Nature on Your Doorstep Community

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Welcome to the Greenfingers forum 2013! Share your garden snaps and stories!

Want to share your gardening exploits with the rest of us, got a question about a plant or looking for some ideas on gardening for wildlife or do you just want to show off your garden? Well then the greenfingers forum is for you.

It is part of the Homes for Wildlife group so if you want to post you will have to join, look for the icon on the right hand side of the page! This post will remain sticky on the homepage for a while to help you find it, otherwise you can get here by looking in wildlife and the Homes for Wildlife.

What better way to introduce your garden than posting a picture or tour of your own little patch of nature. So whatever garden space you have be it balcony, patio or postage stamp garden to acres of lovingly tended garden space, it would be great to see what you are getting up to! Here is a quick glimpse into my garden to get the ball rolling...

Plants are a dwarf gorse and a berberris and these are common frogs!

Warden Intern at Otmoor.

  • Hi Claire and Alan I put some wildflower seeds in a patch of the garden last year, I am looking forward to identifying the flowers that come up. This just started flowering yesterday. I have also included other pics of flowers good for attracting the bees and insects.

    Sweet William

    Columbine (Grandmas Bonnet) for Bees & Insects. They self-seed, just leave them until you hear a rattle then leave it to nature or just shake out the seeds where you want them to go.

    Speckled Woods seem to love anything. Vibernum

    Daddy Long legs on some nettles

    Pat Adams - Flickr - BLOG

  • It's great to see what people are doing for the birds and the bees etc. 

    Pat, if my wild flowers turn out as pretty as yours I'll be over the moon! :)

    Here's my little bit for nature! :)

    I had some large containers I didn't know what to do with as I have far too many.  I bought a box of native wildflower seeds for bees, butterflies and the like and thought I'd experiment to see if they would grow in said containers.  

    They've gone absolutely wild!! LoL  

    I also under planted my little apple tree with some too!

    I was so excited today as my first flower opened! :)  I've no idea what it is and I can't find it on any identifiers.  Here it is.  It's gorgeous.

    There are hundreds more buds and I'm really excited at what's going to blossom as I have no idea about our native wild flowers.  I'm looking forward to learning all about them. :)

  • Wow, they will look stunning when the flowers pop out. This little stunner is Nemophila maculata common name fivespot for obvious reasons or baby eyes, its originally from California so not a wild flower from these parts but a nice looking addition. I planted some of these a few years ago and if my memory serves me right they attracted in a few winged visitors...let us all know how they fair!

    Warden Intern at Otmoor.

  • Hi Katy it's great when the first flower comes. Hope you attract lots of insects and butterflies.

    Pat Adams - Flickr - BLOG

  • What seeds were you putting on the feeder Alan. It looks like some sort of Crop!!

    Pat Adams - Flickr - BLOG

  • Looks a bit like a Teasel family,wouldn't it be funny if it was a Teasel LOL.If I can get a few seeds from our Teasels in Autumn would offer you them if you wanted as it would be another year before yours seeded.

  • Ian, thank you for the ID.  It is a lovely little addition, it's very pretty.  They are thriving at the moment.  I'm hoping if I keep the tubs well watered it should be a success.

    Pat, thank you.  Yes you are right it is exciting to see the flowers arriving.  It's one of the best things I've done in planting terms.  It's like reading a really good Thriller! The suspense is killing me! lol

    Alan, lol!  At least you got a stray something nice.  I ended up with a tub full of Corn growing under my bird table! lol

  • Brilliant thread, love all the photos and annoyingly I went to my dads, where I'm helping him with his garden and I have about 30 Teasels growing in one bed!!! I popped them in last year and now they have to be about a meter high! I did take my camera with me but stupidly I didn't take pics as we were working chatting and supping. Then went out for tea. But I will get some pics up. Also there's loads of wild flowers and plenty of Cosmos's :)

    Cheers, Jason

  • Hi Alan, I thought by the stalk it might be teasel but did not recognise the leaves and the way they come out from the stalk. Here are two pics of mine

    1) new growth with Old Teasel in Background

    and 2)

    Close up of the leaves - let me know what you think

    Pat Adams - Flickr - BLOG

  • Doesn't look right for teasel IMHO, the leaves are alternate not opposite and the shape is off as well...however there are some similarities...I was wondering if it's some kind of prickly lettuce or sow thistle but again it doesn't look quite right...I do like these plant ID challenges! If you do transplant and it flowers please post a picture as I think you've got a few of us hooked!!!

    Warden Intern at Otmoor.