Wanted - Your gardens

We downsized garden significantly 16 years ago but upsized house, new house, new garden, smaller plot, put in water feature, running water into pond from a waterfall, have compost heap, 10 bird feeders, 6 bird boxes but plagued by cats, one shown here

Thanks John, he looks like he's eyeing up one of your pond dwellers? Have you tried any deterrents?

Minus the cat it looks a great place for frogs, plenty of gently sloping banks, had any dragonflies this year? Any success with the bird boxes?

I read yesterday that if you put citrus peel into the garden they don't like it. I have put about 6 orange peel worth in since and wait with anticipation. I only have one cat coming in from neighbours but she always manages to catch a bird every week or so so I too would be grateful for any assistance. She is a lovely cat and it is nature after all but not in my garden lol :)

Yes Ian shortly after that episode above we netted the pond, it really is to keep the Heron out, but one now defunct bird table had this on it once!

re the bird boxes, we had Blue Tits building but abandoned and in a larger box Great Tits nesting but abandoned, I won't know what is within until I clean out boxes in October

I shall zip my lips on the cat situation:-(

Hello

We're in the process of designing our garden... We planning to have a wildlife section towards the far end of it, so any suggestions are of course welcomed!

First phase is nearly complete, a rockery and a path to take us into the garden:

At the moment we have 8 bird feeders, and quite an impressive list of birds recorded so far:

• Blackbird
• Blackcap
• Blue Tit
• Bullfinch
• Buzzard (Overhead)
• Chaffinch
• Coal Tit
• Collared Dove
• Dunnock
• Goldfinch
• Garden Warbler
• Great Spotted Woodpecker
• Great Tit
• Greenfinch
• Herring Gull
• House Martin
• House Sparrow
• Jackdaw
• Jay
• Lesser Black Backed Gull
• Long Tailed Tit
• Magpie
• Nuthatch
• Pheasant
• Pigeon
• Red Kite (Overhead)
• Robin
• Siskin
• Song Thrush
• Sparrowhawk
• Starling
• Swallow
• Swift (nesting in Chapel)
• Wren

We're over run with squirrels, I've counted more than 10 at one time, but usually have 3-6! Everything is squirrel proof...

I'd like to attract butterflies, hedgehogs, even foxes... We have a large sycamore at the end of the garden, I'm planning to put an Owl Box on it, just on the off chance!

Cheers

Ross!

Birdie; do you get Waxwings on your Rowan Trees? I was thinking of doing the same...

Unknown said:

Birdie; do you get Waxwings on your Rowan Trees? I was thinking of doing the same...

I've been lucky enough to see Waxwings at different locations during the last two or three winters. Each time I have seen them they have been feeding on the orange-berried variety of Rowan never the bright red ones. Has anyone else noticed this preference ?

Not as regards waxwings. However, I have several pyracanthas in my garden with orange berries. Nothing eats them! They do eat the red berried ones, however.

Cheers Birdie!

I have a very difficult back garden. Our house was built in the 80's on the edge of a small estate with fields to one side. The garden isn't very big, and sadly the previous owners concreted a large portion of it leaving me with no or very little soil and no grass at the back.

I have boundary hedging of conifers, through which I grow honeysuckle and clematis. I also planted a privet bush that I have left to grow as it wishes, with just a few hair cuts when it interfers with other things. (Mainly my OH when he tries to walk past it). The privet and conifer hedge are popular with the sparrows in particular as they provide the dense cover they enjoy. The dunnocks and blackbirds love the areas underneath the hedges.

This is the privet bush, full of sparrows. It is about 9 feet high, thick and bushy.

I have a lovely thick English Ivy climbing up the outside wall of the house that produces masses of berries and is home to wrens and robins.

I have somewhere around 100 tubs and containers placed in large groups in which I grow shrubs and flowers. I try various different flowers to attract butterflies and bees, and I have a pile of logs rotting away underneath a wooden seat that was also made from a log. Goodness knows what lives under there, I daren't look very often!

There are no trees in my back, and no practical way of planting any, but next door makes up for that. I do try to grow berried shrubs in some of my tubs.

I have many different feeders hanging from brackets mounted on fences in and amongst climbers such as pyracantha and immediately adjacent to the conifer hedges for the  birds that prefer to be near cover, plus a flat tray sitting ontop of an old chimney pot for the birds that don't generally use hanging feeders.. I also have a wonderful feeding station made by my OH out of a dead tree trunk with one of those wooden Christmas Tree bases on the top, with hooks for feeders. It's about 6' 6" high. All varieties of bird use the top as a perch, and I find the many gold finches, siskins and redpolls I attract prefer a more open position so they have all round vision.

It is also important to provide water for drinking and bathing. I have three baths - a stone one, a terracotta water feature and a home made jacuzzi. The stone one isn't too popular, but the other two are in constant use by sparrows, robins, blackbirds, starlings, dunnocks and the few tits I have. This is the home made jacuzzi.

Lastly, I have a couple of nesting boxes mounted on the back wall of the house. One is a sparrow terrace up under the eaves. The other is a single box lower down. I've never had sparrows nest in them - the blue tits make sure of that.