Garden Seating a Raised Bed and Patio Make-Over!

Hello All,

You are probably feeling confused at another post so soon after my last one about moth trapping and both of them following such a long gap!!

Well as I said in my last post I have lots for you to catch up with but at the same time it's that part of the year when you also start to plan forward and decide what projects need doing or certain areas that need a make over or complete overhaul.

Before we go back in time my plans to take forward into next year and from things experienced this season is to find some comfortable and good looking garden furniture. You may have noticed from past postings and pictures that our main seating and outside eating area contains a large oval shape white plastic table and chairs set. Although practical it looks downright UGLY!!!

As a reminder here is a picture of the nice secluded seating area that I worked hard to create...

Our main seating area is situated below the Koi pond and is tucked away behind the trellised raised bed that in the height of summer is full of tall and lush planting making a nice natural screen. A small wildlife pond here also adds extra interest but it's a shame the same can't be said for the white plastic 1980's patio set!!!....

So first plan for next year will be to get rid of the 1980's white plastic patio set and get something a little more attractive and in keeping with the garden. Initially I have been looking on line to see what is around and to get an idea of what would fit into the style of our garden. With wood featured throughout the garden initial thoughts are to go with a wooden picnic set with attached seats similar to the furniture supplied by the company here... 'The Garden Furniture Centre'
Please do take a look and let me know what you think would fit best?

Going back in time to August of this year and to a little project that I completed one weekend, not so much for wildlife but to tidy up a certain area of the garden and tie it into other recent landscaping jobs. As I have said on numerous occasions although the garden is for wildlife and we are extremely proud of what wildlife it has attracted so far, it has to be used as a family space and we like it to also be an attractive space. With this in mind I decided that it was time to tidy up the area by the raised beds on the old patio and will take you through this project step by step below...

I have been keen to tidy this area of old patio up for some time and have been slowly utilising this unused space with the addition of a raised vegetable bed and a cold frame to bring on plants in. However it still remains an unattractive and drab concrete space!!...

In true Higgy 'recycling' style I also managed to 'liberate' some old scaffold boards that had been sawn in half and were destined for the fire place! 'I've got just the job for them' I thought to myself before asking if the builder if I could have them!!.. 

   With a rough plan in my head and with a few old scaffold boards I set to work transforming this ugly concrete space into a much nicer 'softer' looking area and of course creating a little extra planting space at the same time! (well you still have to think about the wildlife a bit and add some pollinating plants wherever you can!!!)

The boards were simply stacked into place on top of the existing patio which provided a firm level base that I knew drained adequately...

In a many of my garden projects I use this galvanized building strap to fix together wood especially inside structures such as raised beds where it can be hidden out of sight. The beauty of this strap is that it's readily available from any builders merchant and you can easily cut it using tin shears and it comes pre-drilled!!

Once a piece of the builders strap is cut to the required length simply screw it into place using some good quality exterior wood screws. I generally use about four screws depending on the size of the pieces of wood being joined....

The inside of the raised bed is then lined using old compost bags, this protects the wood from rotting and also helps to retain moisture in the compost....

With the raised bed finished and lined with polythene I filled it with a mixture of compost and well rotted manure and planted it a few different plants. As it needs to be a big feature it has been planted with a nectar rich Hydrangea and some Japanese anemone for autumn pollen and colour. Also planted is some bamboo to help act as a bit of a screen and a Arum Lilly to help tie it in with slightly leafy jungly look in this part of the garden,

Despite the new raised bed this part of the garden was still an old concrete patio that looked drab and made for quite a boring floor surface that still didn't really tie into other works recently done here like the rockery and plum slate detailing in the seating area below.

Despite the new bed and planting this area still looked drab and boring...

It was now that I decided to go the whole hog and sort this 'boring flooring' problem out also...

Due to the problem we have with horsetail weed I decided to keep the firm level base of paving slabs as they provided a good solid base to work from and also offered a strong barrier and good resistance to these dreaded weeds.

The first stage of my new slate path was to fix 'runners' to the concrete slabs... 

  This was done by drilling through the wooden runners and then drilling and 'raw plugging' the concrete pavers which were in turn screwed down onto the floor....

The wooden runners were spaced evenly to look attractive but to also help to keep the slate aggregate in place.

Once all the runners were screwed securely in place plum slate was spread out between them.... 

The combination and contrast of the wooden runners and plum slate really make this whole area much brighter and add much needed interest....

 In this last picture you can really see how this simple make over ties this area into the rockery and  seating area below. By using the same materials it creates real flow through the two areas and links them up in a smart and modern way....  

