Not the best year for gardening, but finally our Wildlife Garden is looking good. We have lost some plants to the slugs and the rain has caused some to rot but the recent sun has helped bring out the best in the rest.
No sunflowers this year as the slugs ate them all! We tried beer traps but something has drunk the beer, perhaps the fox?
The plant in the foreground is Sedum spectabile, soon to open its flowers which are a good late summer source of nectar for bees and butterflies. Above it is Verbena bonariensis also good for our insects even though it comes from South America.
This close-up shows how many flowers are yet to open.
The pond is full of life with damselflies emerging and animating the whole garden.
Here most of the plants are native - purple loosestife, flowering rush, and on the wall, rock stonecrop. This is one part of a garden where it is best to go for native plants as so many introduced ones are invasive if they escape into the wild.
Flowering rush is common in canals in the south of England,
but this rock stonecrop was collected from our reserve, perhaps a garden escape but it is native to the UK.
The greater the overall bulk of plants the greater the diversity of wildlife in a garden. A lot of animals like somewhere cool during the day and the ferns give this.
This woodland corner is where I often see a wren, but also frogs and newts live here, with lots of corners for shelter in winter.
Not long till autumn but not the end of colour as the Cyclamen hederifolium, just opening, shows.
Now is a good time to sit back and relax - leave the clearing away till spring and give wildlife a winter home.
Peter