaded narcissus or short daffodils (Tulipa Red Riding Hood, Tulipa Giuseppe Verdi, and Narcissus Tete a tete). Multiheaded flowers allow the bees to maximise their energy spend on flying with lots of nectar and pollen to gather in a very short space of time which really helps when they’re cold.

We have some nice rough course leaves on the Echineacea purpurea plant that will form a lovely seed head on its flower that we leave for the birds in the winter, but have a feel as it isn’t prickly, it’s rubbery! It’s quite a strange feel and the bees adore them. We have another rather floaty grass that also has a great lower habitat for the ladybirds and other pollinators to hibernate within, but in autumn has a rather soft, silky vibrant lime green growth seed head that we call Ponytails (Stipa tenuissima). Another plant that looks like Lamb’s Ears, but is called Lychinus coronarius has tall spires that form bright fuchsia pink flowers that the bees and butterflies adore, and they also like the seedheads of the flowers. Next we have a Cotton Aster Santolina chamaecyarissus that will have bright yellow button flowers in the summer that the pollinators love, but it’s worth a feel of the leaves because they have a rubbery sensation similar to the Echineacea.

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