While walking to the shop earlier, I was stopped in my tracks as I spotted the most joyous pink flower boldly growing from the gutter.
I know it’s a weed, but what even defines a weed? Weeds can be beautiful too. They supply vital nectar to pollinators, the same as any nurtured garden plant, plus the flowers upon close inspection can be just as stunning.
Where is the most unexpected place you’ve seen a beautiful ‘weed’?
Please leave a comment to share any of your finds.
The garden, the courtyard and the garden coffee shop have reopened since July 10th 2020. However entry is only permitted if you have pre-booked via The National Trust.
We finally visited Powis Castle (in Welshpool, near the Welsh border). We drive past it each year on the way to our holiday cottage, but this year we took advantage of the nice weather and took a detour.
Walking through an archway into the courtyard you are greeted with a spectacular view of towering red bricks smothered in the greenery of wisteria and other rampant climbers. Much to the children’s delight, there are also peacocks milling around looking for dropped food to steal!
However the best is yet to come, as when you glance over to your right you can see that you are incredibly high up, but people seem to be making their way over to a path to walk ‘down the hill’.
‘Down the hill’ is in fact a breathtaking series of terraces, featuring long herbaceous borders, manicured yew trees and the most amazing planter displays. It was a fairly warm and sunny day when we visited, but our walk through the terraces felt positively Mediterranean!
Once at the bottom you find yourself walking adjacent to the most magnificent green grass alongside an orchard and then through to another breathtaking garden area with a much longer border. There was a lady kneeling by a wheelbarrow quietly weeding the border *
Right at the bottom, in front of the terraces is a large grassy area flanked by woodland. There was an interactive World War One exhibition taking place, which we walked around before heading back up.
This time, we decided to walk via the wooded area instead of the terraces, as we all needed some shade! We stumbled across a large pond which had the most impressive Gunnera growing around it!
At the top, all hot and puffing, we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream (we can thoroughly recommend the lemon meringue pie flavour!)
Before we left, I had a sneaky look around the second hand book shop and came out happy after spending just £2 on these gems.
Considering we didn’t even enter the castle or explore the grounds thoroughly, I can definitely recommend a visit!
Even the simple act of hanging a bird feeder will get the birds visiting your garden again.
Different types of food will attract different birds. Insect eaters such as blackbirds and sparrows love mealworms, whereas a goldfinch is partial to niger seeds.
To prevent spreading illness between your feathered friends, you must remember to regularly wash your bird feeders. Warm soapy water is all you need.
Somewhere to shelter and nest, plus a constant supply of water is important too. They’ll be permanent residents before you know it!
There is nothing more joyous than watching a mummy bird feed her hungry fledglings right in your garden.
Grow butterfly-friendly plants
To ensure a variety of butterflies and insects visit your garden, you need to plant an array of different plant species that flower at different times of the year.
Fruit trees that blossom at the beginning of the year will give vital nectar to any early emerging butterflies or insects. The rotting fruit will provide an excellent food source, later on too.
A small apple or plum tree in your garden would not only benefit the butterflies, but you too.
Who doesn’t love a crumble?!
For a late supply of nectar, try planting Verbena bonariensis or an old-fashioned pink Sedum. Both will flower late into the Autumn, providing energy to any late visiting butterflies, moths or other pollinators.
Verbena bonariensis.
Flower shape is very important too. Aswell as flat open daisy-like flowers, butterflies like long, thin tubed flowers, such as honeysuckle, buddleja and phlox.
Flowers which have many petals bunched together and have no visible centre are called ‘double-flowered’. These are no good for any pollinator, especially butterflies. They simply can’t access the nectar.
Hedgehogs are amazing at controlling the slugs in your garden, but unfortunately their numbers are rapidly declining.
In order to eat enough food they need to freely roam between many, many gardens in one night.
As we have become more security conscious and tidy in our gardens, hedgehogs no longer have free access to our land.
Rotten, holey fences, have been replaced with fences which have concrete gravel boards. Open slatted gates have become filled-in solid gates down to the floor and hedges are no longer in favour as too easy for burglar Bill to climb through.
Along with all your neighbours, why not add hedgehog sized holes into the bottom of your fences and gates to create a ‘hedgehog highway’ in your street?
Offering them food (small amount of meaty cat food) plus somewhere cosy and dry to nest or hibernate is another way to encourage them to visit your garden.
You can find out more about building a hedgehog house here
Bats feast on night flying insects, but can be hindered by artificial light.
Did you know that there are 18 species of bat living in the UK?
To prevent them from crashing into objects when finding their food, they need complete darkness, so go easy on your solar lights or turn them off when you go inside at night.
Moths, like butterflies also need a rich supply of nectar.
Some great night-scented plants you could try are: Jasmine, Honeysuckle, Evening Primrose, White Nicotiana and the night-scented Stock.
So there you have it…
By growing nectar rich plants you attract butterflies, moths and other pollinators. Then by letting those plants’ leaves and fruit rot down into fresh organic matter you attract insects and worms, which in turn attract birds and hedgehogs!
Nature is amazing. With just one quick helping hand, it can soon thrive and turn our gardens into mini wildlife hubs.
Which one of my 3 simple tips will you choose to try this weekend?
Please leave a comment letting me know how it goes.
These 3 quick and easy ways of adding water, can be done in a weekend and will give you instant results.
Water is vital for the survival of wildlife, but also calms the mind and creates peace.
A bird bath
Simply use a large terracotta saucer. Place some large perching stones in it, fill with water and you’ll have birds visiting your garden before you know it. You can even make a feature by standing the saucer on top of an upturned pot.
Place several bird baths around your garden.
