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 

Gardening for wildlife and children and an upcoming TV appearance!!...

Hello All,

I hope that you are intrigued by the title of this post and wondering what the 'TV appearance' part is all about!?...

Well all I can say is that there is some really exciting stuff happening for me and the garden at the moment and you will have to read on to find out a bit more about it...

Firstly before we talk about this exciting development lets take a look at the garden and what I've been up to since my last post...

Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that I have a real passion for creating a garden that not only attracts wildlife but is attractive and user friendly for my family. Most importantly it has to be enjoyable and lots of fun for my 5yr old daughter. With this in mind I have been thinking for some time that I really should be creating ideas of how to introduce further play equipment into the garden for her!

The current play area already has a climbing frame, slide and trampoline, the ground is covered with a generous layer of bark mulch which provides a soft landing if she were to fall over. With space at a premium I needed to think of a feature that was different and utilised the tiny bit of space that runs behind the trampoline and then on behind the greenhouse...

After much deliberation and not to pass over the chance of introducing a little more slow rotting wood for the wildlife my decision was to recycle some of the log rounds that I saved from my neighbours tree last year...

So here they are Willow rounds saved from the felling of my neighbours tree last year!

Can you guess what they will be yet?..

I imagine that you all guessed it, they struck me as perfect stepping logs! My daughter always enjoys the balancing apparatus in play grounds so these logs offered a great opportunity to include something similar in her play area and make an awkward path become a fun place to walk or hop!...

I painted the tops of the logs in her favorite colours and with fun designs to make them fit in with the fun feel of this space. The rest of the log is left unpainted and will in time begin to rot from underneath creating a mini habitat for all sorts of insects and mini beasts!!....

So there you have a really quick and extremely easy way of introducing another play feature into your garden. With a bit more space you could create as many steps as you like and use logs of different heights to make it much more challenging! I think the key message from me is that these logs were going to be thrown away but have been recycled for the benefit of both children and wildlife! A double 'whammy' in my book!!

Moving on from play areas, what else have I been up to since the last time that I wrote?

Let's firstly revisit the new wildlife pond in the seating area that I told you about in my last post. At only a month or so old I have now planted it with Irises, Marsh Marigolds, Water Avens among other marginal plants and oxygenating weed (as in the below picture)...

The new wildlife pond has now been planted....

And at only a few weeks old I'm amazed to see a variety of wildlife already taking up residence including several frogs of varying sizes!!!....

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the wildlife moves in when you get the habitat right for it!!

So before I get on to the exciting news here's a quick tour of the garden and round up of recent goings on in the garden....

Ceonothious was without doubt the very best Spring Bee plant and at times you could hear the buzzing from some distance away! A 'must have' shrub for early pollinators...

Also enjoyed by early bees was our Clematis Montana...

It also created a spectacular place to sit by covering our secret seating area...

The wild flower area started to show signs of life with a spectacular display of meadow buttercups... 

Vegetables are now planted in the raised beds and are growing well. This year we are growing French Beans, Runner Beans, Peas, Carrots, Spring Onions and Potatoes....

BAD NEWS was that we had a major aphid attack on our honeysuckle!! :-( ....

 But then GOOD NEWS!... Our resident Bluetits spent several days picking them all off to feed their chicks in our bird boxes!!.... :-)

 EVEN BETTER NEWS.... The chicks did very well on our aphids and all successfully fledged!! 

Clear proof that gardening organically and for wildlife really does work!!!!!!!!....

And a few new arrivals....

A young newt found in the wildlife pond, which is situated in the wildlife area at the bottom of the garden...

14-Spot Ladybird - (Propylea 14-punctata) a new record.....

Cercopis vulnerata - another new record for the garden......

Common Marbled Carpet Moth - Chloroclysta citrata...... 

Dryophilocoris flavoquarimaculatus - apparently common but a first spot for us again.....

An Underwing Moth (currently unidentified so please do get in touch if you can give me the exact species please??)

And finally our Common Buzzards are back in good numbers having moved away during the cold Spring. It's great to see them back in good numbers souring over the garden again!!....

 So there you have it folks, that's about it for another post. As you can see the garden really is evolving and we are seeing increased numbers of new species being recorded in the garden which is really encouraging!

OH OK! As you've waited this long I suppose I'd better clarify the 'TV' part of my title....

Well it really is exciting news for me as I have been approached by BBC SPRINGWATCH to see if my garden could be filmed for the upcoming SPRINGWATCH SPECIAL!!! Not only have I been asked I can now confirm that filming has actually already taken place which is really exciting!!

I can't go into too much detail here only to say that it was such an enjoyable day and meeting Martin Hughes-Games and the team was great fun and what a friendly chap he is! We had great fun and it will be interesting to see how this comes over on the big screen!

The program is due to be aired on 26TH JULY 2013 so please do put it in your diaries and have a look at 'Higgy's Garden Project' on TV!!...

As soon as it has been aired I will be writing a special post on here to tell you all about the day and some exciting discoveries that we made whilst filming!

Hope to see you all next time

Best

Higgy

Changing seasons but still recording new garden species!...

Hello All,

I really can't believe that it was the end of February when I wrote my last post! The British seasons really are upside down with not only the wettest winter on record but now the coldest Spring on record also!

