April in the Wildlife-friendly Garden

If nature was a car, and March was like turning the engine over (and it not always starting first time), then April is 'handbrakes off' and we're on the move. Everything's arriving, hatching, growing.

And firmly in the 'growing' category now is, yes, the lawn.

Brace yourself: this year we'd love you to try something different, something quite bold. Can you let at least part of your lawn grow at least a bit longer, to help nature?

In last week's blog, I set out some of the different ways you can do it, the simplest of which is just leaving the mower in the shed for a few weeks, as easy as that. Good for you, good for wildlife, good for the planet.

And here are one of the other things that is perfect to get on with in the wildlife-friendly garden this month: Sowing seeds.

I find that there's little more satisfying than poking a few seeds into some pots of compost (peat-free, of course!) and tending the seedlings as they emerge. How is there so much energy and knowledge packed into those tiny, lifeless packages?

Admittedly, some don't germinate (you don't see that on the TV, but it happens to everyone); some succumb when seedlings; and some go on to give pleasure for years.

This month you can plant seeds of wildlife-friendly perennial plants indoors, half-hardy annuals likewise, and there's still time to sow 'poppyfield' mixes through the month, too.

But here are four of my favourite hardy annuals for wildlife to we sown outside directly into the flowerbed - and I'm going to guarantee that if you grow a good patch of these, you'll get bees visiting:

Echium vulgare Blue Bedder

Cosmos bipinnatus

Cerinthe major (Honeywort)

Phacelia tanacetifolia (Fiddleneck, or Scorpion Weed).