Gardening for wildlife

[BeverleyBrooks]

Is anyone else trying to make their garden more natural and more wildlife friendly?

I really enjoy gardening and the wildlife it brings. I am now trying to use native plants where I can and to look at other ways to make the garden more habitable for wildlife.

I have downloaded the Seek app and instead of automatically digging up any ‘weeds’ I am identifying them to see if any would be worth keeping as wildflowers. It’s really interesting!

I have a small pond already.

I have cut a hole in the bottom of my fences for frogs / hedgehogs so they can move between gardens easier (inspired by the David Attenborough London nature programme!)

I really want to encourage more insects, butterflies, bees, birds so am actively looking for native plants - instead of just picking up whatever looks good in the garden centre!

I just wondered if anyone else feels the same, I had a quick scroll through the gardening section, but couldn’t see a similar thread.

I am trying to be more wildlife friendly each year. My teasel seeds haven't grown yet, which is annoying! The pond we put in last year grew a couple of frogs, but sadly no spawn. It has a couple of half buried pots and ferns around it for small animal cover. I made a log pile by the compost bins for critters. Lots of mulch for caterpillars etc. It's only a small garden, but definitely worth trying.

I garden for wildlife as much as I can. My aim this year is to get a nature pond installed.
Id suggest you look more at wildlife-friendly plants than focus on native plants. Many insects have adapted to different garden flowers even if they aren’t native to this country; plus as the climate changes we will get different insects & animals travelling further afield.

I love salvia’s & nepeta - both fantastic for pollinators. It’s wonderful to see Hummingbird Hawk Moths feeding on them. Fruit bushes & trees for birds & mice. Honeysuckle, evening primrose & night scented phlox for moths (& consequently bats!). Bee houses for the mason bees & leaf cutter bees. Early flowering plants like pulmonaria & brunera, rosemary & spring bulbs for newly emerging Queen Bees & the lovely Hairy Footed Flower Bee. We don’t mow the grass & let things like nettle & willow rosebay grow in certain areas. Buddleia is amazing for pollinators - a bee & butterfly magnate & perfectly easy to keep in check - I cut the flower heads off before they go to seed.

Yes, there are three plants in it, although Mrs Blackbird has managed to massacre one of the plants, not sure if it will survive.

The pond is surrounded by three Geums, a blue Penstemon, grape hyacinths, aubretia, forget me nots and a lavender bush so it's quite protected.

I've had snails in the pond but nothing else sadly.🙁

Ive just sat out in the garden for ten minutes and had the Merlin app going. In the space of five minutes it recorded:

Ring-necked pheasant
Common wood pigeaon
Eurasian Magpie
Mallard
Eurasian Jackdaw
Long tailed tit
Great tit
Common Buzzard
Eurasian blackbird
Eurasian blue tit
Eurasian Wren
European Robin
Great spotted woodpecker
Coal tit

I'm quite pleased with that haul!

We have a large garden in a rural area, and making sure that I provide a range of habitats for wildlife is very important to me.

Since it has actually stopped raining this week I have been doing a lot outside and was delighted to see so many hoverflies, bumble bees, ladybirds and butterflies around.

We had a hedgehog last year, so I hope they come back.

If you want to get more involved the Buzz Club has lots of advice, and some interesting citizen science projects you can join.

https://www.thebuzzclub.uk/

Thanks lots of ideas here! I do have a small pond, it doesn’t have any frogspawn in it but I do see frogs occasionally. I like some of the plant ideas above. I would love to attract more butterflies.

This book is on offer in the kindle version on Amazon today (24 March)

Kindest Garden

Also Jamie Walton's Nettles and Petals

The Merlin app is excellent, so much fun, and helped me identify a small group of hoopoes when we were on holiday. They used to only be in the Mediterranean but apparently now can be seen in UK & Ireland.

