This is a lovely time of year and I love it when nature chooses to come to my garden. It feels like a vote of confidence that I've been doing some of the right things when a bird or insect shows up on my land.
Previous blogs (here and here) have said a little about what to do in the garden but I really am not an expert so I don't have that much to say.
But I can see that I may have more opportunity to learn over the next few months and years and that's one of the things I intend to do.
And this is one of the areas where the Big Society idea really works - if we all made our gardens just a little bit better for nature then the impact could be very significant - at least up to a point. Providing food and nest sites for birds, planting the right type of plants for insects, not using pesticides (or at least being very careful about their use), favouring native plant species, leaving some areas of grass uncut and maybe even providing a water feature of some sort - all these things feel like good things to do (and would be good things for farmers to do on a larger scale too).
But, please note, it isn't the full Big Society idea because it doesn't involve Small Government as well. The government doesn't have much to say about my garden and that's how it should be. Unlike the farmland around us I do not receive payments from the taxpayer and cannot receive payments for wildlife-friendly gardening. And there is no reduction in government spending on my garden. So the Big Society bit applies to my garden but the Small Government bit does not.
Nature has encouraged me in several ways over the last week to do more for it in the garden. First there was the singing great tit I heard from the bath with an unusual song type. Rather than the usual 'tee-cher, tee-cher, tee-cher' which actually does come in a wide variety of song types such as 'zee-tee, zee-tee, zee-tee', 'zee-cher, zee-cher, zee-cher', 'cher-tee. zer-chee, zer-chee' and the occasional chiffchaff mimicer, this great tit had a song of 'schwee, too-tee, too-tee, too'. I haven't heard it for the last couple of days but I'll be listening out for it.
And then there was the coal tit singing from a tree next door which flew across our garden to our other neighbour's garden before returning, again without setting foot in our place. Coal tit is an unusual bird for our garden - occasional but unusual on the feeders.
And holly blues are flitting around the ivy, an orange tip has been reported (but I haven't seen one) and, earlier, male brimstones demonstrated why their ilk are called butterflies - so yellow they make early spring bright.
So, many of us can make a contribution to wildlife at home. We won't save the bittern, the skylark or the blue whale by doing so but we will be making a difference and knowing that we have done our bit.
This is a list of my favourite plants for butterflies and insects accumulated after 20 years of observation on my plant nursery. Mark what wildlife friendly plants do you have ??
Top Six Butterfly Plants
Buddleia davidii : Butterflies will home in on this shrub in their droves. Lilac
flowered varieties are favoured and the variety Lochinch is particularly good.
You can stagger the flowering times by having two plants, one of which is cut
back very early in the spring and the other a month or so later after new growth
has been produced.
Verbena bonnariensis: A tender perennial which if it doesn't survive a winter
will usually seed itself . It is worth buying two or three of these plants each
year just to be certain of it's spectacular display of later summer/autumn
flowers and the butterflies it will attract.
Eupatorium purpureum or Eupatorium maculatum atropurpureum This is a plant for
the back of a border , 4 foot tall and with mounded heads of purple flowers from
July to September. Peacock butterflies love this plant as do beneficial
hoverflies.
Sedum spectabile Often called the ice plant, it flowers in September and
October. Sedums of all types are good for attracting many kinds of butterflies,
but the pink flowered form of Sedum spectabile is the best. Red flowered forms
including Sedum Autumn Joy are not nearly so effective and I have yet to see a
butterfly on the white form ; Sedum Iceberg.
Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum This is still a relatively uncommon plant, but it
has become more popular over the past few years. It produces many clusters of
large deep crimson thistle flowers in May and June with a second flowering flush
in late summer. It attracts many species of butterflies.
Asters (michaelmas daisies) Flowering in September and October these plants are
available in a wide range of heights and colour forms. Because they are mildew
resistant Aster novae-angliae are the easiest to grow and the variety Pink
Parfait is good. Only single flowered forms attract insects, the double forms
do not
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Annuals and Biennials
African marigold
Alysum
Candytuft
China aster
French marigold
Myosotis (forgetmenot)
Sweet william
Wallflower
Herbaceous Perennials
Agastache
Asclepias
Astrantia
Arabis
Aubretia
Centaurea montana
Centaurea nigra
Centaurea other species
Centranthus ruber (valerian)
Cirsium species
Dahlias single
Dipsacus fullonum (teasle)
Echinacea
Echinops (globe thistle)
Hebe
Helenium varieties
Hellebores
Hesperis matronalis
Hyssop
Iberis sempervirens
Knautia species
Lavender
Lunaria annua (honesty)
Lychnis flos cuculli (ragged robin)
Mentha (garden mint)
Nepeta
Saponaria ocymoides
Scabious and scabious columbaria