So that really is a quick fix on a drab and boring and under used area of the garden. We included some salvage and recycling with the scaffold boards and ended up making I think an interesting and much smarter area than now blends seamlessly into the next part of the garden. One thing that I really wanted to achieve in the garden was completely different spaces and areas that did their own thing yet still linked effortlessly to their neighbouring areas. I think in this case we have managed this as there is a lot going on in these spaces including, Koi pond, Vegetable bed, Flower beds, Wildlife pond, Rockeries and of course the garden's main seating and entertaining area! Yet somehow all these different aspects and features work wonderfully with each other now!

This probably concludes my mad ramblings for this time but I do hope that this has given you a few ideas about what you could also achieve in your own garden, with not a great amount of work, on a small budget and in just a space of a weekend!!

Next time I will report on a few more of the summers past tasks in the garden and of course some more wildlife visitors. Planning forward will include some spring bulbs I've chosen for early pollinators also.

My leaving picture is a view of the large perennial pollinating border taken in October. Even now it still holds a lot of colour and flowers providing nectar for late bees, butterflies and other pollinators....

As always thanks for reading I hope that you have enjoyed it and found some interest in this latest project. Please do mail me with your thoughts and comments as I always love to read them and will of course answer all messages that receive.

Best

Higgy

Garden Moth Traps and a Family Friendly Wildlife Garden...

Hello again,

I really can't believe that my last post on here was actually back in July! With the fantastic hot summer that we enjoyed this year every spare minute has been taken up in the garden either on projects, basic maintenance or to be completely honest just thoroughly enjoying it!!

As I touched upon on my last post I have spent hours photographing and recording new species that have turned up in the garden this year also. Anyone who has done this themselves will understand the massive amount of time that trying to identify many of the 'unknown' insects takes!

On top of this the garden has just been the most fantastic place to spend hot summer days with the family whilst having lots of fun! The play area and play equipment suddenly came into it's own with lots of use on sunny days and typifies the whole ethos of this wildlife garden doubling as a completely usable family space also....

It's also a family garden enjoyed as much by children and adults as well as the wildlife that lives in it and visits it....

At one point during the 'heatwave' we rushed out to try and buy a slightly bigger paddling pool for my six year old daughter only to find everywhere in North Somerset sold out! Having spent a whole day looking we eventually thought on the way home to drop into on of the large 'garden/leisure' centers situated just down the road and bingo! The only problem was that the smallest one left was BIG!!....

At 6 feet in circumference the new paddling pool fitted in well and gave hours of fun for the whole family!.... 

The picture above shows how the garden has developed over the last three years and you can clearly see lots of colour from the nectar rich planting. I think that this also demonstrates how you can incorporate play equipment yet still provide a real haven for wildlife. Amazingly in the part of the garden on display here there is an 8 feet Trampoline, climbing frame, slide, swing and of course the large paddling pool. Despite all this play equipment and a 6x6 greenhouse we still have masses of wildlife features and other interest. This part of the garden would be approximately 70'x40' so a similar size to many 'average' gardens.

So having lazed about and generally enjoyed the garden what else has it been used for this year?

Well despite the obvious BBQs and gatherings for friends and family I have focused quite a lot of my time on moths! In fact I promised myself last year that we would try and look at moths in more detail this year now that the garden has matured.

Our first event was to borrow a moth trap off of our local wildlife group and set it up one Saturday evening to see what comes along. Well what a result we had and certainly it felt good for our fist attempt. With the help of a couple of friends from the group we identified about thirty species or so. If you haven't done a moth trap before I thoroughly recommend it and especially if you have young children as despite initial reservations my daughter loved it and was thrilled at the job of letting the moths go after they had been identified. This of course is also an extremely educational experience for both children and adults alike!

The HERALD was one of the more colourful moths on the day and proved a real hit with my daughter because of it's orange colour...

 With such a positive result with just one small trap and my appetite now wet, it was decided along with my local wildlife group to host an event involving several traps that would be set up and located around the garden and left over night. The next morning we would invite a number of members to come along and help identify the moths! This would of course help me to see what we were getting in the garden but also help the group by encouraging other members to get interested in moths....

So the evening arrived and with the help of my friends Tony and Faith a total of four traps were situated around the garden in different locations and left to do their work overnight....

Below is an example of one of the smaller traps, which basically consists of a metal box with a hole in the lid. Sitting in this lid is a plastic funnel that seals the hole in the lid leaving only a small access point for moths attracted to the light situated on top to flutter down into. Once in the box the moth will settle among the 8 or so cardboard egg boxes inside and rest up nice an quietly. It's also important to mention that below this funnel is a smaller funnel that drains out of the bottom of the box in case it rains....  

