aquatic habitat
Author: Al
comfrey
Honeysuckle
elephant moth project
entrance
the wildlife garden
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Amphibians
Image Courtesy Maurice Pennance ©2014
One of the first things that we did on the site apart from clearance, was to create a pond. It couldn’t be simpler. We were given the bottom of a cut off water container, solving the problem of not being able to dig into the ground. Over the last couple of years we’ve received many donations of small vessels that would be suitable to create a number of water features and getting those in place is going to be a major part of the winter season work 2017-18.
Here are a couple of videos that are representative of the kinds of things we want to be creating. When the plans are fully drawn up for winter work we’ll post them here and maybe we might even start doing our own YouTube channel.
Pollinators
The best resources we have to work with in the wildlife garden are the ones that are already there. We are lucky to have inherited a large amount of comfrey which the bees and other pollinators love.
Site re-launch
We’ve completely redesigned the layout of the site and hopefully fixed a lot of issues. Apparently some simple errors meant that we weren’t getting indexed on the search engines. Hopefully people will start to find us on Google someday soon. We’re still in the middle of transferring a lot of info into the new format so please bear with us if you stumble across the odd place holder. We thought it was better to get the new site up and running so that we could iron the bugs out as we go along.
All the photography used on the site has been donated for our use by volunteers.
Dahlias and wildlife gardening
Dahlias might not be the first plant you think of in a wildlife garden but they are hardy, long lasting and easy to grow and most important of all, the pollinators love them. It is important to pick the right variety though as some highly bred for show don’t produce a useful food supply. Open hearted types are most useful.
“For pollinators, the difference in dahlias has to do with the central disk. The central disk is where the pollen is produced and where the bees can access the nectar. Highly bred dahlias can have so many layers of florets that the pollinators cannot even find the central disk. Those varieties are of no interest to pollinators and are left alone in the garden.” HoneyBeeSuite
Of course Dahlias aren’t just good for bees. They were introduced to Europe in the 18th century as a potential substitute for potatoes but they didn’t catch on at the time.
More Reading on Dahlia’s:
Andy
Andy only came to volunteer once but he threw himself into the work with such vigour that we’ve included him here to represent all of the many volunteers that have only come a couple of times but who have all helped move the project on tremendously. There are literally too many to list.