← Feed

Posts

• View post

  Gardeners World magazine ‘Best of the Best’ competition: I can now reveal that my allotment has been selected as the overall winner by a team of judges in the final round. My allotment was chosen as the best garden out of the 20 winning gardens of the past 10 years of the ‘Garden of the Year’ competition, quite amazing as this means they chose my wildlife allotment over a competition of ‘proper’ gardens made up exclusively of other past winners. 😃 https://www.gardenersworld.com/news/gardens-...

• View post

  When topping up the smallest of my ponds I discovered a little frog peeking out of the duckweed. I am glad at least some frogs are still about, they must have a hard time with all the dry and hot weather. #frogs #wildlife

• View post

  Stipa gigantea is a wonderful ornamental grass, all shimmering and glowing in the early morning sunshine. Also extremely undemanding, it just needs sunshine and well-drained soil. #grass #garden

• View post

  One of my favourite wild roses is Rosa glauca which has wonderful blue-green leaves, pink flowers in spring and bright red hips in late summer and autumn. It is very easy-going, drought resistant and just needs sunshine and well-drained soil. #plants #roses #climatechange

• View post

  Eryngium giganteum is a biennial sea holly, growing just leaves the first year and a tall and quite impressive flower in the second year. The flowers make good seed heads which look pretty right into autumn. But beware, it seeds everywhere but I normally leave it to grow if it is not in the way. #flowers #plants #allotment

• View post

  The wildflower area at the allotment entrance which I manage is in full sunshine most of the day and the soil is quite poor and stony. With no rain since mid June it still looks attractive thanks to naturalistic planting with grasses and drought-resistant #wildflowers, some are still in flower. The nice thing about naturalistic planting is that it still looks good even when most plants have gone to seed. It will continue to look good and provide valuable habitat for wildlife right into winter.

• View post

  The ponds and surrounding areas are the only really green and flowery areas left on the allotment now, everywhere else is more brown than green and very dry. The ponds are teeming with life, newts, frogs and other pond life, dragonflies, hoverflies and other insects as well as many bees and wasps coming to collect water for their hives. Birds come to drink and bath, and hedgehogs and foxes come for a drink in the night. I keep the #ponds topped up with water as they are a lifeline for wildlife.

• View post

  This is what my allotments look like at the moment, after a very dry spring, 4 heatwaves, 2 months without rain. Sustained above average temperatures & sunshine most days. Heatwave number 5 coming this week. Still no rain in sight. There are still a few flowers but most plants have gone to seed and are crisp & dry now. I water the young trees and top up the ponds. Everything else is left. Hopefully plants will survive and come back in autumn. #climatebreakdown #garden

• View post

  I cut the Echium vulgare (Viper`s bugloss) back a while ago as it had nearly finished flowering (Viper`s bugloss is a biennial and dies after flowering). It has now come back with more flowers much to the delight of the bumblebees. I have seen mostly Common Carder bumblebees (Bombus pascuorum) on the flowers which are often active until autumn. #flowers #pollinators

• View post

  It is all looking a bit crisp and dry now after over a month without rain and heat wave after heat wave. But Echinops ritro is still standing firm with its wonderful globular blue flowers. A true survivor and definitely a plant for future gardens. #flowers #allotment #climatechange

• View post

  The allotment at the weekend. I am glad there are still quite a lot of plants flowering, we had no rain since mid June and sunshine and above average temperatures nearly every day. The plants which are still flowering are all very drought resistant such as Hypericum perforatum, Centaurea nigra and Echinops ritro. I also have some nice Evening primrose (Oenothera) and Antirrhinum flowering in the foreground. #flowers #allotment #garden

• View post

  Grapevines are doing really well now in the South of England. I planted mine (all hardy outdoor grapevines) several years ago and they regularly produce huge crops of sweet and juicy grapes. Grapes are pretty much the only fruit I have this year as all my tree fruit got badly frosted in spring, currants and gooseberries got eaten by the pigeons and my blackberries and raspberries have all shriveled up in the heat and dry weather. #fruit #allotment

• View post

  Solidago canadensis (Canadian goldenrod) can be invasive in the right conditions (rich moist garden soil) but give it poor dry and stony soil in full sunshine and it is very well behaved and needs no care at all apart from cutting it down in late winter. Pollinators love it and the yellow flowers really glow in the sunshine. The plants in the picture have not been watered this summer and are still looking good while many other plants are flagging. #flowers #climatechange #allotment

• View post

  The allotment with Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare), Clematis 'Alionushka' and the last of the Purple toadflax (Linaria purpurea) flowering. I have a lot of the Origanum which self-seeds happily, I occasionally have to take some out but it is such a good plant for pollinators, as well as drought-resistant and completely undemanding, that I am happy to let it seed around and fill gaps. #allotment #flowers #plants

• View post

  A Common Blue butterfly, still a bit cold from the night, resting on a Carex leaf in the early morning. #butterflies #pollinators