 Although not a very good picture this shows the traps located around the garden on the night of the 'big trap!'

 The following morning I was up at about 5am to ensure that firstly the traps (now hopefully full of moths!?) weren't situated in the sun as it rose and also to clear away any extension leads and other bits of kit prior to the 'guests' arriving. When organising an event where people are visiting your garden it pays to spend the extra time to ensure there are no tripping hazards and all runs as smoothly as is possible. The welfare of anything caught is always your number one priority to ensure it stays calm and stress free and is kept in the trap for as little amount of time as is possible.

So on arrival of our guests everyone is briefed as to what we want to achieve and how we intend to do it to ensure the safety of any moths caught. Also it's important to point out that at no time are any moths handled and they will be extracted out of the traps by use of small plastic specimen tubes and by experienced trappers only. This way they can be examined identified, photographed and released nice a swiftly and without harm. By having these rules in place everyone is clear and you can then focus a little more time on peoples learning and enjoyment

I also like to work from a large table where there is plenty of room to lay things out such as your reference books, cameras etc so that everything is to hand and you don't end up wasting time searching for items. The table that we use is also situated right next to our release site and someone will have the job of swift and safe release of moths. This makes sure the moths are dealt with quickly and also frees up and keeps a flow of specimen jars readily available.

It is really important to consider your release site for any moths captured and examined. I release them into this area which is an old tree covered by thick clematis. The moths fly up into the dark entanglement of branches away from predators and out of the scorching sun...

Now that we have considered and informed everyone of how the event will run it was time to start emptying the traps and recording what we had caught. This is an extremely exciting experience and you never know what might just crop up unexpectedly!

I have to say that we were extremely fortunate with this event and despite not perfect weather conditions during the night we actually caught and recorded over 50 species of moth! This in itself was apparently very good but a friend who is a renowned local moth expert actually went on to say that it was the best haul he had seen locally within the last ten years! This wasn't only for number of species but more importantly numbers of single species, as an example we recorded well in excess of 50 moths for some single species! I can't begin to tell you how this sort of statement makes you feel especially when you have been trying to develop your garden for this very thing!

So here's a quick round up of just a few of the moths that we recorded and have now helped to take our garden tally up to about 100 species so far this year!...

Angle Shades - Philogophora meticulosa

Burnished Brass - Diachrysia chrysitis

Blood-Vein - Timandra camai

Centre-barred Sallow - Atethia centrago

Gold Spot - Plusia festucae

Grey Dagger - Acronicta psi

Large Yellow Underwing - Noctua pronuba

Lesser Yellow Underwing - Noctua comes

Lime-speck Pug - Eupithecia centaureata

Purple Bar - Cosmorhoe ocellata

This Red Underwing - Catocala nupta became the real star of the show as according to our moth expert this have been in real decline in this area and he hadn't seen one for quite some time!

I really would love to list and display all of the moths that we recorded on the night but time and space just won't allow unfortunately. Regular readers may have noticed that I have now started to list the names of species seen so far in the garden on the right hand side of this blogg. This is still very much a work in progress but I will continue to do this as time allows and will include a list of our moths also.

Two last things whilst on the subject of moths is firstly the amazing amount of 'Mother of Pearl' moths that have been visiting the garden this summer and on some nights virtually every flower on some plants has had a moth on it! They seem to particularly like Purple Loosestrife and Varonicastrum which has proved a superb moth plant, as you can see in the below picture... 

Mother of Pearl - Pleuroptya ruralis (below) and above on Varonicastrum

Finally I have always dreamed of finding one of the large Hawk Moths in the garden and this summer on two separate occasions I was fortunate to not only see but photograph a Hummingbird Hawkmoth in the garden. Absolutely AMAZING!!!...

A dream come true!!..... Hummingbird Hawk Moth - Macroglossum stellatarum

Well that's about it for now but as the nights are getting darker from here on in, I will be posting more on my bloggs and have lots for you all to catch up on from the summer, so watch this space for the next post that will be coming very soon!....

Thanks for reading

Best

Higgy

   

Spring Watch Butterfly and Moth Special in Higgy's Garden!!!...

Hello All,

Well what an exciting time it has been in the garden over the last month or so! Not only have we had some great periods of hot sunshine that brought out lots of butterflies, we have recorded many more new species of wildlife almost on a daily basis! In fact I simply haven't been able to keep up with what has been happening and my records and identifications are really behind now!

