Spoiled for choice of garden.

Hello Elizabeth and welcome to the forum from sunderland,can't help you with the gardening I'm afraid,I pull out the flowers with the weeds!,however there are aa lot of people on this forum who are both very knowledgeable and extremely helpful and will be only to eager to help you plan your wildlife friendly garden.

Terry

Good morning Elizabeth! What a wonderful task you have there! I help out with my dads garden and a garden on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in Haworth.

If you want to plant for wildlife there's plenty of opportunity and good plants.

It doesn't have to be expensive neither, Wilko's has plenty of choice. To start with you can prepare a flower bed and just sprinkle wild flower seeds and rake them in. Only takes 2 mins and then leave it for summer and you'll have a wild flower meadow.

Sunflowers are great and attract bees and birds and they're fun to do and look good.

I also like to plant calendulas, cornflower, cosmos and Dahlia's.

But theres loads more.

If you go around garden centres and any label with a picture of a bee, those plants are great for wildlife :) Happy Gardening

Hi Elizabeth. Adrian's book is a wonderful read - humourous as well as informative. I got it from our library, so I took notes. I think I learned that diversity is important--the more variety you have the better is is for wildlife, with different ecological niches such as mounds of earth and stones and hedges and rotting wood piles and WATER (really important- a pond or bogg, and bird bath and even a dish of water on the ground for small mammals), ivy and climbers(vines), fruiting trees/shrubs, wildflowers and both native and foreign herbaceous perennials and annuals with single blooms (not double); and bee hotels and catepillar plants (non-blooming such as nettles)as well as butterfly ones (bloomers- with some for every season for all the beneficial insects), both pollen and nectar plants , and night time bloomers for moths and bats---it's a whole new world of gardening.  Exciting! Oh---and those 'weeds' in your garden may be important to the wildlife you already have there. Best not to get rid of them all! Make it easy on yourself :-) Put in a few clumps of lovely new plants (best if they're not singles) and mow a pathway through it all. I think that's a good way to start. And let us know how it goes.

When we first came here we had a huge field & no money. We had a local farmer plough a vegetable plot & then looked at making the garden. I decided that what grew in the neighbours garden was a good start & took hardwood cuttings in the winter poked them in the ground & the following year they were little bushes. I bought packs of mixed seeds, annuals & perennials. Perennials are great as they establish the framework of flower beds & generally don't need much watering. It's so exciting to start off at the beginning, I envy you.

One tip only, don't plant things too close together, look at how big they'll grow. Also don't put anything too spiky close to a path.

Hi Elizabeth,

A bit late but welcome to the forum from North Somerset also!

As many have said the greenfingers section on here is the place to search for ides, especially about wildlife gardening.

I have been developing my own garden for wildlife for the last four years and have kept a blog as I have gone along. On my blog there are lots of different projects many with step by step guides of how I did a specific task. There are also quite a few lists of the type of plants that I have found worked well for pollinators and other wildlife.

Please do feel free to use the link below and see if there is anything of interest on there and please do feel free to send me a personal message either on here or through the blog if you want further details or you just want to talk over some general ideas etc. I'm no expert but always interested in what others are doing and enjoy helping where I can.

Best

Higgy

higgysgardenproject.blogspot.co.uk

Higgy- you must so busy! Gorgeous photos. Works of art.

Hi Karin,

Thank you very much that is very kind of you and really appreciated. I just hope that it gives others ideas and shows what can be achieved not only for the wildlife to enjoy but for the whole family to benefit from.

I think gardening for wildlife got a bad press until very recently as most people thought it was about being untidy and messy and letting the weeds grow! In fact this is the case but it can be done in a managed and creative way that creates a pretty place, the wildlife then just arrives as it evolves which is really quite captivating!

Not sure about busy as I love it but I have to say that working full time does get in the way otherwise I would do more!! LOL

Best

Higgy

Many, many thanks to everyone who has so kindly responded on this thread. I value your opinions. Tomorrow (8/1/14) I plan to go with a friend, who also gardens, to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. They sell plants and I plan to see what they have with a view to buying some. I am hoping that they also sell seeds. I have been watching two of "The Great British Garden Revival" programmes on BBC2. The presenters are really passionate about their gardening. I quite like the thought of having a rock garden - however small - and a cut flower bit which would benefit wildlife.I have also taken on board the plants recommended on this thread. If you're wondering why I'm replying to my own post it's because I don't know how to post onto this thread unless it's a reply.

Hi Elizabeth,

You reply by typing in the box below the last post and hitting the blue 'Reply' button below...

Your trip sounds amazing and you are going to a place where there will be lots to learn!

I also enjoy the gardening programs on TV and as you say the presenters are very passionate.

I was extremely fortunate to have my garden on SpringWatch last year and when I met Martin Hughes-Games I was amazed at how he was just the same in real life as on TV and we had a really enjoyable day filming. The utter passion they have for their subject is just amazing!

Rockeries are a great feature if a little out of fashion but they give a good opportunity to grow lots of different plants many of which can be good for wildlife. The holes and crevices in the rocks makes great hiding places for many animals, amphibians and insects also so I love them and built one myself fairly recently..

It looked liked this when first started...

Then it gradually evolves...

There are a few tips worth considering when building a rockery such as...

Think carefully how the rocks should lay. Sounds easy but if you look at rocks in nature they don't all lie the same way, some will be horizontal where others will lay at a slightly different angle. Sometimes you get outcrops of a few rocks the maybe a single bigger rock for example.

It actually takes a long time with lots of putting rocks down and the gradually adjusting the position until it looks natural or even replacing it with a smaller or bigger rock or even a different shaped rock!

I know this sounds weird but it is true and you will find this out when you attempt it but it is quite satisfying when you find the right position for a certain rock especially if it's the sixth rock that you have tried in that position!! LOL

Before you build it look at other rock gardens and see what looks right and what doesn't work and why. You then need to look at natural rock formations before transferring all this knowledge into your own rock garden!

Hope that makes sense?

Good luck and don't forget to let us all know how you get on by posting back here with updates and pictures if you can?

If I can be of any other help feel free to drop me a line...

Best

Higgy