The Wild-life Garden Chapter 7: July 9th

My original intention was to post something about the wild garden once a week. But life is not regular like that. July, in the country, is hay-making time, and if my patches of long grass are ever to behave like traditional meadows they need to be cut. Since my meadow is in two halves, divided by a mown path, I tend to cut the east-facing patch early in July and the west-facing patch late. One reason for this is because the orchid grows in the west-facing long grass, and I would not want to cut it till it has flowered and set seed. The grass is certainly ready to cut.

One reason for the annual mow is to encourage those plants that like that sort of treatment. It prevents them being overwhelmed by nettles and docks and alkanet, plants of the uncut verges. Also, by cutting the grass and removing it to the compost heap the fertility of the area is reduced. The idea is that the grass does not grow so vigorously as to swamp everything else. In a farmer’s hay-meadow the cut sward is left for a few days in the sun to dry out. In the wild garden it is left so that seeds of buttercups and so on can fall off and down to earth, and mini-beasts can crawl away to some other shelter.

I also do start other cutting back now that the nesting should be over. Possibly some wild life would like it if I left the hedges and verges uncut; think what a rich habitat old neglected gardens can be. But this is a medium-sized town garden, meant to be nice to look at and to sit in. Also I try to have a variety of habitats, some cut down in one season, some in another; some left for winter clearance, some left till growth restarts in spring, and some mown or clipped in high summer. I take heart from the fact that edge-of-woodland, with a mixture of light and shade, of short and of long vegetation, is a particularly rich habitat.  

If you are a serious student of the wild life in your garden the unmissable book is “Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-year Study” by Jennifer Owen. The author is an academic ecologist who has been able to bring great expertise to the study of her Leicestershire garden. When I say that she has identified in her garden 94 species of hoverflies, 62 species of wasps and 533 species of ichneumons, you will see that she has shown the rest of us, who think we are doing well if we identify two or three species, how rich a garden can be. One of Owen’s conclusions is that “insect numbers declined during the 30-year period 1972-2001; and the likely explanation is the change in agricultural habitats. So the more we town gardeners try to foster invertebrates the better.

At my “two or three” amateur level I find that cutting-time is often when I start noticing things. When weeding my tiny veg patch I came across some snails mating, quite oblivious of me and my fork. Since the garden is full of vegetation I do wish the snails would not pick out my runner beans and my one special dahlia as favourite food. But they seem to have few predators. Slugs are relatively harmless, kept in check I am sure by birds and frogs and newts. I was pleased to see a newt in the pond yesterday. The neighbouring grey squirrel has just learned to dismantle and empty the fat-ball feeder, but I am devising a scheme to get the better of it.

I was even more pleased when a ringlet butterfly spent a long time drifting around the long grass. I was less pleased to get itchy bites from minute creatures, but who am I to pick and choose. The swifts are busy feeding their young, and I guess they each need hundreds of flying insects a day.

Two species of fern have turned up in the garden, neither of them rare, but both of them welcome. One is Polystichum aculeatum, Hard shield fern. The other is Phyllitis scolopendrium, Hartstongue fern. The shield fern makes a formidable growth once established, and I don’t think I shall let any more plants get set.

My father-in-law gave me an Arum maculatum, Lords-and-Ladies from the old ditch behind his house. It has done really well in the dark shade behind the hedge, with more spikes every year.

The flowers of late summer are starting to come on fast, so I doubt if you will have to wait a week for the next chapter.

The Wild-life Garden Chapter 6: July 5th

We returned home after a few days away. Naturally one of my first actions was to look around the garden, and I was rewarded. In the little baby-bath pond three nearly-frogs were crowded at the point where there is a little ramp out onto the lawn. They had long tails, but four good legs. They are yellow and brown, not black. Presumably they are waiting till that moment when their lungs take in air, not water, and they will crawl out. There is no shortage of places for them to find concealment. In the main pond there is no sign of tadpoles, and there is no point hunting for frogs in all the long vegetation around. Occasionally in previous years I have stumbled across a group huddled together under some log, or seen a bold youngster heading across the moss. We shall see. 

While we were away I read a book I was given for my last birthday. It is the perfect book to refer to in this blog: “The Private Life of an English Field: Meadowland” by John Lewis-Stempel. He owns a small farm in Herefordshire and not only manages his meadows in a traditional way, he also is a dedicated and knowledgeable observer of the wild life.

Recommended book

In the year that is chronicled in the book his cutter breaks on a stone, so he is forced to cut the hay with a scythe. This was in July, and reminds me that I must get on with cutting my long grass soon. However, there is no rush, especially as the orchid has reappeared. I think it is a poorish (but much loved) specimen of Dactylorhiza, either maculata (Heath Spotted) or fuchsii (Common Spotted) – or maybe a hybrid. It is another welcome plant that just turned up. I wonder how many are lurking in mown lawns out there.

The orchid in our long grass

The Rosa rubiginosa, Sweetbriar, has blossomed more in the last week. So has the Lonicera periclymenum, Honeysuckle. The blossoms on the Crataegus monogyna, Hawthorn and the Sorbus aucuparia, Rowan are well over, but there is a promise of berries to come. There is also all sorts of promise of interesting flowers still to come.

The Sweetbriar today

I am seeing more and more bees and hoverflies. I must try and do a more detailed study. One flower has come out in time to give them a feast. That is Heracleum sphondylium, Hogweed. It has an aggressive alien relative, Giant Hogweed, which can irritate the skin quite severely. But this is a harmless umbellifer, much loved by insects. It is generally regarded as a weed by gardeners, and I do remove many plants. But a few of these fine plants where I want them add stature to any patch of wild vegetation.

Hogweed

Another so-called weed of which I only leave a few to flourish is Rumex obtusifolius. Broad-leaved Dock.

Dock

With so many nettles around it is useful to have a few dock-leaves to rub on any stings. The leaves really do work. More to the point the flowers and seeds, and overall structure, are very fine. If they were less common they would, I am sure, be treasured.