Wildlife
I love our little wildlife garden. It has plants with magic names - like granny bonnet, black hoarhound, woodruff, heartsease, meadowsweet, cranesbill, buttercup, oxlip, cowslip…. There is gentle colour, a variety of foliage and lots of interest the whole growing season, from the early snowdrops and wild violets to the last of the honeysuckle.
This part of the garden would never grow much because it is heavily shaded by trees, but our woodland wild plants flourish here and they bring in bees, moths, butterflies and other flying friendly insects.
It’s taken several years to get a balance of interesting plants, all sourced either as seed mixes, pots or plugs from specialist nurseries. With our variable weather conditions every year is different, and you have to keep watch that one species doesn’t run rampant and take over in any particular growing season. Apart from that little bit of ‘weeding’, this kind of gardening is pretty labour-free.
The environment for wildlife planting has to be unimproved so we don’t mulch or enrich this soil. It benefits from leaf fall and we leave the ground well alone. Ferns do well here in the shade, and we get the early woodland favourites – small clumps of primroses and bluebells which flower before the leaf canopy covers them and reduces the sunlight. At the edge of the area, open to afternoon sunshine, we get the cranesbill, granny bonnets and buttercups.
If you’ve a small area to spare, even a narrow strip, you can buy wild seed mixes to suit the conditions you have – a meadow flower mix will need sunlight, for example. If you have a damp area or a pond with marginal marshy shallows look for the appropriate seed mixes. Wild plants may well take their time – years even – so leave things undisturbed and be patient. Nature at her own pace doesn’t like to be hurried. We have a quiet seat under the tree where we take time out with our wild plants to enjoy the moments….
