More ways to grow your garden wildlife

Here at the RSPB, we’ve always been big on growing. Since acquiring our first nature reserve in the 1930s, we’ve been growing reedbeds for Bitterns, Caledonian woodlands for Capercaillie, wet grassland for breeding wading birds, chalk grassland for rare butterflies and more.

In recent years, it has been increasingly acknowledged that gardens are also a valuable wildlife habitat, and everyone with an outside space has the chance to contribute to nature’s recovery by doing a bit of growing themselves.

The equation is simple: grow the right plants in the right places in your garden or outside space and you'll create habitats which then allows wildlife to thrive.

Last week’s blog was all about how to boost nature by sowing annual seedmixes. This week, here's a different way to boost your plant diversity by planting up a border.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been digging and raking this area of my garden, ready to plant some perennial plants* and shrubs** in what is called a mixed border.

The shrubs were a very welcome Christmas present and came from a peat-free online nursery. All the other plants are either where I’ve divided*** a plant already in the garden, or are ones I’ve found that have self-seeded in the garden, or from cuttings I made last year.

You could of course create a border by buying plants from a garden centre or nursery, but do check they have been grown in peat-free compost.

If you want to, start by create a planting plan, designing what plants are going to go where before you even source them. Remember, right plant for the right place, so choose those that will like your conditions – mine is a south facing bed but with a backdrop of trees causing shade in the afternoon.

Once you have a clear planting bed, set out the plants and have a look at them from all directions. Crystal-ball gaze and imagine how large they are going to grow, and what they will look like next to each other, and then reorder them until you’re happy.

Planting is then pretty quick – it took me an hour to put in these 30 plants, firm them in, label them (with reused labels) and water them.

But you can see that the 'finished' border looks pretty sparse at first (below). That’s where annual flower seeds come to the rescue again, and a quick scatter, rake-in and water mean that I should be able to fill the gaps with a colour blast this summer until the perennials and shrubs become well established.

I then plant to add some bulbs this autumn - October is prime bulb planting season, apart from tulips which go in during November .

Then, apart from a bit of weeding and undoubtedly a bit of editing and addition of other plants as I grow them, this border should be easy to look after for years ahead. I'll show you how it gets on as the seasons progress.

Here is just a selection of the plants I've put in my mixed border so far:

Perennials:

• Bugle. I've used a cultivar called Catlin’s Giant which has more purply leaves and taller flower spikes. A great nectar plant for spring bees and butterflies such as Orange-tip
• Columbine. One of our most beautiful native flowers, enjoyed by bumblebees
• Sweet Cicely. Rather like Cow Parlsey, with feathery leaves and masses flat heads of small white flowers. Great for hoverflies.

Shrubs

• Hydrangea quercifolia. Pointed clusters of white flowers. Red autumn foliage.
• Weigela middendorffiana. Yellow tubular flowers that bumblebees love
• Salix bockii. A very low-growing willow, that a nurseryman assured me was one of his very best for pollinators. We’ll see!

* ‘Perennial plants’: those that grow back year after year. ‘Herbaceous perennials’ completely die back above ground in the winter, allowing them to burst back from the rootstock the following year

** ‘Shrubs’: woody perennial plants with multiple stems spreading from low on the plant, whose framework persists through the winter. Some are evergreen, others deciduous.

*** ‘Division’: Digging up an established perennial plant and splitting it into multiple sections, each of which can be replanted as a separate plant. April is prime time to divide perennials.