Wildlife | L&D Gardening Club

Encourage wildlife to your garden

SOMERSET WILDLIFE TRUST WILDLIFE GARDENS

Some of our garden club members have been awarded a 'This is a Wildlife Garden' plaque by the Somerset Wildlife Trust Wilder Gardening Award Scheme.

Congratulations to them!! If we manage to get 1 in 4 properties recognised in the village we will be given a plaque.

To achieve one is very simple. This is the link to the self-assessment form https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/YCSSWVG

Here are just a few suggestions on how to create a garden that will be a haven for wildlife -

Grow flowers and plants that have a wide variety of shapes and seedheads to attract a diverse variety of wildlife
Grow trees and shrubs with autumn berries to provide a natural food source throughout the winter
Make or buy an insect hotel
A wood stack is a great habitat for beetles, woodlice, centipedes and millipedes and the toads, mice and birds that eat them. Toads love to eat slugs!
Make a couple of small gaps in the bottom of your fence to allow hedgehogs to travel in search of food
Provide water - it doesn't have to be a pond - a bird bath not only helps the birds

This list of tips to encourage a broad range of wildlife is just the beginning.

Once you start thinking about creating a wildlife habitat the possibilities are endless and you really can make a huge difference.

It is perfectly possible to create a wildlife friendly garden without having a garden that looks neglected and unkempt!

It's just a different approach!

The June Gap

We have lots of local beekeepers and their honeybees probably visit your garden. As the weather warms in spring, they forage for food amongst the snowdrops, pulmonaria, daffodils, viburnum, crocus, hellebores and wallflowers. Nectar at this time is plentiful.

However, there is a period at the beginning of summer when the spring flowers are fading, and the summer flowers are not quite ready to bloom - this is the June Gap - a challenging time for bees and beekeepers.

Even if you are not a beekeeper you can help to support our local bees of all kinds by growing plants with a long flowering period and different flower head shapes to fill the gap. So, please consider growing rosemary, borage, chives, raspberries, hardy geranium, geum, honeysuckle, Cerinthe, Californian poppy, beebalm and buddleia to help the bees along for a few weeks.

These are just a few suggestions of plants to grow - the possibilities are endless and exciting. We need bees of all shapes and sizes in our lives - we can't survive without them!

Please visit urbanbees.co.uk as they suggest flowering plants for each month, and it is a great resource for further suggestions.

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