Three very good books for wildlife gardeners

 In my previous blog-post I referred to "who knows what invertebrates". One person who did know what was Jennifer Owen. Her book "Wildlife of a garden: a thirty year study" is highly recommended. 

She had the knowledge and the skill do make a detailed study of all the animal life in her garden, in a suburb of Leicester. There are various detailed tables in the book, full of fascinating information. Do get hold of a copy and read them. Suffice it to say that she found numerous varieties of invertebrates: butterflies - 23; moths - 375 (over 100 of these recorded once only); hoverflies - 94; bees and wasps - 121; sawflies, psocids, bugs and lacewings - 305; beetles - 421; other insects - 625; other invertebrates - 138. These numbers astonished me when I first read them. She also tells us the annual fluctuations. The book is also beautiful to look at, with many fine colour photos on every page. The two final chapters, "The Garden Habitat" and "Gardens as Conservation" are richly rewarding to every would-be wildlife gardener. One most interesting point is that the garden studied is, like all cultivated gardens, in a constant state of development. Digging, pruning, harvesting, and the control of aggressive weeds means that there is a great variety of plants, and of sizes of plants at different stages of growth. "The creation of a state of permanent succession is thus a source of further enrichment of the fauna." The garden is a "neat, productive suburban garden". The key sentence for us humble gardeners with no pretensions to being ecologists is "Above all, and of paramount importance in a wildlife garden, no pesticides or other noxious chemicals are used, other than the occasional application of slug pellets". Personally I manage without the slug pellets, though I do not attempt much vegetable growing. 

A more recent book, published in 2019, is "The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save the Planet" by Dave Goulson. Professor Goulson is Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex. 

Dave Goulson is not only a distinguished academic, he is also a witty, fluent writer whose style is easy to read and whose books are deservedly popular. He is also a hard-hitting advocate against all sorts of aspects of horticulture and of farming that are damaging our planet and the life that inhabits it. Do read the whole book. Here is one set of extracts.

 

"If, like me, you've ever succumbed to the temptation to buy these plants [sometimes using the Royal Horticultural Society's 'Perfect for Pollinators' logo] you may be concerned by the results of research performed in my lab...The results were depressing. Most of the plants contained a cocktail of pesticides...Only two out of twenty-nine plants that we tested contained no pesticides...Seventy percent of the plants contained neonicotinoids (insecticides that are notorious for their harmful effects on bees and long persistence in the environment)... Our results were published in the spring of 2017 and caused quite a stir... Luckily the Friends of the Earth campaign gained real traction and very soon most of the big-name chains had all agreed to withdraw neonics."

I thought this passage was worth quoting at length. But there are other chapters about meadows, ponds, moths, ants and so on. At the end of the book find "My sixteen favourite garden plants for pollinators" and "My top twelve berry plants for birds". 

The final book in this post is very special to me, because it was Chris Baines who got me started on wildlife gardening. In the 1980s he presented a series of television programmes on how to make a wildlife garden, which I previously knew nothing about. His "Companion to Wildlife Gardening" derives directly from those programmes.

I bought the book-of-the-series in 1985. But I was given this new edition as a present more recently. It came out in 2016. It is another easy read, packed with encouraging and useful advice. It is also full of beautiful photographs. In the cold and dark of a sleet-filled Edinburgh (right now) what better to relax with it in a comfy chair and dream of all the things you are going to do next to make your garden even more attractive to wildlife?

A much smaller wildlife garden

 I set up this blog years ago, when we enjoyed a pretty large garden. Since then we have downsized, as old people do. But the wonderful "The Wild Gardener" programmes on BBC2 recently, by Colin Stafford-Johnson, included the following sentence: "Anyone who's got a little bit of land can make the land better for nature". [BBC iPlayer - The Wild Gardener - Series 1: Episode 1] So I decided to make a new series of posts about what I do in my little bit of land. I shall enjoy making these posts. If you enjoy reading them, that's very pleasing. If you get some ideas from them of things to try in your own bit of land, so much the better.

The day I decided to start (November 29th) has snow on the ground and was very cold. Here are a few photos.

I think these are blackbird footprints. Certainly I have seen both a male and a female hopping around this week.

The Purple loosestrife is one of the plants that does really well in the little pond. I hope next summer to show it in flower. But it was shining gold in the the afternoon sun, a reminder that seed-heads are often an aesthetic pleasure as well as a winter home for who knows what invertebrates. (I use the phrase "who knows" to confess right away that I have no scientific knowledge. Some people do know.)

Providing habitats is one of the main principles of wildlife gardening. I have little skill in do-it-yourself, but I did manage to make this insect house earlier this year. I have no idea what, if anything, will use it, but all sorts of insects hibernate, so I hope some creatures find it useful.

I reckon that four things all of us who have any land at all can do are: provide habitats; set up a bit of water - ideally a pond, however small it has to be; never use pesticides; never use herbicides. Maybe other ideas will come across from this blog. We'll see what turns up.

My main reason for wildlife gardening is sheer pleasure. I love living in the city, but I love being in the country. A sight like this cheers me up.

