Wildlife Garden

[cornishocean]

hello

I am needing some advice, I want to create a wildlife garden up the top of my garden and want to know the best way to do it. It was quite overgrown up there when we moved here and my husband says that it would be best to just leave all the 'weeds' to grow but I am worried that they will suffocate the wildflower seeds i want to plant there. I also want to put in a small wildlife pond.

Any advice would be gratful

[SueA]

Hi Cornishocean, I think you're right if you leave all the weeds that are already there they would probably smother the wildflowers you want to grow.There has to be a careful balance between flowers & grasses or the grasses will swamp everything. Maybe you could just leave a small patch in a corner as it is to be truly wild if that is practical, with a log pile for insects & wildlife & a pond & then have a wildflower meadow next to it? You could always try buying a few plug plants of wildflowers as well to give you a head start.

[smallblueplanet]

These sites have lots of links and recommendations of where to find more advice. I think rather than have one specific area for 'wildlife' you can also look at gardening in a 'wildlife friendly way'.

Wildlife gardening link

link 2

link 3

pond link - with a video to watch.

ponds 2

Don't forget your library will have some good books too.

[Birdie Wife]

Hi cornish ocean,
Best thing you can do is to try and get the nutrient level down in the patch you want to sow with wildflower mix. Wildflowers don't compete well with other weeds that like rich soil, but if you cut the weeds down and remove the clippings, and keep doing this for a couple of years, the nutirent load in the soil will decrease and start to favour wildflowers. This only works with annuals though, so if there's perennial weeds like dock and nettle you need to dig these out.

Try this website too for lots more info!

[Benacre]

Put in a pond and sow wildflower seed and let Nature do the rest.
When sowing wildflower seeds chill them for a few weeks in the fridge, this tells them to germinate as if sown as they are they will not grow as nature tells them as it is warm there is no need to grow but if they are chilled the seeds think they are about to become extinct and will germinate

[rustylady]

Don't forget weeds are only plants in the wrong place. Lots of wild flowers are regularly dug up and binned because they're growing in a bed which was planned for something else. Having said that, do dig up any perennial weeds such as dandelion or dock unless you want to leave them as wildlife habitat. Both have tap roots so you need to dig deep. Nettles also serve a purpose as butterfly nests and feeding places for their caterpillars, but obviously you don't want too many. I've found that nettle roots are usually fairly near the surface but by heck don't they travel a long way. Good luck with the garden

[Nicos]

I suppose you could also wander along hedgerows in the late summer armed with lots of paper bags and shake seed heads of wildflowers into them??
I know you shouldn't dig up wild flowers, but I wonder if this would be OK to do??

[rustylady]

I suppose you could also wander along hedgerows in the late summer armed with lots of paper bags and shake seed heads of wildflowers into them??
I know you shouldn't dig up wild flowers, but I wonder if this would be OK to do??

Don't know Nicos - we used to pick snowdrops, primroses and bluebells when we were kids, and the places we got them from never suffered - in fact year on year there were always more plants, but apparently you are not allowed to now. I completely agree with not uprooting plants from the wild, but surely picking a few flowers or collecting seed can't do any harm, can it?

[nick the grief]

Hi Alison,

Wekcome to the Vine. Can I recommend a book by Chris Baines called "creating a wildlife garden" - it does what it says on the tin ! and tells you everything you'll need to know.

If you have a really bad weegd problem I think I would be tempted to so the wildflower seed in trays & pot up into plugs and then spray your weedy area with Glyphospate (roundup) that will se them off then sow with a grass seed that isn't too rampant & plant your plugs up in that for a resonable instant effect.

[Alice]

Hello Cornishocean, good luck with your wildlife garden. You've had a lot of good advice there. Remember to leave some quiet corners relatively undisturbed, and leave some logs, dead grasses and leaves - great for hedgehogs. I would leave some nettles too as the butterflies need them for feeding and breeding grounds.

[Two_Sheds]

Don't just sow Wildflower mixes to attract bugs and beasties (I've tried them and germination has been terrible on the whole). Lots of common and easy to grow flowers will do the job: calendula, limnanthes, cornflower, nasturtiums, borage, comfrey all attract bees, ladybirds, butterflies & hoverflies.
Hang a birdfeeder or several.
Have some water for the critters too...just a shallow dish if you can't have a full-on pond