Alive’s Secret Garden!

Our secret garden!
Jenny Dunn, Personal Trainer and Alive’s very own Horticulturist gives us the low down on Alive’s secret garden and how the changeable weather has affected the plants.
‘Well finally the rain abated and the sun came out! The garden has grown dramatically in all the stubborn rain we have had. Toby’s Cobea (commonly known as Cathedral bells) has done a fantastic job of almost completely covering the wooden fence on both sides. Considering this was only planted out earlier this year its growth is astonishing!
The sunshine we have had over the last week has encouraged out its stunning, big white bell shaped flowers (hence the name!) I am hoping that we will soon get some buzzing visitors attracted to this and the beautiful smelling honeysuckle which is now in full bloom.
Talking of visitors we have had a fair few amazing, punky, spiky long haired black and yellow caterpillars (much to Stephan’s horror!) These have more than quadrupled in size and now can be spotted in pupae form (if you look carefully enough) Soon emerge as much less flamboyant, rather conservative brown Vapourer moths.
We also have a magnificent bright green caterpillar which has eaten its way through our French bean plant, thank you very much! I believe it will turn into a Small White otherwise known as Cabbage White butterfly.
The Kiwi plant is running rampant along the wall of the Crèche and Neil’s tomato plant has loads of flowers on it, some already turning into small green tomatoes. So fingers crossed despite the best efforts of the Cabbage White caterpillar, we may be able to harvest a little for ourselves from the secret garden yet….

Check out the links below:
Cobea http://www.flickr.com/photos/35772983@N00/259971800/
Vapourer Moth Caterpillar http://www.habitas.org.uk/moths/images/larvae/6112l.jpg
Vapourer Moth http://www.habitas.org.uk/moths/images/larvae/6112l.jpg