One year in the wildlife garden

 I posted the first in this series of blog-posts exactly twelve months ago. (There are earlier posts in the blog referring to our old garden before we moved.) In that time I have put up 26 posts, many of them illustrated with not-very-good photos. I do not think they record anything spectacular. The main point was to show that gardening for "ordinary" wildlife can be most enjoyable. 

This series of posts was inspired by a TV programme. It was "The Wild Gardener" by Colin Stafford-Johnson and included the splendid sentence: "Anyone who's got a little bit of land can make the land better for nature," I like to think that if we all made an effort the decline in species might be reversed.

When I was talking about habitats I mentioned my effort to grow a thicket of ivy, an excellent wild-life plant. Well it is making slow progress. Perhaps one day we will have nesting sites and berries.

The theory is that it will never be allowed to grow beyond the trellis; time will tell if I manage to keep it under control.

Part of the advice from all sides it not to be too tidy. Many invertebrates, most of whose names I don't know, spend the winter in seed heads, hollow stems and other such spots. I expect you are like us and simply have to do a bit of tidying and cutting back, otherwise the amount needed is overwhelming in the spring. But we try and leave some - like this sunflower.

 If you provide enough "real" habitats you probably do not need artificial ones. But gardening surely ought to be fun. I have no idea what insects or other mini-beasts might like to spend the winter in here, spiders for sure, but it was entertaining to make. I am sure it could have been made better.

It may be that I do not continue this blog for the moment. There may not be anything new or exciting to say. If there is, of course, expect to hear about it.  Here, as Christmas approaches, is some holly.

Winter comes

 Last week I went out in the morning to find a little ice on the pond for the first time this winter. The season is moving on, although we have had an unusually mild November. Because the pond is so small it is not hard to keep removing leaves as they appear. A few are all right, but too many are best avoided.

I have mentioned the small log-pile before. There is no space for anything ambitious. But look what is decorating it now! 

I have found fungi very hard to identify, but I hope I track this one down. Later searches suggest it is the Many-zoned polypore, Coriolus versicolor. Apparently it is very common but it is decorative.

Another aspect of winter in my town garden is that the bird visitors have changed slightly. The other day I saw the first blackbird I have noticed since April. There are no goldfinches or starlings just now. The chittering fledglings, squabbling over the feeders and emptying them in a day or two, departed in early June. But a robin is now a frequent caller. Every day I scatter a few fat-sprinkles for the ground-feeders and two or three magpies soon appear. Perhaps they deter small birds. A woodpigeon is also regular again, after a summer off. Coal tits are often seen on the feeders; they are very attractive. My own favourite is a dunnock. They are so modest I suppose one may have been pottering about unnoticed for months; but now it is often seen, neat and unassuming as it forages beneath the shrubs.

The bright colour in the garden just now is the holly berries. They still catch the sun, even though much of the garden is now shaded all day. 

Pond clearance in the back end

 I mentioned in early spring that I did not want my pond to become a swamp. Well, despite the March clearance, the whole thing had become overgrown with Water mint and Forget-me-not. While they were flowering, and attracting pollinators, it seemed a pity to remove them. But today was the day - fortunately before the water became untouchably cold. Some were left, of course.

I sluiced each extracted plant in some water in the hope of rescuing creeping things. This had at least some success, as shown here.

Snails saved from the dredging

What I had not expected was how much moss and mud had spread out over the water surface. Removing some of that was more work than I had bargained for. But if a pond is not going to become gradually silted up to the point of disappearance (this happens to natural ponds) some dredging is needed. As a gardener I can choose what to do up to a point, and gazing into the water is part of the pleasure. Perhaps next spring I will be able to.

Before

After 

Mellow Fruitfulness

 Proof that it is definitely autumn is the appearance of a delicate toadstool on the lawn.

At the same time all sorts of hips and berries are turning bright red, keeping colour going even though many flowers are fading.

Different birds seem to like different berries. There was a time, in a previous garden, where greenfinches used to gorge on the rose hips. The best we can do is provide food and see what does or does not turn up. Our pears are very popular with foxes, which certainly pick off what they can reach, night after night. This reinforces the message not to use pesticides. I have this year put a barrier of netting round the small plum tree, which seems to have worked. Last year small branches were broken off!

I have recently finished digging over a small patch of lawn to make a flower bed. I was very pleased to discover plenty of centipedes. On the relevant RHS web page one of the first things it says is: "Part of a healthy garden eco-system". Their main food is the sort of bugs that eat your plants. 

The bird-life in the garden is moving on away from the spring and summer pattern. In that last week I have seen the first robin and the first coal tit noticed since April. There's lots to see if you look. Meanwhile I am not sure if the baby frogs have left the pond and immediately found excellent hiding places; I hope so. 

