The Wild-life Garden Chapter 5: June 25th

In theory there is to be a new chapter of this blog once a week. However, I am about to go off again for a week, and there is a lot happening just now, so (in imitation of wild nature if you like) this post is slightly out of time.

But who cares? Summer is the time of great blooming, and there is a lot happening.

Soon after we bought the house we built a cheap garage, an ugly concrete box. To cover it I bought a climbing rose, and seem to have hit the jackpot. The Rosa rubiginosa, Sweetbriar, grows and grows. In late June it is covered in beautiful pink flowers.

Sweetbriar

In theory it is enough of a thorny thicket to provide safe shelter for small birds. This does seem to be necessary, for our garden is a favourite hunting ground for neighbourhood cats. Certainly the thorns are ferocious.

One sweetbriar flower

The managed wild-flower bed is bright with campion. I mentioned the Silene dioica, Red Campion, when it first appeared. Now there is just as much Silene latifolia, White Campion.

White Campion

One of the highlights of the wild-flower meadow in these weeks before it is cut is the great variety of grasses. I thought that writing this blog would spur me on to identify them; but alas this turns out to be more than I can manage. There are too many species and sub-species for me. I am fairly sure that ours include Cat’s tail, Yorkshire fog, Couch, Rye grass and Vernal, but these identifications may be wrong, and there are many varieties of most of these.

Some of our grasses

What has now appeared at the base of the long grass is Trilolium repens, White clover. This is very popular with bees, so beware of walking barefoot. It usually appears on the mown lawn as well. The ordinary daisies are spectacular this year and make the lawn look special, not just green.

White clover

The result of not mowing a patch of lawn for three weeks

Despite the cats the bird-feeders are still much used, though just now they only attract the ordinary, local birds. In five minutes this morning I saw Passer domesticus, House sparrow; Columba livia, Feral pigeon; Columba palumbus, Wood pigeon; Turdus merula, Blackbird; Parus caeruleus, Blue tit; Parus ater, Coal tit; Carduelis carduelis, Goldfinch. There’s nothing there to write home about, or even a blog about. I hope that the birds missing from the list – robin and dunnock for example – have nested successfully and moved away. Let us hope more exciting things can be reported at migration time. But I get as much pleasure from our ordinary locals, and nothing beats the goldfinches for colour.

Most of the books on wild-life gardening promise butterfly-caterpillars if you grow Urtica dioica, nettles. I cannot say that that has been true for me. But they certainly support a wonderful range of invertebrates. They also, I think, look very beautiful when in flower.Those clusters of pale green bobbles would cost you a lot in a garden centre.

Nettles in flower

In the pond we seem to have tadpoles the size of small grapes. They prefer eating and growing to turning into frogs.Let us hope for more news of their development in the next chapter.