Gardening for Wildlife

to my gardening for wildlife thread

Whilst in the garden today enjoying the most wonderful winter sunshine i was blessed to see my first honey bee so excited to see the buzzy bee who was feeding on my snowdrops so thought i'd post some photos of some of my wildlife meadow flowers that will be with me very soon

Ooooo cant wait!! cant wait!!
these are just a few varieties i grow that will be ready to feed all Gods incredible creatures in 2016 when they arrive




Photo1; Cosmos,oxeye daisies,phacelia and Scented tapestry phlox



Photo2 ;Cerinthe_ fox and cubs_ Oxeye daisies-californian poppies _ yellow loosestrife.

Photo3; Scabious_‘Butterfly Blue_Buttercups_oxeye daisy_Aquilegia deep blue and Londons pride


Photo 4; Corn poppies_Cornlowers_Oxeye daisies_Californian poppies_ and Cosmos sonata





Photo 5; Selfheal and Black medick





Photo 6 ;Hazel_ 0xeye daisy and Alchemilla mollis Ladys mantle


Hope you enjoy and i would love to see any GC members photos of wildflowers that they provide for the pollinators

Glad to see you Buzzingby and please do Flutterby again

 

I love your thread & I love those flowers .
Keep those photos coming

 

Awww Bekkiie76 your very sweet

 

Super pictures Bee! I applaud the way of gardening. The bees need all the help they can get, especially now with neonics so widely used. Love the meadow flowers. I planted a wildflower meadow last April (see my avatar) and so far as I've only had it one year so have only had the annuals flower so I am looking forward to the perennials this year.

 

I saw this on Facebook & thought of you @BeeHappy . It certainly puts the point over! Although I do believe a lot of people don't understand the importance of saving our pollinators.

 

I like the lawn with clover pictures above as I too leave all the clover in my lawn. At the height of summer the bees seem to love the flowering clover . A simple way to help the bees and easily done.

 

What a fabulous garden, Shiney! Tell me, when do you mow the meadow? I waited until the end of August last year. I garden mainly for the birds, but pollinating insects are the beginning of the chain so very important.

Something that a lot of people don't know but is obvious when you think about it is that double flowers are generally not good for pollinating insects; they can't get into them. These days I always go for singles with anything that I plant.

 

This is the best book on wildlife gardening that I've come across:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/RSPB-Garden...&qid=1456308852&sr=8-1&keywords=Adrian+Thomas

I reviewed it a few years ago for a local magazine. I'll see if I can find the review, although my computer has changed since then and it may have got lost.

 

Thanks. I wanted to keep part of our large lawn, which is separate to my new meadow, longer for longer. At present we allow it to get pretty shaggy but I wanted to only mow it a couple of times per summer with paths mown through it to have a nicer more species rich meadow . My husband pointed out that our mower probably wouldn't cope with it being really long......so not done it yet.

 

I try and make my whole garden wildlife friendly but my hens invariably eat some of the wildlife! Love lavender and plant it all over the place.
At the back of the picture below you can see what I call my wildlife circle. This only gets cut (read as hacked to bits) once a year in early March. It looks a proper mess at the moment but come July it will be full of life. Full of ox-eye daisy, tansy, knapweed, St John's wort, perennial sunflowers - anything that battles its way through the year get to stay the ONLY thing I pull out is couchweed.

 

Jennywren: A Swallowtail in your garden! Magnifique!

 

everyone for liking and joining in my wildlife gardening thread and to all the FAB piccys some very happy bumbly bees flutterbys and all other pollinators out there 's im luvving this so keep um coming plezzzz