Marbled Whites' appeared in the garden for the first time this summer and are now regular visitors.

As I touched on in my previous post, we were privileged to be approached by the BBC and asked if they could film for a Spring Watch special about butterflies and moths in our garden! Now I still haven't got to the bottom of how they got wind of what we have been doing for wildlife in our garden as several people have claimed responsibility!! All I can say is however it happened, thank you very much as we had a great day filming and thoroughly enjoyed the finished program, which had some fabulous content about butterflies and moths.

Martin Hughes-Games was the presenter and meeting him was great as he is a really genuine guy who is exactly the same off screen as he is on screen making the day really good fun! The whole team were in fact superb making it a great thing to be part of and of course promoting what can be done in your own garden for wildlife to a 'massive' audience! Let's hope we inspire a few more people to garden for wildlife and enjoy the wildlife that benefits from their efforts as we continue to do here!

Leading up to the day of filming we had less than two weeks to get the garden looking at it's best. I will confess that I spent every evening after work deadheading, weeding, planting and generally titivating to try and present it as well as I could. Things did get a bit stressful at times as many of the plants that should have been in flower where so far behind thanks to the wet winter and record breaking cold spring we experienced! This made life very difficult and I did use my local nursery to 'plug' a few gaps where we had lost plants from the cold spell.

If you can find a dedicated plant nursery who are reliable and grow a good variety of plants such as Middlecombe Nursery who I use do, then I would recommend that you stick with them. I particularly like Middlecombe as when I visit the plants are absolutely buzzing with bees and alive with butterflies showing that they are healthy and full of pollen unlike many plants that are mass grown and over-bred from abroad!

If you live in the North Somerset area then check out Middlecombe for yourself and get your own garden buzzing! For more info here's a link to their own website that tells you little more about them and the plants they grow...   http://www.middlecombenursery.co.uk/General/AboutUs.html The nursery is situated just off of the A370 at Congresbury so is easy and accessible.

So with the onset of a film-crew arriving and having something to film I'm going to show below some of the plants we concentrated on not only for the camera but more importantly for our pollinators who were having an extremely difficult Spring at that time..

                                          Astrantia, and....

                                            Sweet William, and...... 

              .....Scabious make a fantastic early summer plant combination enjoyed by all pollinators including bees and butterflies.

 Oxeye Daisy threads it's way all around the garden in late spring / early summer providing nectar for early pollinators. I chop it right back once the flowers start to go over and it provides a second flush of flowers later in the summer... 

As well as the above plants that featured in the garden when filming took place (mid June) was a new plant that I sowed last year and it has proved absolutely irresistible to all types of bees is Campanula Canterbury Bells as below...

Grown for the first time this year Campanula Canterbury Bells....

 The flowers are like giant bells and the plant itself grew to about 3feet tall. All types of bees absolutely love this plant and are amusing to watch as they cover themselves in generous amounts of pollen that this plant provides!...

The other plant that we felt was a bit of a banker and has shown spectacular results for us this year is Knapweed that also attracts great numbers of pollinators of different types...

So as you can see from above we were relying on a few reliable plants to bring the pollinators in and of course add some much needed colour for the cameras!

The day before filming was planned to take place the heavens opened and we had torrential rain! I couldn't believe it and my already high stress levels were through the roof by now! I was moaning to my wife saying that "I haven't seen a butterfly all week" and "the garden isn't where it should be nothing's flowering when it should!" "There won't be anything to film!!"  My wife just retorted that there was no more that I could do and the BBC should be able to get something onto film!

Quicker than expected the day of the shoot arrived, I got out of bed and opened the bedroom curtains in the hope that I would see sunshine and butterflies everywhere; No such luck I realised as I looked out onto an overcast day full of drizzly rain!! This really wasn't what I'd hoped for but it's what the day brought so we just had to go with it.

10am arrived and so did Martin and the crew, I was relieved to see that they were all good fun people and that we should have a fun filled day if nothing else! The cameras and equipment were humped around to the rear garden and I was blown away with what I saw next....

....the crew were stood on the decking open mouthed just admiring the garden, then I got a barrage of compliments and lovely comments about what I had created, which I have to say was somewhat of a surprise and extremely flattering. I think that often you work with something so closely that you don't take a step back admire your hard work and what has been achieved. I'm sure that there is a lesson for all of us there!?
 
Even better now was that the sun had come out and we could see pollinators starting to flutter around the flowers which had also plucked up thanks to the torrential rain the day before!

The view of the garden that met the TV crew on the day of filming...