• View post

  I am seeing many hornet hoverflies (Volucella zonaria) on my allotment at the moment. They sound and look a bit like hornets but are harmless flies. The females lay their eggs in wasp and hornet nests where the larvae eat the detritus. This hornet hoverfly is drinking nectar from Cirsium canum, but they like buddleia as well. #insects #pollinators

• View post

  For several years now I have a wasp spider population (Argiope bruennichi) on my allotment. They are large colourful spiders and look quite beautiful when seen up close. The web has a wide, white zig-zag strip running down the middle, known as a 'stabilimentum', which is distinctive for this species. Wasp spiders like to eat crickets and grasshoppers so their webs are always quite low in grassy vegetation. #spiders #wildlife

• View post

  Some colour in this area on the allotment still comes from Hypericum perforatum and Origanum vulgare which are both very drought resistant native plants, Eryngium planum and Allium sphaerocephalon are also still looking good. I have mixed a lot of native plants into my naturalistic plantings as they are often more resilient than more exotic plants. They are also a lot more beneficial for many insects especially herbivores such as caterpillars. #garden #plants

• View post

  The Batman hoverfly (Myathropa florea) is quite easy to recognise as it has markings in the shape of the Batman logo on its back (Thorax). The adult hoverflies like areas with lots of trees and also visit gardens, the larvae are aquatic and develop in water-filled holes and crevices in trees, but adults can lay eggs in just about any container with some standing water, and even use wet compost and cow dung. #pollinators #insects

• View post

  The area around the smaller pond is still looking quite colourful as the plants growing there get water from the edge of the pond which I am topping up regularly. When plants get too dry they stop producing nectar so it is good to have at least a few areas in the garden which are watered regularly so pollinators can find something to eat (same goes for caterpillars which cannot eat dry and crispy leaves). #gardening #plants #climatechange

• View post

  In the driest areas on the allotment most plants have finished flowering now in the hot and dry weather. Thankfully the grasses and trees are still doing well and provide some interest and structure. We still had no rain at all, the last rain we had was a thunderstorm in mid-June. I now let the perennials go dormant (they will return in autumn) and save the limited water for the trees and ponds. #allotment #climatechange #gardening

• View post

  The entrance to the new allotment has Clematis 'Arabelle' and Climbing rose 'The Generous Gardener' trained over an arch. There is also a nice thistle growing there, Cirsium canum, which is not prickly and not invasive. #allotment #flowers

• View post

  Doing very well without any watering is Echinops ritro, the Southern Globe Thistle. The globular steel blue flowers are glowing in the early morning sunshine and are a magnet for pollinators. I let the plants self-seed which is the easiest way to get more of them, a climate change winner in my garden so far. #allotment #flowers #climatechange

• View post

  One of the most drought-resistant plants I am growing is Anthemis tinctoria. The plants flower for a long time and don`t need any watering at all. They actually do better in dry years and like lots of sunshine and well-drained soil. The plants self-seed easily and are also easy to grow from seed. Definitely a plant for future climate-resilient gardens. #climatechange #plants

• View post

  It is awfully dry here, no rain since mid-June, and hot and sunny every day. Many plants are flagging now, looking tired and wilted, but some plants are still looking good such as Achillea, Eryngium, Verbena, Dianthus, Anthemis and Scabiosa. I stopped watering most plants now except the young shrubs and trees, a few plants which are important to me and I top up the ponds. Everything else has to survive on its own. #climatechange #garden #drought #flowers

• View post

  You can hardly see the frog pond now with all the flowers growing everywhere, but it is there, in the foreground, home to frogs, newts and dragonflies. In the background are the large greengage, the quince and the mulberry tree. #allotment #garden

• View post

  The allotment today, still colourful and looking quite lush despite the dry and hot weather. We had hardly any rain this spring and summer and I am surprised the allotment is still doing ok. But I am trying to adapt the allotment to the changing climate for several years now, with lots of mulching, planting trees for shade, planting very densely and having maximum diversity as there is always something that does well if there are lots of different plants. #climatechange #garden

• View post

  My new bee hotel seems to be very popular with Leafcutter bees (Megachile sp.). I find it quite funny how they close their nests with pieces of leaves. The leaves they cut seem to come mainly from my Katsura tree which is the closest tree to the bee hotel, the tell-tale signs of the leafcutter bees in action can bee seen in the second picture. #pollinators #bees

• View post

  Found this beautiful Currant Clearwing (Synanthedon tipuliformis) on my allotment today. It does not look like one but this is actually a moth! It is quite small and not easy to find. The larvae feed internally on the shoots of red currant and black currant bushes (Ribes), but as they are not common they don`t do any obvious damage. #insects #moths

• View post

  The wildflower area at the allotment entrance which I manage is looking very colourful now. It is also alive with all sorts of insects, many different bumblebees, solitary bees, wasps, beetles, hoverflies and other flies and have also spotted several caterpillars. I like caterpillars and I am always happy when I find a new one. #flowers #pollinators #insects