wildlife Gardening for nature and wildlife

[Chrisr40]

A recent visitor and my new lockdown pond. 

[jbqfc]

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

 

I would be rather wary of some of those plants, even if you do fancy a 'wild' garden. Red Campion, Greater Knapweed, Ragged Robin and Teasel will find the conditions pretty favourable after a year or two; and your main problem might be to stop them seeding themselves everywhere until infinity. 

 

i am a fully trained gardener and know most of them will self well it just a case of keeping on top of things but thanks for the advice 

 

John 

[jbqfc]

a bit more work in the garden today the shade garden has had edging fitted to separate it from the the veg plot and a path dug out awaiting filling with bark

 

the plant in the front is a gooseberry  in the bottom right corner is muscari  

i have also planted some mini cyclamen and a hellebore in the back garden  

[Ross34]

My late dad used to have a gooseberry in a pot outside his back door. It never got fed, watered - nothing. Dad wasn't a gardener!.. but it produced the best, juciest fruit you'd imagine. I ask how he did it ... "Neglect, son. neglect"! I couldn't argue with that.

Same with his compost heap - any old crap would end up on it - never turned it, watered it - nowt.  After 12 months it was the richest, blackest crumbliest compost you'd ever seen... go figure. 

[J. S. Bach]

19 minutes ago, Ross34 said:

My late dad used to have a gooseberry in a pot outside his back door. It never got fed, watered - nothing. Dad wasn't a gardener!.. but it produced the best, juciest fruit you'd imagine. I ask how he did it ... "Neglect, son. neglect"! I couldn't argue with that.

Same with his compost heap - any old crap would end up on it - never turned it, watered it - nowt.  After 12 months it was the richest, blackest crumbliest compost you'd ever seen... go figure. 

When I lived in Florida, I had a grapefruit tree that I did absolutely nothing to it, with it, or for it and it produced a load of the fattest, juiciest, sweetest grapefruit every season. My neighbor had an orange tree that he was always fussing with; it produced a few small, puckered-up oranges. Go figure!

[jbqfc]

my first day out in the garden this year to day a bit of pruning and tidying up round the pond area 

before

 

after the euonyumus had had a major prune everything else just tidy up the primula veris are looking good but most of the other primulas have not made it through the winter had a blackbird a robin and to my surprise a grey wagtail running round me making the most of my work  

 

 

[jbqfc]

a few wildflowers sown including Aquilegia lady’s Bedstraw Betony Campion white/red Corn marigold Corn poppy Cornflower Echinacea Foxglove Hawk bit Knapweed Loosestrife Meconopsis May weed Ragged robin field Scabious Spike speedwell Teasel small Teasel Toadflax if all these come up i am going to need a bigger garden

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by jbqfc
spelling

[sb67]

17 hours ago, jbqfc said:

a few wildflowers sown including Aquilegia lady’s Bedstraw Betony Campion white/red Corn marigold Corn poppy Cornflower Echinacea Foxglove Hawk bit Knapweed Loosestrife Meconopsis May weed Ragged robin field Scabious Spike speedwell Teasel small Teasel Toadflax if all these come up i am going to need a bigger garden

 

 

Good start to the growing year. I sowed some stinging nettle seeds and decided to leave the dead nettles growing in certain places in an attempt to provide some food and shelter for different types of caterpillars. I read somewhere that most people, myself included, plant stuff for buterflies and forget that thier caterpillars need looking after too. 

I've decided to try and make my garden as wildlife freindly as possible so I'll be visiting this thread a bit! 

[jbqfc]

32 minutes ago, sb67 said:

 

Good start to the growing year. I sowed some stinging nettle seeds and decided to leave the dead nettles growing in certain places in an attempt to provide some food and shelter for different types of caterpillars. I read somewhere that most people, myself included, plant stuff for buterflies and forget that thier caterpillars need looking after too. 

I've decided to try and make my garden as wildlife freindly as possible so I'll be visiting this thread a bit! 

 

so true people do forget about caterpillars you do have to try and look at the whole life cycle last year i saw some small blue butterfly's in the garden so have put in some kidney vetch as this is the food plant of the caterpillars  

 

John 

[faulcon1]

I have a garden bed with Dahlias in it at the moment that would have prevented this photo of wildlife that visits being taken. This in the winter time 

[monkeysarefun]

On 27/03/2021 at 09:28, faulcon1 said:

I have a garden bed with Dahlias in it at the moment that would have prevented this photo of wildlife that visits being taken. This in the winter time 

 

 

Whats that?

 

I first thought a Blue tongue but it doesn't look wide enough and its head looks more snake-like? The bands are Blue-tongue like though so maybe its the angle of the shot.

 

Interesting brickwork!

Edited March 28, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[faulcon1]

It's a pink tongue early in the morning so that the reason it's "flat". Being cold blooded they need to warm up which in the winter takes a while. I had another one which used to visit and like to live under the house. I fed it about 12 snails once and I just tipped them out of a bucket nearby. The lizard slowly and cautiously crept up on the fleeing snails not wanting to startle them and slowly ate everyone of them. Having no teeth it crushed the snail in it's jaws and at the end was a small pile of crushed snail shells. In the summer months I left a saucer of water out for it to drink. Once I startled it at the back door and it recoiled, opened it's mouth and hissed at me, whereupon I bent down open my mouth and and said Blaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! very loudly. The pink tongue closed it's mouth and ran like the clappers with me thinking I'll show you who's boss around here.

The brickwork is not holding up the house as the house is on piers.   

[monkeysarefun]

We have a Blue-tongue though I haven't seen it for a while. It was pretty grumpy, he gave my partner a nip on the wrist once because we were sitting on the grass and must have been in his way as he trudged across the lawn.