This Topsy-turvy weather is annoying for us gardeners but more importantly a matter of life and death for our visiting wildlife. There have been terrible stories in the news recently of birds that just haven't found enough food and have basically starved to death or just not had the necessary reserves to make not through the cold periods. This really does make all of our gardens a haven and in many cases a necessity for all types of wildlife. Locally badgers have struggled for food and on the frosty and freezing nights back in April we had a big badger that came into the garden every single night and literally spent hours picking through the seed that had been spilled by the birds from the feeders. I think the willingness to search for scraps showed how desperate things were for them. On the plus side it gave us great views of a badger close up and allowed for a bit of fun with an on-line live badger watch! you can check that out on my other blog here.. http://higgysnorthsomersetwildlifeadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

This Badger was so desperate for food that it raided my partially built raised bed for scraps from the seed bird feeders!

So what about the garden?...

Well I have to say that for the winter and most of Spring not a lot has been done! This has been a real pain with the ground generally sodden and unworkable! A positive was that this did give time to appreciate what is visiting on a regular basis to find food, much of this I showed you in my last post. With the weather a little more settled and warmer a few jobs have now begun and the garden is starting to once again look a little more 'managed' and inviting. So here's a quick run down on a few things that I have done over the last few weeks....

The bricks under the patio steps that led from the top patio to the lower 'rockery' level have been slowly disintegrating making them unsafe. To fix this meant ripping out the old steps and creating new ones. To try and blend this area into the fairly new rockery I decided that I would in fact extend the rockery feature to run the whole width of the garden and make this whole seating area a bit more attractive and inviting. Although out of popularity these days large rockeries can be great for wildlife with lots of hiding places for all manner of bugs, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals. This habitat will then encourage other predators to come and hunt for food, I have actually watched a Kestrel hovering over the rockery area obviously hunting out the wood mice that I know reside here, quite a special sight over your back garden!!

As you can see below I have taken away the concrete slab steps and integrated the steps into the extended rockery by using rocks and slate...  

The rockery was then extended to run to the other side of the steps also....

Not being totally happy with the outcome and to add extra interest for wildlife I then added a small wildlife pool that in time will be planted up to attract pond-life. This also makes for interest here as this is next to our main seating area....

This picture below is to just illustrate the rockery looking in the other direction, which has now at last been weeded and re-planted with pollinating perennial plants...

As this is our main seating area I have spent quite a lot of time recently getting it nice so that, in the hope of a good summer we can sit and enjoy the fantastic environment that is slowly evolving around us! Whilst the rockery adds interest I have also built a new raised bed with trellis on the other side of this seating area, this raised bed and trellis mirrors the one on the other side of the arch that I showed you in my last post and provides division and interest to the garden whilst adding protection from the wind also....

This new raised bed and trellis adds division as well as height and interest. It also provides protection from the wind to the seating area. Along with the rockery on the other side this has helped to create a feeling of being among the plants and becoming a real part of the garden!....

As my regular readers will know I now struggle with my back and hip injuries so I'm not able to spend as much time in the garden as I would like and have to be careful or more often than not ask for assistance with some of the heavier tasks! However this doesn't dampen my passion for the garden and it's wildlife and other small tasks have been completed recently such as tidying up the old sink that the birds love bathing in. I have basically used a few small rocks and soil to partially hide it and then added a few plants almost creating another mini wildlife pond I suppose....

I've included this to demonstrate that any space however big or small can have a wildlife friendly water feature!! The birds love bathing here.... 

This little chap dug it's way down into the soil minutes after completion of the above water feature!!.. 

So what about the wildlife?...

Well we have had a great start to the year with several new species recorded already! I'm really pleased about this as it does demonstrate that many of or resident creatures and bugs have successfully survived some horrendous weather conditions thanks to the work that we have done here in our small corner of North Somerset! Year on year our visiting species list increases which I find very rewarding! 

As always to save space and time here's a picture run down of the last few months in 'Higgy's Garden'...

Two of our newly installed bird boxes were/are being used by Bluetits!!...

Our dogs fur proved an extremely highly regarded bedding material!!....

22-Spot Ladybird is a brand new record here and one I'm really pleased with considering the number of Harlequin ladybirds that are about!!..

Another 'newbie' was this caddis fly....

 UNIDENTIFIED!!.... If you can help ID this bee please drop me a line or comment below....

 Snakes Head Frittilary, one of the first and prettiest flowering bulbs to make an appearance... 

 German Wasp - you can make your own mind up about these!!...

 Daisies and Forget-me-not's proved very valuable to all pollinators this year including Drone Flies like this one here on some Forget-me-not... 

 Rhingia Campestris - another 'Newbie' in the garden although quite common...

 Snipe Fly - again quite common but a new record in the garden...

Aliums are at last giving some much needed colour and a source of nectar for our insects!!....

Large Red Damselflies started putting in an appearance about two weeks ago and always signal the start of summer for me. They help me look forward to the wonderful Dragonflies that we are blessed with here on the North Somerset Levels...

Only our second record of this red beauty... Pyrochroa serraticornis....

 The Mint Moth is proving to be one of our most reliable moths here and is a pretty moth that needs to be enjoyed magnified like this due to it's small size.... 

 We get lots of spiders in the garden and this year has seen quite large numbers of wolf spiders with both common and meadow species recorded so far....

 Finally I'll leave you with yet another new record for the garden - 'Arge Pagana'

So that is about it for now, apologies that this post is such a long time after the last but I think you'll agree, there has been some really exciting things happening here! I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post and have found my new discoveries as thrilling as I have!? Although many species are common, creating a new record for the garden is an amazing thing and makes all the hard work so worth it!!

It's also great to get kids involved and my 5yr old daughter loves seeing the wildlife and all the bugs and creepy crawlies, I really can't urge you enough to have a go and see what you can attract into your own garden? At the same time you will be providing an education for your children that is unmatched and completely free! Maybe they may get hooked and become the next David Attenborough or Chris Packham!!...

As always thanks for reading and please do send me your comments...

Best Regard

Higgy :-)