Wild flowers

[Tigger1895]

I live in an an estate. Everyone keeps their lawn and garden impeccably. Recently people have started wild flower gardens outside their property on the grass pathway. To me it looks unkept and unsightly.
I feel if you want bees to feed why not encourage them into your own garden instead of making the pathway look like you can’t be bothered mowing that piece of grass. AIBU

I hate plastic grass. That is the thing I judge

Yabu.
A looser look is better imho.

@MrsFin

Perhaps they should lay the verges with artificial grass. That would look much neater.

I was going to post exactly this. Less ticks too!

We recently re-did our front garden. We've levelled it and made it lawn because it's shady (and private) and it's where DD plays in the summer. But I specifically bought lawn seed with daisies and clover in it, so hopefully it won't be a short grass desert.

The back garden has shrubs and a wildlife pond. It's teeming with little frogs, tadpoles and newts. I spend hours sitting by it just watching them all. The birds are everywhere, and the bees and bugs are fabulous.

Where I live the local council is cutting some of the larger grass verges in such a way as to allow the wild flowers to flourish.

They are clearly being managed but are slightly 'wild' looking at the same time; it's a pleasure to walk along the street and see all the bees and flowers doing their important work.

Wasn't there a fear that bees were in danger a few years ago, brought about by disease and pesticides.

We need those vital little bees. We can never have too many.

You would hate my garden... the child loves it and we have pygmy shrews, hedgehogs, cuckoo's all sorts of wildlife

I'm in rented with a paved garden so not a lot I can do for the momennt. I have, however, planted up tubs that are attracting bees, etc. We should be moving into a home of our own sometime in the next year. (DC have inherited from their dad, and want to buy a home of our own.)

We plan to make any garden we have bee friendly.

Some verges nearby have been seeded with wildflowers, and I sent an email to my local councillor to encourage more of this. It'll be a win win situation; more wildflowers to encourage more pollinators, and wildflower verges are lower maintenance for the council, so saving them money.

Tbh I think atm our council finds it easier to mow regularly than the intermittent regime you need to manage wildflower verges.
Plus during lockdown some people complained vociferously about the unkempt look and used the traffic visibility argument (despite it having zero effect we could see if driving locally..) it's still rather potent to the council who don't want to be blamed for accidents. So it's all a bit cut back here compared with last year's verdant look!

We used to have a small wildlife garden shared with the other 7 families in our block of flats. It was full of insects and small creatures.

The the landlord decided it was 'unsightly' and despite protests from all residents put a patch of gravel over a liner. But covid ended his plans to keep the gravel weed-free as he was shielding.

Despite being a thin layer of gravel the patch has begun to re-wild. There are buttercups and poppies and insects. What's best is that the landlord has decided that weeding is 'too time-consuming' and conceded defeat. So he's given us packets of wildflower seeds!

The garden may not get back to its former beauty but its doing well for a liner covered in gravel!

Love the wildflowers and have been guilty of seed bombing when out walking. It was great to see the flowers when I walked there later in the year.
Also put up a solitary bee box which filled up really quickly

Since the 1950s we have lost Nealy 90% of meadows, with arable land/resting fields turned over to intense production or sold off to housing/leisure.
Meanwhile, we need bees, butterflies, moths, beetles etc. to pollinate fruit, vegetables and cerwal crops.
If there is nowhere for them, we have no food.
Equally such areas can be used by their predators which can stop 'explosions' of what we might otherwise deem pest species that feed on crops/garden plants in the absence of their usual food.
Now add the fact that longer grasses are more efficient at soaking up and dealing with heavy rainfall, and help to clean air beside roads (not as efficiently as trees, which are often removed - a while other issue).
Finally, mental health benefits. Access to green space, however small, is good for mental health.

@Happynewtier it sounds like it will be wonderful. It’s taken me a couple of years but the birds trust us now and we have had some really exciting garden birds this year. And one of our bird boxes appears to have become a bee box. There’s always a fluffy bottom sticking out.

Ugh your not one of these people that has artificial 'grass' and no flowers anywhere in the garden are you OP? Bleugh!

My favourite past time is taking photos of these fuzzy friends in my garden.

@Boomshakalack

You sound like my mother. Whenever she moves into a new house she removes any plants she deems ‘unsightly’. I’ll never forget when she ripped down a mature wisteria off the front of a house. (Or forgive). You need to adjust your mind set OP, these things help.

oh dear, I bet she was hated by the neighbours

@Onairjunkie

You are being so, so unreasonable OP.

I have a farm and I’ve rewilded a six-acre paddock. With the tractor I have just cut a narrow strip/path through it so I can get through, but beyond that I’ve let it go. It is absolutely magical. It is full of deer, birds of every kind from tiny garden birds to birds of prey, rabbits and field mice. But they very best thing is the hum like a Lancaster bomber of the millions of bees flying from each of the beautiful wildflowers. How can that be a bad thing? I walk through it every day.

Thank you (from me and the bees).

That paddock sounds lovely. Thank you indeed.

And to everyone else who keeps grassy spots and overgrown nettley corners and hedges in their gardens.

I remember a fantastic TV programme by David Bellamy on gardens and their cumulative potential as a wildlife habitat.

You can become a solitary bee guardian here. They send you bee cocoons as well as the house. It’s brilliant and great for the children watching bees hatching, they do their thing fill the tubes up with babies and you send them back, then the next year they send you more.

They are non stinging red mason bees. Very cute and fluffy.

www.masonbees.co.uk/shop

This:

Thanks for the link @EvilPea

Op YABU. Despite having lots of lovely flowers in the front and back garden I'v left a patch in the front as wildflower. Bees really need all the help they can get.

Yabu. Where we live the council sow wildflowers on the roundabouts and grass verges, they look amazing. So much better than just mown grass.
I have planted my back garden to encourage the bees including some wildflowers but am seriously tempted to do it properly out front on my un-used lawn.
I also did no mow May which I’m sure had the neighbours getting twitchy….but bah who cares? Not me.

Thank you for the mason bee link!

Going to have to get those

We have a wild flower meadow as a back garden. There's bees in one of our bird boxes. We are going to have to do something about the brambles though as they've got triffid ambitions.

But can I give a plea to people who might think of scattering wild flower seeds in the countryside. It isn't always a good thing. When I was growing up in the 80s, someone went round doing this in various places in our local area. Unfortunately one of the areas had some rare orchids in, kept very quiet because of not wanting people trampling over to find them. It was seeded with wild flower seeds, and the wild flowers took over and very quickly the orchids were no more.

God you would hate it around here, the council didn’t mow at all since April to help the wildlife, the results have been awesome! This week just some selective mowing going on the help with visibility at junctions but that’s it. Everything is so wild and lush!

I live in a flat and all these lists have been inspiring...I will definitely ask our managing agent if we could re-wild some of our communal grounds! At the moment we have mowed lawns, manicured hedges and a few buses...I think we could do better. I intend to buy a house in the suburbs one day (or even leave the city altogether) and home I can grow a bee friendly space. Too often when I'm on Rightmove I despair at the gardens, all paved over or decked or covered in stones . Thanks all!