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Hi all,
Over the last couple of years I have gradually been creating a wildlife garden at my parents house and although I am still not completely finished I just wanted to upload a few pictures. Basically the garden started out as a lot of evergreen shrubs and conifers and although these are quite low maintenance I find them incredibly dull and much prefer something that changes with the seasons, plus they were also shading out most of the garden. So I gradually started digging up the majority of the garden and replacing it with various plants which to beneficial to wildlife and of which the majority were native. I originally started to do this when hearing about the decline of bees and as such planted mainly things beneficial to them. As time went on I realised you need to have a balance so have planted various things to aid all types of wildlife and now finally it's somewhere near what I want it to be. I have also moved away from just planting perrenials and have added annuals and bi annuals as its nice to see parts of the garden change from year to year and plants can colonise in areas to which they are most suited.My main principles when I began were:
Eliminating plants/flowers with no wildlife benefit and low to no pollen/nectar content
Allowing areas to grow wild(even if they look 'unsightly')
Creating a pond
Planting as many natives as possible
Encouraging my parents to stop using sprays and slug pellets or anything along these lines
Allowing some weeds to grow
Not being too tidy
As well as doing all this things we also now have a composter/wormery so everything gets recycled, some bee boxes which have never been occupied, (I think I am sighting them in the wrong place!), a hedgehog house, toad house, a pond, a wood pile and various logs placed around the garden, bird houses/ bird feeders, water baths and other insect houses.
In the garden we now have nesting blue tits, we have had them before but last year 3 were found dead in the box however this year I have seen the young popping their heads out the entrance hole and have heard plenty of noise coming from the box, slow worms and their young(they may even be breeding in our garden), we have a hedgehog that comes through most nights. I've seen ladybird larvae in the front of the garden which I have never seen before(in our garden I mean), plenty of bees, dragonflies, frogs and I even saw a newt in the pond last year.
Even though it is messy in parts I much prefer having a living garden full of wonder than the regimented rows of bedding plants that you see each year and it's also really low maintenance, you basically do nothing other than pull up the odd bit of bindweed and it will only require pruning each spring and then everything will be shredded and composted. You do have to have a slightly relaxed attitude to it but it's just realising that without the blackfly you wont have the ladybirds and without the slugs you wont have the slow worms. I have found that natives seem to survive attacks from pests much better than exotics. But basically if your thinking of creating a wildlife garden, go for it, you wont regret it! It is still quite green in places but there is a lot of things just coming into flower but I have added a few pictures below anyway.
List of plants(of which I can remember) is as follows:
Garden plants:
Birds foot trefoil, greater knapweed,echinops ritro, ox eye daisy, tansy,yarrow,teasels,red valerian, buddleia globosa, yellow chamomile, angelica, marjoram, allium giganteum, forget me nots, crab apple, honeysuckle, dog rose, buttercup, bluebells, round headed leek, lily of the valley, red clover, wild strawberry, jasmine, guelder rose, hawthorn, ribwort plaintain, sweet rocket, hemp agrimony, cowslip, ragged robin, meadowsweet, purple toadflax, lavender. Red campion, yellow loosestrife, heather, sea holly, wild roses,raspberries,blackberries,blackthorn
Plants in pond:
Frogbit, hornwort, banded horsetail, bog bean, branched burr reed, marsh marigold, narrow reed mace, penny royal, purple loosestrife
Over the last couple of years I have gradually been creating a wildlife garden at my parents house and although I am still not completely finished I just wanted to upload a few pictures. Basically the garden started out as a lot of evergreen shrubs and conifers and although these are quite low maintenance I find them incredibly dull and much prefer something that changes with the seasons, plus they were also shading out most of the garden. So I gradually started digging up the majority of the garden and replacing it with various plants which to beneficial to wildlife and of which the majority were native. I originally started to do this when hearing about the decline of bees and as such planted mainly things beneficial to them. As time went on I realised you need to have a balance so have planted various things to aid all types of wildlife and now finally it's somewhere near what I want it to be. I have also moved away from just planting perrenials and have added annuals and bi annuals as its nice to see parts of the garden change from year to year and plants can colonise in areas to which they are most suited.My main principles when I began were:
Eliminating plants/flowers with no wildlife benefit and low to no pollen/nectar content
Allowing areas to grow wild(even if they look 'unsightly')
Creating a pond
Planting as many natives as possible
Encouraging my parents to stop using sprays and slug pellets or anything along these lines
Allowing some weeds to grow
Not being too tidy
As well as doing all this things we also now have a composter/wormery so everything gets recycled, some bee boxes which have never been occupied, (I think I am sighting them in the wrong place!), a hedgehog house, toad house, a pond, a wood pile and various logs placed around the garden, bird houses/ bird feeders, water baths and other insect houses.
In the garden we now have nesting blue tits, we have had them before but last year 3 were found dead in the box however this year I have seen the young popping their heads out the entrance hole and have heard plenty of noise coming from the box, slow worms and their young(they may even be breeding in our garden), we have a hedgehog that comes through most nights. I've seen ladybird larvae in the front of the garden which I have never seen before(in our garden I mean), plenty of bees, dragonflies, frogs and I even saw a newt in the pond last year.
Even though it is messy in parts I much prefer having a living garden full of wonder than the regimented rows of bedding plants that you see each year and it's also really low maintenance, you basically do nothing other than pull up the odd bit of bindweed and it will only require pruning each spring and then everything will be shredded and composted. You do have to have a slightly relaxed attitude to it but it's just realising that without the blackfly you wont have the ladybirds and without the slugs you wont have the slow worms. I have found that natives seem to survive attacks from pests much better than exotics. But basically if your thinking of creating a wildlife garden, go for it, you wont regret it! It is still quite green in places but there is a lot of things just coming into flower but I have added a few pictures below anyway.
List of plants(of which I can remember) is as follows:
Garden plants:
Birds foot trefoil, greater knapweed,echinops ritro, ox eye daisy, tansy,yarrow,teasels,red valerian, buddleia globosa, yellow chamomile, angelica, marjoram, allium giganteum, forget me nots, crab apple, honeysuckle, dog rose, buttercup, bluebells, round headed leek, lily of the valley, red clover, wild strawberry, jasmine, guelder rose, hawthorn, ribwort plaintain, sweet rocket, hemp agrimony, cowslip, ragged robin, meadowsweet, purple toadflax, lavender. Red campion, yellow loosestrife, heather, sea holly, wild roses,raspberries,blackberries,blackthorn
Plants in pond:
Frogbit, hornwort, banded horsetail, bog bean, branched burr reed, marsh marigold, narrow reed mace, penny royal, purple loosestrife
We have a large pond which I know has a couple of newts in it and loads of frogs. It also has loads of pond skaters and water boatmen and I've seen plenty of dragonflies laying their eggs in and around the pond.
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