Low ones for hedgehogs, frogs and ground insects and high ones for birds and flying insects, especially bees.
A container pond
Not got the time or space for a conventional garden pond?
A container will have all the benefits of a pond, but is much quicker to set up!You can use a large plastic plant pot, an old aluminium trough, a half barrel or even a washing up bowl!
Simply fix any holes with a waterproof sealer or use a pond liner.
Add some gravel to the bottom and fill with water (ideally rain water).
To ensure that any animals can escape if they accidentally fall in, you need to build some steps. This can be a large stick at an angle or a series of large rocks.
Equally, they need a way in, so again simply pile some rocks are logs around one edge.
Lastly, add a couple of water plants. These will help to attract insects, such as damsel flies or dragon flies. You can even buy pygmy water lilies, which are perfect for small pond spaces.
You can find a handy tutorial on how to make your container pond here
A solar fountain
Who doesn’t find the gentle sound of babbling water relaxing?
Not got electricity? Not a problem!
You can still make a small water feature, simply use a solar pump.
We filled this great plastic pot with decorative stones and water, placed a solar pump just under the surface and instantly had a great water feature for our decking area. You can just see the solar panel behind. It stores a lot of energy so the pump runs even when the sun goes in. We bought it from www.powerbee.co.uk.
Our simple solar fountain took less than an hour to set up.
So there you have it…
Which one will you try this weekend?
Please leave a comment.
I’d love to hear how it went.
Before you go, please don’t forget to give me a like and share.
Have you ever sat back at the end of your first year and looked at your garden, only to feel a little deflated and disappointed?
Can’t figure out why your plants look sick or awkward?
Wish that you’d been given a handy checklist before you’d started?
Well, check out my 10 mistakes and hopefully you will not make the same ones…
Part 1
Not checking the eventual height of my plants.
Pruning at the wrong time.
Not checking the soil requirements of my plants.
Not checking the eventual spread of my plants.
Not checking the hardiness of my plants.
Lets get started..
Height of plants
All plants grow to a certain height, then stop. Be sure to check the height information on the plant labels, then use it to figure out whether your chosen plants need to be at the back of your border or nearer the front.
I’m guilty of merrily planting something at the front of the border, only for it to tower up and shade the surrounding plants, not to mention stand out like a sore thumb! Equally, I’ve placed beautiful plants too far back, and they’ve never been seen again!
Timely pruning
Some plants can be pruned whenever, but most plants that flower, require pruning at a certain time of the year. If this is ignored, then you’ll end up with no flowers and a looong wait until the next flowering period.
An example of this is the beautiful, early flowering Forsythia. In our garden, it provides the first colour of the year and each Easter it never disappoints. Before any leaves appear, hundreds of buds burst to reveal bright yellow blooms BUT not if you prune it too late in the previous year. This is because it flowers on new stem growth.
The best time to prune a Forsythia is just after it has flowered. This gives it time to put on fresh new growth (which will hold next years flowers). Prune too late in the year and it will not have enough growth before winter comes and will not produce any flowering buds, just leaves. Believe me, I know!
This kind of pruning is known as Group 2. More information on pruning groups can be found on the RHS website here
Soil requirements
Soil can be acidic, alkaline or anywhere in between and your plants wont thank you for being planted in the wrong kind of soil.
Before you start planting anything, it’s always a good idea to buy a soil testing kit. Knowing your soil can eliminate a lot of growing disasters later down the line.
You may have vague memories of the pH scale from your school days, but basically 1 is extremely acidic and 14 is extremely alkaline. 7 is neutral. The ideal range for plant growth is between 5.5 and 8.
Plants that prefer to be in acidic soils will be described as ericaceous-loving and plants that prefer the more alkaline soils are known as lime-lovers.
I couldn’t understanding why my Heather plants kept dying. I later learnt that Heathers thrive in acidic soil, not my chalky alkaline garden soil!
Spread of plants
When you take a plant home from the garden centre and plant it in your garden, not only will it grow taller but it will also grow WIDER. This is known as the spread of the plant. You need to consider this when working out the spacing.
Too closely spaced and they will become crowded and unruly. Too far apart and you could end up with sparce and empty looking borders (guilty!)
Hardiness
As much as I love a crisp winter and the excitement of snow, it can wreak havoc with your garden. This is due to something known as hardiness. The UK is divided up into zones, 7a-10a. As a general rule, the further north you go, the lower the number and the more protection your plants will need.
The further south and west you go, the higher the number and the less protection your plants will need and you may get away with growing plants from more temperate countries. For example, the southwestern tip of Ireland is know to be very mild as well as the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern coast of Cornwall. (Yes, I have been known to smugly grow a banana plant outside during one of our warmer summers only to wonder why it didn’t return the following spring!)
A map showing the UK Hardiness zones can be found here
When buying a plant you can find the hardiness information on the label. You need to choose according to where you live. This is really important if you aren’t in a position to offer any winter protection, such as a heated greenhouse. Hardy plants can be left outside in the ground all year round and will survive the lowest of our UK winter temperatures.
Plants which wont survive our damp and cold winters are called tender plants.
Dahlia happy single wink. An example of a tender plant. It needs to be lifted and stored over the winter months, before being replanted the following spring. It will only survive being left in situ if grown in the mildest of areas.
Part 2 coming soon!
Well, I hope that part 1 of My Top 10 Mistakes, has given you something to think about and will help you to successfully grow your dream garden.
Who doesn’t love a Gazania?? …with their bright colours and strong shapes, not to mention their ability to open and close their petals according to the weather!
This exotic, climbing beauty is incredibly easy to grow and is very common here in the UK. You can see why. Just look at the intricate detail and the bright colouring ❤️
Girl Gardener 