The tits (bluetits, coal tits and great tits), and the robins are loving a little frame thing filled with sheep’s wool that I bought from Amazon - every day they visit and pull a few strands out for their nests. They are definitely using at least one of our nest boxes (we have 3 but one is new so they may not have found it yet, and the other is out of sight round the corner, so I can’t tell if it’s in use or not), and also a tall, narrow-necked decorative pottery jug. We’ve had bluetit families in that one most years, I always worry about fledging as they must have to fly straight up through a tiny hole on their first go, but they always seem to make it.

pic of hoopoe because it’s glorious

Oh he/she is glorious! Do you have a link to the Amazon thing you mentioned at all? Thank you

@RudolphTheReindeer it was this one Handmade Fiber Bird Nesting Heart, Fiber Bird Nest, Nests Material Holder, Refillable Birds Haven 1 Heart Shape Nest and 3 Bags of Nest Materials, for Garden, Yard & Birds Lover https://amzn.eu/d/03SErlb7

although I’d be tempted to get this and stuff it in something! Bird nesting material - 100% pure natural British wool. Soft, warm and eco-friendly - made only from high-welfare sheep wool ethically farmed in Orkney. https://amzn.eu/d/0j4OdPkJ

While I’m recommending things from Amazon, I also bought this book for a friend, after being recommended on the comforting books thread. It’s a correspondence between a gardener and a cook and is so lovely: Rhubarb Rhubarb: A correspondence between a hopeless gardener and a hopeful cook https://amzn.eu/d/0hmfk4d5

The RSPB advice about taking down bird feeders in summer has made me even more determined to increase the plants and habitats that provide natural food for birds.
I planted a pyracantha along the fence a couple of years ago and I just realised the other day that all the berries have been eaten. So I have just planted a dog rose in a spare spot along the fence as the rosehips will be good for birds too.

I am often followed round the garden by a robin who waits for me to unearth some tasty bugs, he seems to be finding a lot, I find that very satisfying.

I have also banned DH from using weed killer on the lawn!

I have a small pond but it’s in the border so am thinking of trying to create another water feature for the birds.

I’m going to do sunflowers again as the birds were feeding off them last year in the autumn. I also leave some of the apples on the ground for them and will continue to do that and will consider what else to plant.

My pond is an old plant pot hastily shoved in as found a frog by the water butt. It needs enlarging with a shallow end for the birds so that is on my list. I do have a preformed pond liner but think a liner would be better.

Seen loads of ladybirds and bees so far this year which is lovely plus a newt and baby slow worm at the allotment. My garden, my friend’s and allotment all have lots of goldfinches.

I’m going to grow some sacrificial plants for caterpillars for the birds, nasturtiums are one that always get munched.

Yes I am very pleased to see lots of bees this year on the flowering shrubs, I identified some as the hairy footed flower bee 🙂

I keep trying to un grass the lawn, but some wee beastie or other always thwarts me. I have tried seeds and plants. I put in 36 each of yarrow and daisy a couple of weeks ago and can now only find 3 daisies and no yarrow. The clover seeds disappear. The dog violets that rampage all across the beds in the front garden stubbornly refuse to be transplanted or seaded to the lawn. Even blowing copious amounts of bloody dandelion clocks makes no difference!

@HarryVanderspeigle have you tried using yellow rattle to weaken your grass?

I bought one of these and was very happy to see a blackbird flying off with some fluff this week. Thanks for the info.

Seeds yes, but not plug plants. Obviously the seeds didn't grow.

Did you buy fresh ones? I didn't realise when I was ordering mine that they needed to be just harvested and sown fairly soon. This year I've seen packets of them in supermarkets and garden centres, along with all the other seeds, I don't think they'd work so well.

I have lots of creeping Jenny on my lawn currently, might be worth a go introducing some of that. Alkanet has self seeded into it and some bluebells have appeared. Have had valerian and toadflax seed into it previously years.

I’ve got a few spaces that I pretty much ignore (long grass, nettles etc) and a few that are cultivated to provide sheltered spaces. We have a long narrow plot of about 1/3 acre so it’s easy to create nooks here and there. I mostly grow wildlife-feeding plants, and leave the non-invasive weeds. The lawn is always cut (for retrieving dog poo) but relatively high so we always have loads of daisies, clover, dandelions etc. I never use artificial sprays, weed or pest killers etc Not perfect I’m sure, but it’s a reasonable balance.

Ugh! It draws in butterflies but is invasive.
I put in some leek ends in a border - they have huge allium flowers and bees love them.

I’m not sure I’m anti-buddleia. I have half a dozen or so different ones and pull up the occasional seedling (appreciate they can pop up out of my garden too, but I don’t see them in the local area). They’re always covered in bees, butterflies, spiders, various flying insects while in flower.

If you are anywhere near a railway line you'd soon get sick of them.

I get lots of butterflies in the garden. It's quite wild.

Lots of logs and twigs rotting, lots of climbers, water for birds etc. There are slow worms.