Finished wildlife garden

[minxski]

wonderful boogieman84

By any chance do you live in Derbyshire, to come help me

[boogieman84]

Just a quick update to show the garden with a bit more going on.There is still a lot of things coming into flower, yarrow,tansy,teasels,lavender,angelica etc so it should become even more colourful. It has become quite overgrown in places but i'm happy with it.

[b0mbus]

It is fascinating to see how peoples ideas of wildlife gardens vary. I suppose it depends alot on what species you want to prioritise and attract to/conserve in your area. I for example have gone for the wildflower meadow option with not a particularly big patch. My intended species to conserve are the long tongued bumblebees. You hear that they used to be so common that they were named the "garden bumblebee" apparently it's what Bombus Hortorum means in Latin, but they so few and far between these days. They seem to be, worryingly, declining quite quickly.

Anyway, I've been down the library looking at studies to find out which wildflowers favour the long tongue bumblebees, so I am now having a go at raising populations of these like fox glove, monkshood, common toadflax, ragged robin, marsh woundwort, hedge woundwort, soapwort, red campion, comfrey. I've also learned that if possible you should not plant more than one monkshood or comfrey in particular too close together because this much increases the likelihood that shorter tongued bumblebees (which I also grow some other plants for like knapweed, cotoneaster etc) will bite holes in the flowers and steel the nectar, meaning that having a long tongue actually becomes a disadvantage for bombus hortorum. I hope to provide pictures one day.

[nightshade]

That is very nice You have put a lot of thought into it. I would add a few patches of Sedum "Coral Carpet" or similar to soften the hard edges of the gravel, but that is only gilding the lily.

[Kate_Izzy]

Wow the garden looks amazing now it's all started to grow