Painting in the Wild-life Garden

Yesterday I went to The Scottish Gallery and looked at their Flora Depicta exhibition (here's the link: http://www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/exhibitions/page/flora_depicta ). This inspired me to try and do some flower painting myself. I wanted to try and capture something of our wild-life garden.

I chose a spot which is a glorious tangle of vegetation. I know my limitations; no chance of precise botanical drawing. But I did want to capture the atmosphere of the spot, and have something which will remind me of it. I chose to try acrylic on "not pressed" watercolour paper. This was the set-up.

The first step was to put on some loose washes of pure red, blue and yellow. These constituted the beginnings of a composition, and they would be a background to all the detail that was to come. You will notice that green was not used. I knew there would be an overwhelming amount of green to come, so I wanted different colours in the background.

Then I took a little bottle of black acrylic ink and did some rough sketching. I was not aiming for precise lines, so I used a twig not a pen. The point was to give myself a composition and some shapes to work with indicating where the main plant stems would be. The twig was just picked up on the spot. It won't worry me at all if some of the marks are visible in the final painting.

The next step was to paint in some dark. There's a wall covered in ivy in the background and soil in the foreground, all heavily shaded.

In retrospect I think I could have put in more dark blue and brown at this stage, but more could be added later.

Now for the hard work,painting a myriad leaves in many different greens. On my palette I put Cadmium Yellow Light, Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Cerulean Blue. These gave a lot of different combinations.

Painting the mass of leaves took about an hour. I did not try and draw the outline of individual leaves, but I did look closely at the size of marks and at the amount of yellow or of blue in the greens. I also put.in more shade.  

And finally what I had had in mind from the start. I took a smaller brush and used mixtures of pure red and white for the foxglove flowers. I tried to observe them closely. The same went for the meadowsweet; I found the subtle off-white of these flowers, the frothy look, and the variations of light and shade almost impossibly difficult.

I tidied up a few details here and there, but the fact that I was too tired after two intense hours to do much more at least prevented me making it worse by overworking.

30 Days Wild in the garden

June was the month of “30 Days Wild”. It would have been lovely to get out and about more. I did manage a few walks by our local canal. There was one superb day in the southern Highlands, going up Stob Binnein with a group of friends. The spectacular day amongst the wild flowers and birds at Aberlady coincided with the battery on my camera running out, so there are no pictures. But I was thrilled to see a dabchick (Little Grebe) and lots of twayblades – a big green orchid.

But mainly the 30 Days Wild scheme was an incentive to observe my wild-life garden a bit more closely every day and chart the numerous developments over the summer. 

The spring blossoms – rowan and hawthorn – were pretty well over. But there were frothy white elderflowers, even though I cut the bushes back pretty heavily in the winter. Just in time, before June ended, the sweet briar that tangles all over the garage, bloomed. It has ferocious spines and beautiful pink flowers.

On the very last day before the scheme ended an orchid came into flower in the patch of uncut grass that I call the meadow. It is cut like a traditional hay-field, in late summer. Then in autumn it is raked and re-cut and trampled, which perhaps creates the effect of cattle grazing. For a really fine meadow one ought to clear the ground and re-seed it with a special mixture. We've just left it as a former lawn – and so far this year we've had buttercups, cuckoo-flowers, speedwell – and this orchid. The long grass can be pretty too, and it is ideal cover for frogs.

I do think it is a mistake only to value wild nature when it is pretty, or expensive, or sublime. Blackfly are irritating to gardeners, but they are as remarkable as any other phenomenon. As for nettles, they can be invasive, and I spend a lot of time pulling them out where they are not wanted – but are the flowers not complex and delicate. On the bird-feeders I'm pleased to see blue-tits and sparrows. But my 30 Days Wild photo happened to be a goldfinch. They are no less wonderful because more common than they used to be. The garden does seem good for pollinators, though I lack the expertise or the patience to tell one bumblebee from another.

The most exciting bit of wild nature this June was, as usual, the pond. It has become terribly overgrown; but that is good for some things. It is now bright with spearwort and the yellow flag irises are blazing. Pond-skaters are the most conspicuous insect; they seem to defy all predators. As for the predators, I know there are plenty of palmate newts around, though they are shy. Easier to spot are the frogs, and it was such a pleasure last week to spot a baby looking for cover.

This house and garden is too big for an elderly retired couple, so we are soon, I expect, to move out. The new owners will, of course, manage it how they want. I hope that they will enjoy the wild life too.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 33: May 22

This blog about one year in the wild-life garden is nearing its end. If there are any new things to tell you in the next year I will add them in. Last summer, for example, was a bad one for butterflies. Let us hope to see more this summer. Our most conspicuous wild-life just now, on days that wet the grass, is garden snails (Helix apsera). They are inclined to eat new plants I buy – delphiniums disappeared overnight – but they are very magnificent. Most of the other plant eaters are kept in check by predators – black beetles, lady-birds, wasps, frogs and so on. But snails are well protected. On the rare occasions I have seen a thrush (for thrushes do know how to crack snail-shells) the blackbirds have swiftly driven it off.

