Gardening for wildlife....

Hello All,

Firstly apologies as my intentions to add more posts didn't happen last month as promised due to the amount of jobs in the garden which have needed attention and the little spare time that I get.

Despite ill health knocking me back a bit during June and my realisation that some 'heavy' jobs now need to be delayed or require assistance, I have got a little done such as, prepare an area for and erect a greenhouse, which means that I will now be able to bring on so many more plants (hooray!!), complete the feature rockery and get a few more plants in....

Before I show you the results of the feature rockery I wanted to share with you something which was on my initial 'wish list/plan' for the garden and I hope you will agree is slowly proving a success?....Number eight on my list was.....


"8. Encourage wildlife in the garden"


As usual to save space and relay more information here in pictures are the results so far of the wild-flower lawn area and the wildlife that it has attracted.....

Here are a couple of pictures looking through the wild'flower lawn area and you can see plenty of colour, including...

Corn Cockle....

Corn Marigold....

Corn Flowers and I have these in blue, white and an interesting variety which is purple almost black!

There are other flowers and plants within this meadow area but too many to list on here. If you would like to find out in more detail about these plants please to contact me and I will be more than happy to email you with further details/pictures etc...

Right then what creatures have made this area the 'in' place to be seen this year?....

Lady birds have been showing in huge numbers in the garden which is really pleasing as they will help me naturally control all the bugs!

Oedermera Nobilis (thick legged flower beetle) I had never seen one of these before this year and now have lots in this area where they particularly like to feed on the pollen of the corn marigolds

Bees and hover-flies of many different types visit regularly and I will do a feature about these at another time once I've managed to identify them all!!!

Again as with bees and hover-flies, many different species of butterfly visit and I will try and cover them all as the season goes on but here are three recent visitors... 

A Painted Lady

A Ringlet (female)

Now I would guess a Skipper of sorts, but I not sure which species....let me know if you can ID this one please?....

A couple of caterpillars which again I haven't yet identified....let me know??

Finally a (not so good) picture of a Grass Hopper. 

Obviously these are pictures of only a tiny proportion of the insects that I have been fortunate to attract to this area of the garden this year and there are just too many to include in one post. I will write further posts about specific insect types and these will include butterflies & moths, Bees & hoverflies. I'm also hopeful of attracting other wildlife into my small plot and have further projects planned to encourage just that....watch this space!!....

Finally on the wildlife front here is one of my natural slug controllers!!..... 

Meet Tommy Toad, my natural slug controller!! Here sat between the shed and the cold frame where he has been guarding my seedlings from hungry slugs and snails (good lad!!)

Well that's about it for now folks except to leave you with a picture of the feature rockery as it is now....planted and making a nice entry to the area behind the pond which is still awaiting landscaping!!...

As always many thanks for reading and following my blog. I appreciate your nice comments and always answer ALL comments sent so please keep them coming? Thanks to Thomas for his question about my colourful borders, it's nice to know that you are keen to try some of my ideas and I hope that my 'long winded' answer was ok and gives you the necessary information to have a go?

Keep the questions coming and I will look to post again really soon, including some of the plants currently flowering in Higgy's garden as a bit of a change from the hard landscaping.

Cheers

Higgy