2013 Successes, a BBC Appearance & Plans for my Wildlife Gardening in 2014.....

Hello All,

Firstly a quick note to say a big thank you to all my followers public and private on both of my blogs and of course Twitter where we are starting to build a little momentum at last. A particular thank you goes out to those of you who have sent in comments and questions it is this interaction that I particularly enjoy! I do hope that you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to wildlife gardening in 2014!?

2013 really has been a pivotal year in Higgy's Garden Project with many new species of invertebrate discovered and recorded and a few changes made along the way. Probably the biggest highlight for me personally was the approach by the BBC that resulted in my appearance on BBC Springwatch and the chance to chat about butterflies and moths to millions of viewers which was a complete thrill.

I think my thought for this post is to show some of my 2013 highlights and of course unveil the plans for a big project for 2014, which I hope should be of interest to everyone.

As you will all be aware 2013 started off cold and wet and the late Spring seen very little happening in the garden except some mild panicking that we may not have anything for the BBC to film when they arrived in June! The cold Spring meant that we had very few wild flower plugs big enough to plant out and the area looked a bit barren! In a desperate plea to get the wild flower area looking good for filming I ordered in some plugs but they failed to turn up in time!

The garden spent a good time underwater in early 2013 which really didn't bode too well with filming!!.... Below is our DRY gravel river bed with the bridge completely submerged!!...

Luckily the wild flower area came right of the day of filming and despite less wildflowers than previous years it demonstrated what can be achieved by panicking and a lot of hard work!!!...

The old stone bridge and gravel river bed turned up trumps and is naturalising nicely turning into a haven for all sorts of insects and wildlife.... I think that the drenching it got in Spring actually helped it this year and as can be seen below it's now wild and alive with wildlife.....

Small mammals such as Wood Mice and Voles are clearly using the garden and a hunting Kestrel seen hovering over the wild flower area this year demonstrates the diversity in the garden now...

So with the weather clearing a bit into summer we experienced a complete heat wave which again brings it's own challenges with he heavy clay here drying out and cracking...

From one extreme to another.... wet Spring floods were followed by a summer heatwave in 2013!..

The wildlife didn't seem to mind the extremes of temperature and continued to arrive in the garden in good numbers that sometimes made recording it all quite difficult. The planting has also seemed to have settled in to this environment coping with extremes very well and to be honest I didn't do a massive amount of maintenance throughout the year which is the beauty of wildlife gardening.

Despite the variable weather conditions the garden fared well with a good display of colour in the wild flower area and the pollinating beds as you can see below...

The benefit of a well balanced and surprisingly lush garden in a hot summer was clearly demonstrated by the number of new species of  invertebrates that we recorded. I'm going to show a small sample of some new species to the garden below...

This Bee Beetle (Clytus arietis) was a first and arrived during filming of the BBC Springwatch program so couldn't have timed it's arrival any better!...

I recorded several new species of flower & leaf beetle during the year including this pretty little Deraeocoris ruber....

Shield Bugs showed well with new species including really good numbers of Forest Bug - Pentatoma rufipes. Not every gardeners delight but more than welcome in the wildlife garden and of course a vital part of the food chain...

The garden butterfly count went up to 20 species with the arrival of the Small Skipper and Marbled White as shown below....

Above is only a small selection of the many new species that we recorded but hopefully demonstrates the benefits of gardening for wildlife and the success that we are now experiencing here.

The other thing that is worth a mention is the very successful moth trapping sessions that we started this summer. These included a large trapping session attended by some of the local wildlife group who all enjoyed not only a great time identifying moths but a cream tea made by my wife! 

Moth trapping in the garden was new for 2013 and proved extremely successful with well over 100 species recorded this summer! Including this impressive Swallow-Tailed Moth - Ourapteryx sambucaria...

A personal favorite for me was definitely two recordings of the gorgeous Hummingbird Hawk Moth - Macroglossum stellatarum. This is a species I have only dreamed of seeing in the garden until now!

I really haven't got room to show every species new this year but I hope the above has at least demonstrated some of the new comers and given you a feel for what we have achieved in 2013 and of course what you could achieve in your own garden.

So with 2013 now at an end we must look forward to 2014 and planning what changes are required to encourage even more wildlife into the garden in the coming year.

I have thought about a lot of things that could be changed but one thing that I keep coming back to is a decent sized wildlife pond with a much bigger body of water. We already have three small ponds and it is often said that several smaller bodies of water are better than one large pond in the wildlife garden! Well I'm taking this one stage further by adding a bigger body of water to my other smaller ponds to try and encourage more and different dragon and damselflies into the garden over the next few years.

It has been a bit a head scratching as to where I could accommodate a bigger pond but with some careful planning I will be putting it alongside the wild flower area. This will mean this area reducing in size somewhat although by careful moving of plants and resowing elsewhere in the garden I think that we can keep the same area of wild flowers if not increase it slightly by spreading it out in different areas of the garden. This is a bit of a trade off but I think that in the long-term it will be well worth it.

So you will have to keep reading the blog to see how this develops but in the mean time I can offer a little taster with a very rough sketch of what I hope it will look like once complete...

I apologise for the look of this sketch I promise my 6yr old daughter didn't do it ! LOL Hopefully it gives a guide of what mad idea is currently in my head and what is planned for 2014...

My thoughts put down on paper for how I want the new wildlife pond feature to look and how I hope it fits seamlessly into the rest of the garden....

My thoughts for this pond feature is that it will be dug down into the ground and my wild flower planting will run right up to the edge of it to help it sit naturally into the site. Already in the wild flower area is an amount of Cuckoo Flower and Ragged Robin that will love the dampness this feature should provide and help to blur the border between land and water! Other planting will include Irises for dragon fly nymphs to climb up and hatch out on, whilst the flowers of many are loved by bumble bees. I also have a large amount of Purple Loosetrife cuttings that will add height, colour and structure at the rear of the pond and into the pollinator planting bed. 

Landscaping wise I plan to build a false stone retaining wall at the side of the dry gravel river bed. This will be complete with an old rusty water sluice to give it a connection to the dry river bed and help it sit more naturally in the garden.

That's the plan for 2014 and a look back at a successful year in the wildlife garden so I bid you a happy New Year and lots of wildlife watching and gardening for 2014!!

Best wishes

Higgy