Does this help wildlife or not

[Lanchlake]

I am not sure if this is in the right place..being a newbie so forgive me if i am wrong..or if any one has raised it before

on our radio..the gardening section..the subject came up re english blue bells and spanish blue bells being the more prolific ones now but not as pretty...which made me think of all the plants that have spread into the wild from our gardens..via say seed or naughty dumping..or derelict buildings

which reminded me of of another day some time ago...when some one rang into to say they actively sew seeds from there garden in little clumps when out on a walk.....they did it to remind themelves of a loved one lost and to help wildlife

so i thought i would raise a thread and ask for peoples views about bringing seeds into the wild....from the WAB group....(not sure if i can do this ...but i thought it might be intresting to see what others thought

aplogies now if this causes any conflict...but i do think from both wild lifelovers and garden lovers there may be some validity in asking, and maybe a bit of debate.

i will reserve my own formulated achieved after a long time thinking it over view till i close the thread.

thanx for any ones views who particiate

lanchi.

[Gill Catton]

personally, I don't feel we should sow or plant anything out into the wild unless it is of local provenance. Although many garden species are relatively harmless, others are rampantly destructive and by the time you have worked out which is which the rampant ones have taken over. I don't think its worth the gamble of introducing yet another nasty.
Actually if I had my way all gardens would mostly native species too! When I dug a new bed I went out seed collecting in the wild and planted them in the bed - as a consequence I have birds foot trefoil, wild carrot and St John's wort popping up amongst the flowers and fruit shrubs, all pretty and all better than a perlagonium or some shrub imported from New Zealand.

I would have thought also that wildlife benefits better from the wild plants it has evolved alongside rather than what we deem to be useful to them.... Nettles may be ugly but just stop and have a look for a while and you'll see they are stuffed full of life.

Also, all the wonderful people that I have loved and lost in my life go everywhere with me in my thoughts and memories and I don't need things to walk past to help me remember them - but I know grief affects different folks in different ways. - but affecting your local wild areas in a potentially negative manner for all time doesn't seem that great a choice but I suppose many wouldn't realise it was potentially damaging

[Lanchlake]

Yes i to have come to realise the usefullness of nettles...i am currently brewing a 40 gallon drum of this years nettles ( harvested from the land i was clearing) and rather than compost it..as i have in the past...i had read it makes a wonderful rich in iron tonic for allsorts of plants and is pesticide etc etc...free...as well as being free to make
it absoloutly stinks lol...and has to be stirred every day as the nettle tops decay...alas i think i may have made a mistake though and got some seed heads in there as they are floating to the top....so i amy be sewing new nettles all over the place for next year once i use it
you cannot put roots or seed into the mix...if any one is trying it.

nice thought provoking view....any one else?

lanchi.

[wild flower]

Welcome to WAB

I totally agree with Gill. We should not be introducing seed, of any variety in to the wild. The reality is that most is unlikely to survive, especially those of the cosseted garden variety. However, some are very happy and you only need look at himalayan balsam to see how happy they can be and what the results are. Japanese knotweed is another that, although not introduced as seed, happily spread from victorian gardens to...well...all over!

Some non-native plants can become invasive and as a result are detrimental to native flora and fauna. Having worked on rivers for many years I have seen the impacts the above two plants can have in out competing native flora.

Spanish bluebells are another that makes me so angry ! The native variety is increasingly under threat from hybridising with the non-native and it does not help that some nurseries sell spanish bluebells as English bluebells. Please do not plant the spanish variety anywhere near populations of bluebells-if it was up to me neither would we be able to plant them in our gardens if we were lucky enough to live near good populations of english bluebells.

Anyway, rant over - back to my original point - No, I dont think we should be spreading garden seed in to the wild.

I am actually trying to do the opposite and get wild yellow rattle to establish in my garden-so far no luck! Here is to my third year of trying

Enjoy WAB

[southlonder]

Originally Posted by wild flower

Welcome to WAB



I am actually trying to do the opposite and get wild yellow rattle to establish in my garden-so far no luck! Here is to my third year of trying

Enjoy WAB

I was thinking of doing that. Why do you want to and how are you trying?

