Your stories...planting for wildlife

Hi Ian,

You might regret asking me that as I have a current garden project on which incorporates wildlife areas and have included it in my blog (link below) for a full run down visit my blog but as a quick illustration here you go....

At the bottom of our garden we are very fortunate as we back onto open countryside and part own the field immediately behind us. This area at the bottom is being developed for wild life and 75% of materials used in the landscaping I have recycled from the garden or 'blagged' from friends and work colleagues. In the first two pictures you can see my log pile and hurdles made from old branches pruned from the trees which would have otherwise been disposed of.....a great idea for helping all sorts of wildlife overwinter.

The next two pictures below shows use of more cut logs to create a raised path which encourages wildlife (currently nesting bees), makes a nice entrance to the wildlife area and my three year old daughter loves running over it!!....These are now completely planted with grasses and wild-flowers to mirror the wild-flower lawn in front of it.

 

The wild-flower lawn planted in front of the wildlife area and gives a nice flow from the formal lawn and borders through to the 'wild' half of the garden...

This is now full of wild-flowers and insects....

Other wildlife is also attracted to the garden.....some of it very useful to us gardeners....

And of course a large variety of feathered visitors....

Many of which have become regular visitors and happy couples....

 

 

The garden is only in it's second season so I'm hoping it will improve as time goes on and attract even more wildlife! For more detailed information about this 'ongoing' project and my resident and visiting wildlife check out my blog on the link below....

Really looking forward to seeing some others now.......

Cheers

Higgy the photo gremlin strikes again

Only the 1st2 pics are there  :-(

Right, that should be it......I had to edit this post six times to get all the photos on....what a pain in the ****!!!!!

Make that edited seven times and this one once!!!!!......

Thanks Juno, appreciate the kind comments. I just throw it all together really and see what works. The beauty of a wildlife garden is that you don't have to be to tidy and under the hawthorn hedge at the bottom of the garden I just let the brambles and nettles etc grow which is great for all sorts of wildlife. Hopefully as the garden matures this will give a seamless passage for all the different 'critters' we hope to attract.....that's the theory anyway!

I'm really looking forward to seeing other peoples gardens and plants to get a few more ideas??...

Over the years I have created several wildlife friendly gardens - perhaps the most satisfying thing I have ever done. I am rewarded for my efforts by a garden that is never still, never boring and is heaving with life all year round. We moved to this particular garden last August and were blessed by a really good natural site with some scrubby woodland (rather neglected) just behind our boundary, a mature hedge on another boundary and a Devon bank with nooks and crannies for slow worms and all sorts of other creatures. Some good native plants, goat willow, bluebells, cow parsley, dandelions etc. grow in and around this bank. To attract birds, our first priority, we put out feeders stuffed with the usual suspects, sunflower seed hearts, peanuts, nyjer seeds, and suet in block and pellet form. Although two boundaries have good native trees and hedging plants we added more in the form of berry and hip bearing plants, spindle, rowan, rosa rugosa, dog roses, pyracantha, wayfairers tree, various native Viburnums and more. We built two ponds and a wildlife stack nearby. In the hedges we've planted foxglove, woodruff, dog violets, sweet violets, some left over strawberry runners so the birds can get at the fruit, they don't seem to mind shade, just makes the fruit later, campion, snowdrops etc. I planted the seeds of field poppy, cornflower, poached egg plant, ox eye daisy, sweetpeas and corn cockle at the end of the enriched veg patch to attract pollinators, and planted my runners, peas, broad beans, garlic, spuds, and salad crops in the usual way. Glad to say, the pollinators did indeed turn up and the crops have been good, not to mention the wildflowers. Two areas of grass have been set aside to be wildflower meadows, one is quite an extreme slope that's already covered in white clover and various 'weeds' some low growing, others a bit more robust, to these I added some cowslips I'd raised from seed. This patch is already looking quite good, the garden having been neglected for years. We have good grasses that I love to see flower, these in turn attract insects, which in turn attract the martins, swallows etc to trawl the skies above our patches. The other patch was bare after we'd whipped out a huge pampas grass, so we salted it with another wildflower mix and stood back, there seems to be cornflower and flax in the mix as well knapweed amongst other things. We don't have a lawn as such as what we inherited was rough grass, daisies, moss, clover, plaintain, dandelions, dock and nettles. We've dug a lot of beds and planted herbs, simple flowers in the form of various poppies, daisy-type things like ox eyes, shastas, lots of different types of scabious and a host of perennials and annuals I know from experience attract insects as well as me. Lots of different yarrows for example and poppies various. Between these beds we've mown paths in the grass and clover. We have several wood piles, one is a stumpary (thanks Higgy for the idea) with ferns, another is piled in the hedge in one of the routes next door's cats use to get at the feeders, slows 'em down at least so they can't erupt out of the hedge on to the birdbath or feeders:-) I never use any chemicals. I'm sorry there are no pix, was going to get myself a camera but events have conspired, as they say.

