Garden Project 12

Everything in the garden has grown very tall this year with introduced species growing happily with whatever wildflowers have spring up. The Ox-eye daisies are particularly favourites with insects - every flowerhead has its quota of flies,beetles etc. The taill purple Linaria and the foxgloves, especially the small-flowered yellow ones. attract bees while all the varieties of poppies are full of hoverflies. The Yellow Rattle is tall and setting seed now so hopefully next year the grass will be sparser and more wild flower species can get a hold in the meadow.

My Garden Meadow is Complete

Delighted that after three years effort, I have managed to establish Yellow Ratlle in my garden wildflower meadow. An annual wildflower that’s very beneficial to wildflower meadows as its roots attach themselves to roots of other plants, especially unwanted coarse grasses. Once attached they draw valuable nutrients from the grasses, thus weakening them, reducing the competition, allowing the wildflowers to flourish. At the moment, the meadow is yellow with Buttercups but among these there are Scabious, Bush Vetch, Germander Speedwell and White Campion in bloom. Around the shadier edges and in my separate 'uncut' meadow area, Dusky Cranesbill, Red Campion, Ribwort Plantain, Marguerites and Cow Parsley are putting on great displays

Wildflower Project 5

Today, I collected small parts of any new wild flowers since my last post on May 20th. I photographed them on a lightbox with overhead flash to bring out all the features of leaves and flowers. I am sharing them in two posts as quite a number since the last survey. (Scarlet Pimpernel, Black Medick, Hop Trefoil, Nipplewort, Common Poppy, White Campion, Bush Vetch, Common Mallow, Dovesfoot Cranesbill, White Clover and Red Clover

Cow Parsley and Dandelions At Their Peak

Cow Parsley (or prettier folk name of Queen Anne's Lace) and Dandelions are at their peal flowering and seeding at the moment - probably a couple of weeks earlier than average. Our local walks are lined by banks of white and the grass is full of Dandelion clocks.

 

Progress Report on Wildlife in Garden

I am very pleased that I chose 2020 to make changes to the garden to further encourage wildlife. Ten days before Covid-19 Lockdown started in the UK, I gave a lecture to a U3A group on Gardening for Wildlife  where I outlined my plans which included turning the front lawn to a wildlife meadow, opening up the pond to give more areas of open water, having an area of perennial wildflowers and a larger seed bed area for annual wildflowers. Two days ago the first Large Red Damselfly emerged from the pond, the cowslips are coming into full flower on the 'meadow, Red campion is starting in the perennial area. In March Sadie and I built a bee hotel at the bottom of the garden and it is being investigated by various insects