It's at this time of year that I seem to have hundreds of things I want to share about gardens and their wildlife. Will it be Giving Nature a Home, our new campaign where we're hoping everyone will be inspired to help wildlife in their gardens? Well, you'll certainly be hearing a lot more about that over the coming months. Or will it be something such as the glorious rose I found last week which is ADORED by bumblebees? (You'll have to wait until next week for that, but I think you'll want one!).
But no, before the memory of Gardeners World Live fades, I just thought I'd share a last look at what was a really lovely event where we met so many RSPB members ('old' and new) and blog readers, and chatted about what inspiring things they get up to into their gardens.
For example, I loved hearing from the man from Grimsby who has had success with building artificial bumblebee nestboxes using a length of hose and a buried terracotta pot half filled with straw. (It made me realise I must try harder.)
And I really enjoyed chatting to the sisters from Wormwood Scrubs (the place, not the prison) who sound like they do marvels in their garden, including leaving the aphids for the sparrows.
And the lady with the 30-foot high bank of slate that she wants to plant with wildlife friendly flowers - now there's a challenge!
The Giving Nature a Home gardens we created seemed to go down really well with the public and the judges (who I'm delighted to say gave it 'Highly Commended', their top award). What I tried to do was create evocations of the wonderful diversity of RSPB nature reserves using some of the plants found there, from Ynis Hir as featured on Springwatch with its Pied Flycatchers, ferns and Welsh Poppies...
to Bempton Cliffs with its seabird colonies but also its Thrift and Sea Campion...
and our Sumatran work, using lots of tropical plants I grew from seed this year...
Plus a wetland scene, a heathland scene, and a huge area showcasing our Flatford Wildlife Garden. In total, we grew about 500 plants for the stand, all in peat free compost.
Thanks very much everyone who dropped by - it was a wonderful prelude to the following week's national RSPB launch of Giving Nature a Home. 'Giving Nature a Home' - I must remember to tell mention that some time!
Hi noc
Glad you like the campaign. And yes, concentrating on the plants really is the best recipe for getting more wildlife. Good luck, and let me know how it goes. (And I'm very pleased indeed that you like the book ;-)
Ah, but Wildlife Friendly, think of all the wildlife you give a home to because of all the amazing plants you grow and your kingfisher pond! Yes, the subtle message the RSPB needs to get across in this Giving Nature a Home campaign is that nestboxes are just a tiny part of the solution - giving nature a home for me starts with growing plants and ensuring parts of the garden aren't deadzones.
Lovely to hear about your spotted flycatchers - what a treat.
I have just bought the book 'Gardening for wildlife' and I love it! I'm trying my best with my small garden, which is not great as it's all pebbles. I have 7 bird feeders, 2 water 'pools' for the birds and 3 small nests. But I really need to improve the plants. Anyway, I think that the campaign 'Give nature a home' is absolutely fantastic!
I've built all sorts of homes in my garden but I still find that a lot of my wildlife prefer to build their own. I found that providing nesting material for the birds is more successful than providing nesting boxes. There are more field mice using the boxes than birds.
Four years ago a pair of Spotted flycatchers built a nest on top of a Wrens nest, (luckily the wrens had fledged), after the flycatchers had fledged we left the nest intact, this is the forth year they have returned to the same nest and successfully reared a brood.