Garden Snail

The Rowan blossom (Sorbus aucuparia) is coming out and there should be fine berries in August. 

Rowan

The managed wild-flower bed is full of different leaf-shapes, so we should start to have flowers for pollinators and for colour soon. The first buttercups are coming into flower, with a promise of plenty more any day. Plenty of Creeping buttercups (Ranunculus repens) and I spend a lot of time weeding them out. But many years ago I bought a packet of Meadow buttercups (Ranunculus acris), and they have repaid the investment a thousand-fold. They move around, and do not always grow where I expected; but they are one of the highlights of early summer.

Meadow Buttercup

In the hedge the plant I grew from a seed picked out of a sunken lane twenty-five years ago has started to grow strongly. It is a Guelder-rose (Viburnum opulus), and will have flowers in due course.

Guelder-rose

I do not want you to think I am more fond of dandelions than of anything else, but I must add a picture of the well-known clock. What a magnificent structure. My case rests.

Dandelion clock

In case this is my last chapter in this blog let me end by summing up my rules for wild-life gardening:

• Never use pesticides.
• Make a pond, however small.
• Many so-called weeds are beautiful wild-flowers, much loved by pollinators.
• If possible have a native tree – even if it is coppiced or reduced to a hedge-size.
• Don't tidy up too much. Dead leaves and stems, seed heads and sticks are all used as habitats.
• Have places that are deliberately suitable for wild creatures to live in – piles of sticks, bird boxes, cracks in stone walls,insect houses and so on.
• Try leaving a patch of grass that you only cut once a year, like hay. I've been rewarded with cowslips, buttercups, orchids, cuckoo-flower – as well as interesting grasses.
• Put up bird-feeders and maintain them.

That'll do for a start.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 32: May 13th

I know it is only four days since the last chapter, but they have been four days of sun, and some beautiful flowers have appeared. The old rhyme about April flowers bringing forth May flowers seems to have worked here. They will all be fairly prolific as the summer progresses and I suppose they might be called weeds in some contexts.

The Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis cambrica) is the largest of them, a paler yellow than dandelions, and with a form and confidence that would befit a cultivated plant. But these just turn up, particularly where there is a wall or a crack in paving.

Welsh Poppy

The Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) seeds so readily that I pull a lot out. But plenty remains. I love the pink flowers, with darker veins, and the typical Cranesbill seed-pods. I brought my original plant back from the Lake District.

Herb Robert

The meadow area is increasingly being colonised by speedwell. I guess these are Common Field Speedwell (Veronica persica), described in my flower book as “an alien weed of cultivation, first recorded 1825”. Ah well. It looks nice.

Speedwell

Also in the meadow a Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) has come up. It likes damp places and I have seen it flourishing over several square yards in other spots. Here it hangs on. It is also known as Ladies Smock.

Cuckooflower

When the garden was first set up my father-in-law brought a small plant of Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum) from the old ditch that bordered his garden. I stuck it behind the hedge, and it has grown and grown. Look at it now. In late summer every spike will be a wand of scarlet berries.

Lords and Ladies

Followers of this blog will already know about the success of our little bee-house. Well, yesterday I saw not just the mud-plugged holes, but an adult Mason Bee. It is some sort of Osmia, but my insect book says “there are many similar species”.

Mason Bee

This blog is nearing its end; one year was the idea. I would love to think that you were encouraged to try wild-life gardening too. We have been lucky to have so much ground. I think it is fair to call it “medium sized”. Here is a map that I made when the garden was the site of a U3A visit.

The Wild-life Garden

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 31: May 9th

Since the last chapter I have had an intense burst of exam marking, with no time to go into the garden. Now I get back to it and find it is nearly summer, never mind spring. The beech (Fagus sylvatica) in the hedge is coming into leaf at last, and so is the oak (Quercus robur). 

Beech buds opening

New leaves are particularly lovely. We have one or two big clumps of fern where they have just turned up. Now the fronds are uncurling.

Fern uncurling

There is a cowslip (Primula veris) in the meadow, and a carpet of bluebells. 

Cowslip

These are, I must admit, not the native British species but the vigorous Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica). There were already one or two in the garden before we arrived and they have spread and spread. If anyone doubts that dandelions brighten up any patch of grass, look at this.

Dandelions

Today it was hot enough to sit out and read a book. An orange tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) passed through. It must have woken from hibernation. There were plenty of gnats and hoverflies, and various bumblebees. Best of all, a sudden shrieking told me that the swifts (Apus apus) are back. About seven rushed back and forth, shouting shrilly and loud. I would have said this was a little earlier than in most years. It is so good to see them, all the way from Southern Africa.

And today I saw my first two-spot ladybird (Adalia bipunctata) of the year. Quite apart from looking nice, they play a big part in keeping the aphid population under control.

Ladybird

So do the frogs. Breeding is over, but there are plenty of damp, shady places in the garden for them to lurk in. 

Common frog