Happy new year! I want to help you create a positive and uplifting garden where you can relax, grow your favourite plants, and make real connections with nature.
Do you have a compost heap in your garden? How about in your college or office garden? Composting is such a wonderful thing to do; it’s great for the environment, good for wildlife, produces amazing compost, and saves money!
Hello, and welcome to my wildlife pond in October.
I’ve been very fortunate – the wish I made for autumn sunshine (I expressed this hope at the end of my last update) came true! September blessed us with glorious warm weather and uplifting sunshine; it was so hot on a couple of days that it felt like mid-summer!
Hello, and welcome to my wildlife pond at the end of August. I find peace and solace in nature and I love spending time by our wildlife pond. Usually my visits are fleeting, lasting just a few minutes, but these short burst of connection with plants and wildlife revitalise and recharge me, instantly eliminating all the stresses of life.
This weekend brings us our final chances to take a Butterfly Count for Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count 2021. This lovely annual event closes for the year on Sunday 8th August 2021.
A Butterfly Count lasts for 15 minutes, it’s fun, relaxing, and really couldn’t be easier to do!
Why count butterflies?The information gathered from all the Butterfly Counts taken across the UK, will help Butterfly Conservation to identify the species of butterflies and day flying moths that are becoming more scarce and highlight which species are succeeding or recovering.
Have you taken a Butterfly Count this year? Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count runs from until Sunday 8th August 2021; so you still have time to participate in this lovely activity. The weather this summer has been absolutely atrocious; so far, I’ve only managed to find one 15 minute period that I was able to take a Butterfly Count in between the heavy rain showers!
Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count runs from Friday the 16th July 2021 until Sunday 8th August 2021. I’d really like to encourage you to join in and take your own Butterfly Count – this is such a lovely thing to do. A Butterfly Count only lasts for 15 minutes – this activity won’t take up much of your time – you could take a Butterfly Count in your lunch break.
Summer has finally arrived! Hello and welcome to my wildlife pond in summertime. It’s so lovely to be able to share my wildlife pond with you through these updates; I am looking forward to taking you on a tour of the aquatic and herbaceous plants growing in this area of my garden.
Hello and welcome to my wildlife pond in springtime. Spring is a fascinating time to observe a pond and watch wildlife, as the water is literally teaming with life; amphibians are mating, and new insects are emerging and appearing every day! Whenever I’m in my garden, I’m always drawn to our pond – on the look out for newts and insects, and eager to see how my plants are developing.
Hello. Welcome to my garden and an autumnal tour of my wildlife pond. My pond doesn’t appear as beautiful in autumn as it does in late spring and summertime. None of my aquatic plants are in flower today, so you could be forgiven for believing that as the plants are dying back and there aren’t any flowers around, that there’s not much life here now.
Grasses form a fundamental part of many gardens. The seed heads of ornamental grasses take on a magical quality as they shine in September’s golden sunlight. September is a superb time to plant ornamental grasses, like: Deschampsia, Festuca, Heliotrichon, and Stipa.
Has your garden been hosting family sports tournaments this summer? If your grass is worn through in places, it’s the perfect time to fill in those bare patches.
I am so grateful for my little pond; this small area of water attracts many insects to our garden. As well as planting up my pond with aquatic plants that live in water, I’ve planted the narrow border around my pond with garden plants that will attract bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, and other insects. If you’re interested in growing plants for bees and butterflies, you won’t need a pond or a boggy area of ground to grow these garden plants – they grow in regular garden soil – my plants are growing in free draining, sandy soil; so I’ve chosen mostly drought tolerant plants.
Summer’s golden sunshine warms our gardens and gladdens our hearts, it’s sublime! Make time to sow seeds now to enjoy stunning flowers next spring and delicious vegetables over the coming months.
Cornflowers (also known by their botanical name, Centaurea cyanus) attract a wide range of bees and butterflies; these rosette shaped blooms make great cut flowers, too. If you’re not a fan of the traditional blue cornflower, take your pick from the white, pink, cerise, lilac, purple, and (almost) black flowered forms available.
I adore spending time immersed in nature, studying plants and butterflies. Today I wanted to tell you about the Big Butterfly Counts I’ve taken at Bookham Common, in Surrey.
Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count runs from Friday the 17th July 2020 until Sunday 9th August 2020 – so you still have plenty of time to join in and enjoy taking your own Butterfly Count!
Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count runs from Friday the 17th July 2020 until Sunday 9th August 2020. A butterfly Count lasts for 15 minutes, it’s a fun, relaxing and easy thing to do. You don’t need to know anything about butterflies to take part.
Why count butterflies?The information gathered from all the Butterfly Counts across the nation, will help Butterfly Conservation identify the species of butterflies and day flying moths that are becoming more scarce.
The reason we created our wildlife pond was to support and encourage wildlife. I’d love to be able to tell you about every creature that has ever visited my pond, but I don’t manage to spend as much time here as I would like and I’m not the fastest mover, so I’ve only managed to capture a fraction of the wildlife that has visited this area of my garden.
The furry bees, colourful butterflies, mysterious moths, darting hoverflies, and other pollinating insects that visit my garden are just as fascinating as the plants I grow. The sound of bees buzzing and the sight of butterflies fluttering relaxes and inspires me. I want to help you find the best pollen and nectar-rich plants to attract insects and bring your garden to life!
Since I first told you about my Vegepod much has changed. Back in 2018, my Vegepod was set up in an area of my garden that enjoyed partial shade, but after trialling the Vegepod in this fairly beneficial position (vegetables thrive when they’re grown in sunny and partially shaded sites), I decided to move my Vegepod to a more shaded area of my garden, to see what I could grow successfully inside my Vegepod with more challenging growing conditions.
Meadows present a natural, seemingly effortless beauty, with an undeniable allure. For the most part, meadow guardians save much of the energy that gardeners spend repeatedly mowing and maintaining traditional lawns. Nevertheless, meadows are not an easy option; creating a meadow requires endeavour, careful planning, and time, to ensure success.
Perennial meadow plantsOur native British, perennial meadow plants flourish in poor soils, where they grow contentedly alongside sedately-growing, fine-leaved grasses.
Time seems to pass so quickly in the summertime. I have written this post, simply to remind you, that you have just a few days left to take a Butterfly Count, for the Butterfly Conservation Big Butterfly Count 2019.
Taking a Butterfly Count is one of my favourite summer activities. Butterfly counts are free and they’re great fun to do, too!
Butterfly Conservation are a registered charity, who work to protect British butterflies and moths. Over the next few weeks, Butterfly Conservation are hoping that members of the public will take 15 minutes out of their day, to take note of the butterfly and moth species they see around them. The charity hope that Butterfly Count participants will send them the details of their observations, as Butterfly Conservation use this valuable data to help them gauge the numbers of UK butterflies.
