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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Butterfly and bee area over winter.

16 replies

Fatherbrownsbicycle · 02/08/2020 07:14

I’ve just cleared an area to have a wildlife bit (late I know but early for next year). There are so many butterfly & bee mixes and some say ‘no grass seed’. My question is, if you have an area like this, what does it look like in winter? Is it better to have a mix with grass seed (more natural I suppose) or without? I don’t fancy looking at mud until it all starts growing in spring.
Any advice?

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chipshopElvis · 02/08/2020 08:58

Ours just looks like soil in winter, no grass seed. My understanding is that wildflowers don't do well with grass as the grass takes over. A sign of a good wildflower patch is little or no grass.

MereDintofPandiculation · 02/08/2020 10:18

Firstly, bee and butterfly seed mixes are not usually exclusively UK wild flowers, they include wild flowers from elsewhere in the world. But setting that aside:

There's basically two types of management regime which make sense in the average garden, pasture/hay meadow, and arable (cornfield).

Cornfield is easier to establish in the average garden with rich soil, and is what most packets of "wildflower seeds" emulate. They are mainly annual flowers, growing from seed each year, and in order to succeed, they need bare soil, not soil that has already been occupied by other plants. So in winter the soil will be bare, and until you've built up a good seed bank you will need to re-seed each year.

Pasture/hayfield is basically grass with perennial plants. Easiest way to establish is to strip off the top few inches of rich soil (you need to keep nutrient levels low as the grass is better at using high levels of nutrient that the plants), then plant a meadow mix which includes grass. These usually include a few annuals to give the "wow" factor in the first year while the perennials are establishing, but the annuals won't persist.

Each year you need to mow up till about the beginning of May and take off the cuttings, then leave it to grow. The ideal is to mow the grass at its peak, in late July, before it starts to die back and return its nutrient to the soil, but that will mean cutting while flowers are still in bloom, so in a garden you'll probably delay the cutting till late August. I wouldn't leave it much longer than that.

In winter, it will look like turf with a mixture or grass and wild flower plant leaves, although some of the plants will die back completely over winter. It'll stay looking a dense green cover. (In summer, it's multilayered - if you do a survey on flower-rich grassland in summer, counting the percentage cover of each species, your total is always way over 100%).

Fatherbrownsbicycle · 02/08/2020 12:57

Chipshop -my concern was grass would take over.

MereDint- wow. Thanks for all the info, I shall digest and will be sure to buy only mixes with just U.K flowers.

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magicstar1 · 02/08/2020 13:05

I don’t know much about gardening, but I planted three buddleia plants from Lidl two years ago. They’re now 10 feet tall and are full of bees and butterflies every summer.
They might be an option for you?

Beebumble2 · 02/08/2020 14:35

My large flowered Persicaria is heaving with bees and butterflies. It’s a perennial and remains over winter.

Fatherbrownsbicycle · 02/08/2020 19:38

I’m not a fan of buddleia because, unless they are dead headed they seed & grow everywhere but the butterflies do love them!

Persicaria-I had a quick google as I’ve never heard of them. Very interesting. I think I could find a space for a couple of those in the front garden.

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orangenasturtium · 02/08/2020 23:29

The RHS has a lists of plants for pollinators/invertebrates. You can select for native plants or wildflowers, if you prefer. There are plenty of perennials to chose from. You can also look for the RHS bee logo on plant labels when buying plants.

www.rhs.org.uk/science/conservation-biodiversity/wildlife/plants-for-pollinators

If you have hedgehogs in your neighbourhood, a hog hotel would make a great addition to your wildlife garden Smile Leave access points if you have a walled/fenced garden. They have just been added to the red list as vulnerable to extinction in the UK.

www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/british-hedgehog-now-officially-classified-as-vulnerable-to-extinction/

Fatherbrownsbicycle · 03/08/2020 17:23

I saw a hedgehog running up our street the other night -they are fast! I was disappointed it went into a neighbours but I found hedgehog poo on our lawn yesterday morning which I was ridiculously thrilled about. I think it might live in the space under our shed but will google hog hotel for ideas.

I will check out the RHS link too. Thank you.

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orangenasturtium · 03/08/2020 19:42

@Fatherbrownsbicycle This is a great site for info on how to help hedgehogs with advice on creating hedgehog highways, hedgehog houses and feeding them, if you want to see more of them! Ours visit every night for dinner and quite often sleep over too. They tend to sleep in different places unless they are hibernating.

www.hedgehogstreet.org/

orangenasturtium · 03/08/2020 19:49

A very fuzzy pic of one of this week's cute clients:

Butterfly and bee area over winter.
Fatherbrownsbicycle · 03/08/2020 21:33

Wow, you are so lucky to have them as regular visitors. I will hunt out some suitable dishes & will have a look at the website -thanks.

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Xiaoxiong · 03/08/2020 21:47

Someone who once lived here loved Philadelphus - we have three beautiful mature ones, all different varieties, and they are heaving with bees and butterflies in flower. They also make the garden smell wonderful!

GuyFawkesDay · 03/08/2020 21:49

Lots of plants are best left over winter. Perennials and bulbs like alliums provide seed heads and insect homes.

The more open the flower the better for insects. So dog roses, single flowered dahlias, geranium. Then add verbena bonariensis, agastache, catmint, alliums, helenium, sedum, achillea, foxgloves etc.

We have gone for a nature based, "new perennial" style planting scheme and it is FULL of bees, butterflies and bugs all day. It's s total joy.

Even annuals too. I've just cut back my Ammi Majus to 1ft above ground. Stems are hollow do perfect winter hiding places for insects. Get you bug boxes up, and hedgehog hotels and bird feeders!

orangenasturtium · 04/08/2020 00:19

If you've seen a hedgehog nearby Fatherbrownsbicycle, you'll soon have your own regular visitors if you start putting food out. It might take a little while as they roam about a mile every night but once they've learnt that there is always food at Fatherbrownsbicycle's, they will start visiting every day.

MereDintofPandiculation · 04/08/2020 13:39

The more open the flower the better for insects. double plants basically covert the sexual parts into petals, so no pollen, nectar etc, therefore no good for insects.

Bumblebees like a wide landing platform, which is why they like things like scabious. Light coloured flowers with a scent are designed to show up in evening light and attract moths.

Fatherbrownsbicycle · 06/08/2020 16:47

Thank you all for all the tips and suggestions. I’m madly googling plants I’ve never heard of, planning my border and persuading DH to build a hedgehog hotel Smile

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