The pay off for me? Now I'm very ill indeed I can while away many happy hours just watching, either from my study if the weather's iffy, or from several charming spots in my rather scruffy but much loved garden. And when I die, my neighbour has promised to fulfil my wishes and allow my ashes to be put under one of her mighty oaks because I understand that that wonderful tree feeds more native wildlife than any other plant and it comforts me to know that I will still be doing my bit for the creatures and plants that have given me SO MUCH joy over the decades.

I forgot to mention, we planted teasels, Evening Primroses etc as seed bearers for finches, but I find they adore grass seeds too if grasses are allowed to flower and 'go over'. Verbena bonariensis is popular with all the insects when it's flowering and I've found goldfinches, greenfinches and sparrows love the seeds when they come in. I never cut things back until spring. I plant single flowers for the nectar and pollen lovers among the insects and tubular things like companulas various, foxgloves, pulminaria (loads of those), monkshood and so on for long tongued bees and simple composite flowers like daisies, yarrows, cow parsleys and so on for the short-tongued bees. Buddleia of course and winter flowering honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), mahonia, tree ivy is left alone to flower and berry, asters flower late too, to provide a last good feed for hibernating insects. I try really hard to plant so there is nectar, pollen, berries and seeds at practically any time of year.

Thanks for sharing these pictures Higgy, great blog as well, it's coming on a treat and should improve as the years progress but a great first couple of years! Kezsmum, it sounds like you have achieved a fantastic balance, providing year round features to benefit wildlife is tricky to achieve but if you get it right it can pay dividends!

Any more pic's, stories or tips please feel free to share them!

Hi All,

Just a quick note to say that I took a lot of advice about the wild flowers from Kezsmum so she is most certainly the expert on wild flowers. I have to say that her advice is well worth listening to if your thinking about a wild flower lawn/meadow!...

I started by turning my troublesome veg patch into a wildlife area, i planted a Buddleia, teasels, wild basil, wild marjoram, some red clover, Hawk bits. lesser knapweeds and some different types of scabious.

I then inter sowed the area with wildflower seeds, but these mostly grew up into a type of mustard which i Had to cut back quite a bit.

I've done very well with the logs i placed around the garden, some in piles, some singular in the boarders, by the amount of holes in the them i'd say they are full of wood boring insects.

I built a wildlife stack a few years ago after seeing the first example made by the RSPB at Gardeners World Live, I've dug a small wildlife pond which attracted my first ever Smooth Newts, Red Damselfly and a large fleeting Dragonfly, and its been full of frogs all year.

I leave a bit of the lawn long, and let the ragwort and thistles flower.

I have next boxes up, (Unused), way too many feeders up, (Constantly used), Hedgehog boxes, (Sometimes used).

I've planted a Crab Apple, so I get flowers and currently the fruits, and next year I have plans for more logs and more wildflowers as plug plants.