Garden Bears' World - a New Project

We bears love playing in the back garden at Polar and Grizzly's house, as there are trees we can climb, shrubs we can hide in, grass and paths for running on, flowers with nice smells that we can sniff and fruit and vegetables that we can eat (although we always ask first).

For example, here is Endon Bear climbing in the French lavender, then running down the path to check on the lettuces, radishes and beetroot.

And here is Hanley Bear exploring the patio, looking at the flowers and the fly-and-wasp-eating sarracenia plants.

Hanley always checks how the beans are growing - especially 'his' bean - while Endon likes to look after those of his tomatoes that have been planted outdoors.  The ones in the greenhouse already have tiny little fruits coming!

The small bears like to play hide-and-seek in the vegetable patch as well.  Here's Hanley, trying to decide whether the broad beans or the Swiss chard give him better cover.

Sometimes, Grizzly or Polar has to rescue one of us, like this time when I climbed up the trellis outside Grizzly's workshop to sniff the roses, but got my T-shirt caught on the thorns and had to be lifted down by Polar.

But usually I enjoy climbing almost as much as the smaller bears.  Here, I am checking there is plenty of water in the trays for the shorter carnivorous plants, then watching Hanley and Endon play hide-and-seek in the vegetable garden.

While we were playing, Polar had been working at the far end of the garden, cutting back some lilac trees that had got very overgrown to let more light in for the quince tree in the next bed.  She sawed the bigger branches into logs and shredded the smaller ones to make compost, so we had to stay out of the way while all this was happening.  



Of course, as soon as it was safe to take a closer look, we bears scurried down the path to investigate.

Polar said that she wanted this to be a wildlife garden, so wasn't going to clear away all the ivy or even the brambles right at the back of the border.  She showed us where she had piled up some lobs and sticks to make a little den for hedgehogs. 

'When the shreddings have rotted down a little more, we can plant some primroses and cowslips for next spring,' she said.  'And we'll have foxgloves, violets and celandines too.'

We said we would help dig up and move some of these plants from where they are growing at the moment, when the time was right, but first, we had to test whether the lilac stems that were left were good for climbing - and they were!

Then it was time for tea and, afterwards, we sat in the evening sunshine planning how we could make more homes for insects and other creatures in our new wild garden.