Late Summer

 The most obvious feature of late summer is the ripening of fruits. Gardening books have advice on how to deal with pests and diseases. I have yet to read one that advises how to dissuade a fox from taking pears and plums, usually then scattering them around with one bite taken out. However, there are still plenty of pears and plums for us. In the explicitly wild bit of the garden the brambles that have turned up behind the pond have fruited excellently this year.

There have been many more than are in this photo, but grandchildren are even more rapacious than foxes.

I did not plan to make a hedge, but the bank of earth dug while excavating the pond has become one. Two wild roses (bought), this bramble, and a raspberry (just turned up) are flourishing so much that they need cutting back. This is a happy reminder of hedging along a country lane in my childhood. Some of the not-native plants have good berries too, already. I have known this cotoneaster stripped by woodpigeons in previous years. 

So long as you never use pesticides, many non-native plants will add to the wildlife resources of a garden.

The tadpoles in our pond have not yet emerged as baby frogs. They can't be hurried. At least I am sure that they have plenty of places to hide once they do emerge. If last year's hatching is anything to go by, some of them will find our garden a place to live. 

One hazard they encounter is neighbourhood cats. One of these creatures amuses itself by touching frogs from behind and making them jump.

The small birds seem to be reluctant to go to the feeders just now - maybe it is moulting time, when they try to stay under cover. But I did happen to see a flock of long-tailed tits pass through the area; always welcome. As far as I can see they roam around, never staying in one garden for long.

Some of the flowers in the "wild" section are inspired by things I love to see on holidays. These scabious I grew from seed after coming back from Wester Ross a couple of years ago. Bumble bees seem to like them, and it is important to keep fresh blooms, with nectar and pollen, going all though the spring and summer months. (Apologies for the poor photo)

Possibly in terms of helping wild nature and biodiversity the invertebrate mini-beasts are as important as anything. There is no shortage of habitats. Our insect house may or may not house a mason bee or two in any given year, but I lifted the lid the other day and look what was sheltering there. 

There is no limit to the fun you can get from a wild-life garden.

High summer

 The last day of July. After some fairly strenuous gardening (not in the "wild" garden patch) I sat peacefully in what the poet calls "a bee-loud glade". There were at least three varieties of bumblebee - possibly four or five. But I do not claim skill at identification. Some were on the knapweed in the wild patch. Some were on the sunflowers. There were several popular plants. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again - never use insecticide.

A few days ago we were away for a fortnight, Our Edinburgh heatwave was much less severe than many places, but still I wondered what I might find when I came back. None of the plants looked much the worse, but the pond was nearly empty. I used all the available tubs of water to refill it as much as possible, and the next day I breather a sigh of relief when I saw a tadpole wriggling. I wonder how many baby frogs will eventually crawl out. Meanwhile quite a few adults take advantage of our water features on these hot days.

The pond plants for summer are doing well. There is far too much water mint. But the single plant of purple loosestrife is magnificent - and popular with bees.

Some of my plant photos are not worth posting. There is a good show of heath bedstraw and some attractive cornflower from the wildflower annual seed packet. One of the best has just turned up - officially a "weed" in many places. here it is.

Ragwort

Some pond-life

The little pond is getting seriously overgrown with forget-me-nots and with mint, even though I though I had thinned them out pretty thoroughly in March. One learns from experience. Next year....

However, I did manage to do a little pond-dipping this afternoon and photographed the results.

There are lots of these snails. I imported a few to keep the algae down, and they have multiplied many-fold. They are also keeping the algae down very well. The other day a pond-dip pulled out a little pod of their eggs - a blob of jelly about the size of a swallowable capsule pill. Under a microscope I was surprised to see that the tiny dots were not in fact eggs, but miniature snails - as far as I could tell. Here's an adult.

I was surprised to find a different sort of snail, with a spiral shell.

There were also lots of water fleas - daphnia. They are the little orange creatures, swimming about. They are very prolific and, I think, help provide food for the tadpoles.

Finally, on this brief look, there were some flatworms. I'm not sure how big they grow. At the moment they are small.

I have no certain knowledge about how any of these, except the first sort of snail, got into the pond. Presumably they were in the roots of some of the plants that were purchased. A good idea with a larger pond is to bring in some pond mud, and maybe some weed, from some wild pond. My stretch of water is so small that I decided not to overcrowd it. 

One other observation today was a big ants nest. I lifted a couple of flagstones as part of some reorganisation, and this is what I found. 

 You can see a cluster of eggs, and also a lot of young ants growing wings, almost ready to fly off in the sort of cloud that can spatter car windscreens. The speed with which the workers bundled the eggs and the immature wingy ants underground was wonderful to watch. All the wild life in the garden is wonderful to watch. At this time of year there is masses to see.