[wild flower]

Yellow rattle is semi parasitic on grasses-which means it can supress them. If, like I am, you are trying to create a wildflower meadow then yellow rattle could be useful. You need some grasses in a meadow (originally the grasses in hay meadows provided winter fodder for livestock) but too many grasses and they outcompete the wildflowers.

Here are a few pointers I have picked up along the way; 1. yellow rattle seed does not store well so spread as soon as possible, once seed has developed 2. sow on to open ground 3. do not cover with soil as most wildflower seed requires sunlight to germinate 4. often mammal runs through grasses, with a little bare earth can be good places to sow the seed 5. as we have already mentioned using a local source of seed, if available is a good idea.

I have all the above this year apart from the sunshine!

Good luck if you have a go

[Lanchlake]

Yes the talk on the radio centered on the bluebell and how some places sell the spanish ones as english..and how if one was thinking of planting blue bells to make sure they where the english bluebell...a fair few people rang up none one the side of the spanish blue bell i hasten to say!

i have developed a yen over the last year or so of introducing wild flowers into my space...and i have a few growing due to wind blown landings or mistakingly leaving it..and when its bloomed i have thought mmm nice and left it..names will be found as i go through the Wab site

but i will look up the yellow rattle...and then try to find the seed

i saw a delightful looking plant nearby to where i work and now know its mulein..and would love that in the garden so majestic as it stood on the road side

so are there any suggestions as to what we should be trying to sew....

i do not want something thats so invasive it takes over the whole of my land, i am not a person who thinks mmm weed.....mmmm commercial cultivated plant.....i can see the joy in any plant...more so in a flowering variety but i have two very large sedge plants in the garden ( and most up here dig them out) even the sheep and horses do not eat them lol
so i can see the architecture joy as well


Lanchi.....who says its a weed...not the plant!

[Lanchlake]

Oh My...i look up all names mentioned in the posts..when i looked up the japanese knotweed...i can now say we have a large clump of that growing right at the edge our local wood...and i have seen it grow at an alarming rate over the last few years..and i never knew its name.
some one came the year before last and cut it down....we think that was local travellers who burnt it on the open fire they had to strip the outer cover of copper wire..as they had camped at the same time...but it grew back extremely quickly
is this something i need to bring up with the local parrish council...its on the edge of woodland owned by some one who does no management of the wood so no one will have the responsibility/duty...and there for it would just run amoke

Lanchi.

[wild flower]

Knotweed is unlikely to spread in to the wood if the wood is established and casting dense shade for most of the summer. However it will spread around the wood and anywhere else opportunity presents itself.

Definately try your Parish/local council, many seem to ignore the problem but some will react and may come out and spray it. it can be spread by the smallest fragment and cannot be disposed of in bins or at recycling tips-because it is able to spread so easily.

If anyone needs convincing about the potential problem this plant can cause Google Japanese knotweed and Swansea - where the problem is now so large they have a dedicated Knotweed officer! Its a shame we so often have to put large amounts of money in to reactive work when a little proactive money can be so effective!

Best of luck

[Gill Catton]

I planted great mullein in my garden once - well i transplanted some first year plants (which are a gorgeous rosette of blue-grey, thick, felted furry leaves) from a site I was working on that was being cleared and then this plant getly replicated itself in various parts of the garden for most years - it never took over though and sometimes it attracts mullein moths who's caterpillars are as pretty as the flowers!

I did the same with teasel, I can never understand why we go out and buy fancy spikey plants like globe thistle that are called architectural and then call teasel a weed! I love teasel with its spiral of pinky purple flowers around it's hedgehog heads with leaves joined around the stem that catch and hold water (though I'm not sure why), bees love it as do birds when the seeds are ripe....

Oh and red dead nettle I rescued too, a pretty little plant where the pink of the flowers is matched by the pink blush in the top leaves, again the bees seem to like it and I bet if it came from South Africa would cost you at least £4 in the garden centre!