 

With the drought taking its toll a couple of years ago and being on tank water we decided to replace most of our plants with drought tolerant species. The natural choice might seem to be Australian natives but in practice they can be very hard to grow, they can be very intolerant of less than ideal soil types etc, and can be short-lived and die quite suddenly. Also the most popular Grevilleas, Callistemons and Acacias are pretty run-of the mill every where and we wanted something different, kind of an English-style cottage garden look but using dry-climate plants.

 

The Mrs has spent many happy hours  doing the research and has come up with a surprising number of suitable plants of Californian, Mexican and other dry areas origin. The garden is now reaching some kind of maturity and we are finding that many of them flower at different time of the year to the 'standard' plants around here so at the moment (early Autumn) our yard is filled with bees, honey-eating birds and butterflies coming for  a feed.

 

Of course, the minute we finished the yard the El Nino gave way to a pretty aggressive La Nina and the drought broke, we've had floods  and we've had a few issues with root rot but other than that it looks a much more colourful place than previously.

 

We plan to put one more garden bed extending down from the back of the house, with maybe a pond in it  to create a permanent home for the dozens of Eastern tree frogs that currently live in various places around the  yard and make it sound like the Everglades at night with their croaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[sb67]

On 05/04/2021 at 21:10, monkeysarefun said:

We have a Blue-tongue though I haven't seen it for a while. It was pretty grumpy, he gave my partner a nip on the wrist once because we were sitting on the grass and must have been in his way as he trudged across the lawn.

 

With the drought taking its toll a couple of years ago and being on tank water we decided to replace most of our plants with drought tolerant species. The natural choice might seem to be Australian natives but in practice they can be very hard to grow, they can be very intolerant of less than ideal soil types etc, and can be short-lived and die quite suddenly. Also the most popular Grevilleas, Callistemons and Acacias are pretty run-of the mill every where and we wanted something different, kind of an English-style cottage garden look but using dry-climate plants.

 

The Mrs has spent many happy hours  doing the research and has come up with a surprising number of suitable plants of Californian, Mexican and other dry areas origin. The garden is now reaching some kind of maturity and we are finding that many of them flower at different time of the year to the 'standard' plants around here so at the moment (early Autumn) our yard is filled with bees, honey-eating birds and butterflies coming for  a feed.

 

Of course, the minute we finished the yard the El Nino gave way to a pretty aggressive La Nina and the drought broke, we've had floods  and we've had a few issues with root rot but other than that it looks a much more colourful place than previously.

 

We plan to put one more garden bed extending down from the back of the house, with maybe a pond in it  to create a permanent home for the dozens of Eastern tree frogs that currently live in various places around the  yard and make it sound like the Everglades at night with their croaking.

 

 

 

 

 

That looks a lovely garden, I'm looking at getting drought tollerent plants as my garden is so dry in the summer. 

What plants have you put in and are they Lavenders along the front of your border? I like the two plants next to the grass in the second last photo. 

[monkeysarefun]

10 hours ago, sb67 said:

 

That looks a lovely garden, I'm looking at getting drought tollerent plants as my garden is so dry in the summer. 

What plants have you put in and are they Lavenders along the front of your border? I like the two plants next to the grass in the second last photo. 

Hey mate, thanks for the compliment.

 

Most plants are varieties of Salvias or  Gauras, both perennials. The tall blue plants in front of the seat are Gaura Big Blue  and  are probably the least drought tolerant, though by that I mean they need extra watering when the temperature gets to 40 plus and they are out in full  sun, so shouldn't be an issue in the UK. The plants with  pink flowers in front of the seat beside the grass are pink  Salvias, they readily self seed all over the place.

 

There are a couple of lavenders in there, in the first photo on the left hand side along the front border. All other blue/purple flowers are varieties of Salvia.

Cheers.

[jbqfc]

I put my camera trap on the pond today and here are the edited results Starlings sparrows robin dunnock goldfinch pigeon 

 

 

[sb67]

Can anyone identify this plant for me please, and whether it's good for bees or not? I thought it might have been Borage but the flowers look different. 

 

Many thanks.

 

 

[jbqfc]

looks like a forget me not or Myosotis to give it's proper name it is closely related to Borage

as a native UK plant it is good for bees and insects 

 

John 

Edited April 20, 2021 by jbqfc
spelling

[jbqfc]

a few flowers coming out now but not much sign of any insects must be the cold weather 

red campion 

 

cow slip 

 

drumstick primula 

 

marsh marigold 

 

[jbqfc]

the garden is coming on well now the weather has warmed up 

the teasels are growing about 10 inches a week 

 

 

the ajuga and chives have been buzzing with bees 

 

 

 

my attempts at growing wild flowers from seed have had poor results with only the teasels and foxgloves coming up but it has been a very cold spring 

i resown most so will see what happens now 

 

 

[sb67]

Looking good, I can imaging it busy with bees and butterflies this weekend 

[jbqfc]

the garden is buzzing to day with a least 10 bees on the chives alone 

 

 

the bee hotel is doing well all of last years have left home with 24 cells all ready filled this year 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2021 by jbqfc

[Chrisr40]

One year on the pond is more established and plays host to froglets. After much watering the cottage garden plants are putting on a good show.

[sb67]

12 hours ago, Chrisr40 said:

One year on the pond is more established and plays host to froglets. After much watering the cottage garden plants are putting on a good show.

 

Nice photo's Chris40, like the poppies, they never seem to grow in my garden. I've thrown down so many seeds but nothing! 

[Chrisr40]

1 hour ago, sb67 said:

 

Nice photo's Chris40, like the poppies, they never seem to grow in my garden. I've thrown down so many seeds but nothing! 

Thanks sb67, like you we just scatter seeds and see what comes up. Have you tried raising them in pots and planting out when they have taken ?