The day went really well and the whole experience of filming was really interesting. On top of this the sun stayed out and the day got hotter and hotter, combined with the rain we had the day before and overnight the garden just bursted into life with a real sparkle!

Martin and I walked around the garden and talked about what I had done to encourage wildlife and some of the thinking behind it. My panic from the day before was now gone and we sparked up a real rapport batting off quips against each other. The producer had brought a script but neither of us needed it as I think we could both 'talk the hind legs off of a donkey' given half the chance! Hopefully both of our passion and enthusiasm for wildlife came through on film.

On our trip around the garden we were joined by a few Small Tortoiseshells as well as Droneflies and Hovverflies, Bees buzzed over the colourful flowers and when we went paused next to the wildlife pond a couple of frogs even popped up to say hello! 

A few Small Tortoisehells arrived for the camera...

Our walk past the pond found an audience....

In the long tussocky grass by the old stone bridge feature we filmed a butterfly or moth chrysalis...

 Only to be immediately joined by an inquisitive Toad!!....

It was at this point that we spoke at length about Ragwort, a really controversial plant as it supports many species of insect many of which are in severe decline or even endangered but it is toxic to cattle. Research has shown that a cow or a horse would need to eat about 14lbs in weight of the plant for it to be fatal, however there are many other claims made about it. If you want to read more about it then use this link which will take you through to a site giving details & facts, http://www.ragwortfacts.com/index.html I'll let you make your own mind up about it and whether it should be included in a wildlife garden or not...

Ragwort, friend or foe?? No comment, I'll let you decide!...

We moved onto the mini wild flower meadow and Martin commented on the amount of bees and hovverflies buzzing all around us. I have to say, despite the crews amazement I have been bitterly disappointed with the wild flowers this year so far. As we sowed lots of perennials seeds I had hope for a few more plants to be in flower during filming but it was timed just after the spring wildflowers had flowered but before our summer species came into bloom! Normally by this time of the year I would have also planted annual plugs such as Corn Marigolds and Corn Flowers. As I knew filming was likely to happen this year I ordered in plugs rather than grow my own which turned out to be a big mistake! Our supplier let us down and it was only after persistently chasing them they sent the Corn Marigold plugs and Cuckoo Flower plugs a week before we filmed. The plugs were small and some were damaged when they arrived so we ended up with a lot less flowers than hoped for in the mini meadow which was disappointing! (A mental note to myself to grow my own again next year!!)

Despite being let down by our supplier we still had a few wildflowers in flower for filming!...

Wild Carrot has prove a very successful and long flowering plant for pollinators...

Self sown thistles have also turned up trumps this year. Ladybirds have feasted on them as they've grown and now that they have started to flower they are loved by bees and butterflies...

 With a good few hours of film under our belts we stopped for some lunch including a delicious cream tea made for the occasion by my wife! The cream tea seemed to go down very well but was cut short as the crew dashed out with mobile phones to take pictures of the garden to show friends and family! This did seem strange but I was extremely flattered that the garden should have such a positive effect on people!

The afternoon was taken up with Martin recording the close to the piece and of course my now famous quote of "Well you don't get a garden like this by having a tidy shed!!" As you can imagine I received many texts about this following it going out on air!

Before I knew it the day was over and the crew had left! But what a cracking day it was and I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of it!

If there was anything that I would change, then it would have been to film the following day as the weather got hot and sunny and we had an absolute deluge of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies descend on the garden!

I was actually so overwhelmed by the amount of butterflies and insects that I shot the following video footage the day after filming and sent it in to the guys to demonstrate that we do normally have a few more pollinators than they saw the day before! If you watch the video you will see that it actually got to the stage where you had to watch where you stood!!....

http://youtu.be/z95xuGxr0i0 (Link to my Pollinators Special video)

I think that does really give you an insight into my day of filming with the BBC which I hope you will agree was a roaring success. I also hope that you watched the program on Friday and agree that it was a really well made and fascinating look at the life-cycle of butterflies and moths!?

Keeping with the butterfly and moth theme, next time I will talk in more detail about my garden moths and what we found when we did our first moth trap in Higgy's Garden! 

To wet your appetite I'll leave you with one of the more common moths that we found but please do sign in next time to see what else turned up in the trap!!?......

This Small Emerald (Hemithea chrysoprasaria) was one of over forty moths that turned up in our first ever moth trap - see what else we caught next time!!...

On that note I will bid you all goodbye and hopefully catch you all hear next time!

As always thanks for reading and please do send in your questions and opinions or even ideas for the garden or blog as they are all read and very much appreciated.

Cheers

Best

Higgy