Shift of Focus - Gardenish Thoughts

First steps to a wildlife garden (or corner)

Recent winter articles have focussed on the plants and animals we might see when out and about near our homes. It is still winter where I am, but the second half of February is a good time to start thinking happy thoughts about the gardening season ahead.

It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.”

-P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Morning

Once the snows go and green things begin to appear we scurry around doing a bit of this and a bit of that in the garden, often walking on still soggy ground and increasing soil compaction in our eagerness to look around and work out some broad outlines for the garden this year. Where I live, that scurrying phase will normally begin in about a month’s time, though this has been a strangely warm winter so who knows. Where you are it may already be upon you. Hopefully time to consider some small or large scale Wildlife Gardening that will attract some new creatures … if not in the whole garden, at least for a corner of it. All good things have to start somewhere.

This is the first of several posts over the next few weeks/months in which I will tentatively suggest practical steps to make your garden more appealing to birds and butterflies and bees (the Three Bs) . Remember that the move from “traditional” lawn and flower borders to total wildlife habitat conversion can be as slow and as gradual as you like and can be paused or stopped at any point. The process doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

There are many sorts of gardens. The ones I am writing about are those that while attractive and pleasing are designed and managed in such a way that birds and butterflies and bees are attracted and often will settle in or come back regularly to be enjoyed. When people ask “why do I not see any birds in my garden” the answer almost always is that you are not offering much that they want. An only occasionally filled feeder right out in the open, boringly short monoculture grass lawns and plants they don’t recognize.

What they want is easily summed up by something to eat, somewhere to shelter and somewhere to bring up the next generation. Food, shelter, sex. You know - the things people want too.

It’s been a few years since we took the fairly easy decision to replace a boring lawn with something more interesting and attractive to birds and bees and those small furry creatures that otherwise would pass us by in their travels. Everyone has their own mental vision of what an ideal native plant garden or pollinator garden or wildlife garden might look like. The species you wish to encourage have minds of their own and some will try to foil you. Creating a “wildlife garden” involves a bit more than just putting the mower away and letting nature take its course. That is one approach but it is not the best and you risk complaints from neighbours. In a suburban setting, nature benefits from a little guidance and some moderate work. Caution, we planted a couple of specimens of Rudbeckias that instead of growing no more than waist-high, as anticipated, launched themselves into the sky. Rudbeckia laciniata being the species in question (photo further down the page). Unlike regular Rudbeckia species, this one can easily reach seven or more feet in height, and we should have known that. But it’s a fabulous plant to have alongside several more reasonably sized species of the genus to start with. Reassuringly, I can say from experience that moving these plants - as we eventually had to when they totally obscured out view from the house across to the garden pond - was easy and they don’t seem to suffer at all if not placed in exactly the right spot from the start.

Each summer, small groups of friends and neighbours have visited our garden to have a look and seek inspiration and ask questions. So far, nobody has shuddered and decided it’s not for them. In fact, they seem to like what they see, but also sometimes look bewildered at what they perceive as being a HUGE transformation. They don’t know where to start. Meanwhile, their smaller children rush off to get lost in a shady corner under dense mature trees that we have named the forest. Kids have few qualms about this style of gardening. Worth noting here that ours is a suburban garden – we are not wildlife gardening on wide open-country acres.

The message is, start small and try to not bite off more than you can chew at the beginning. But do start. Learn by doing. We didn’t start small, but then we already knew, or thought we did, most of what we were at. Plus, it greatly helps that we have neither kids nor dogs clamouring for a remnant bit of lawn to roll on so we dived in head first. Be realistic so as not to be discouraged.

The photo above is of a couple of experimental plots being developed by the parks department of the town I live in. On the left is a plot that was “left to nature” three summers ago. Some interesting plants have arrived and volunteered to grow there, but a lot of the plot is still rampant with long, non-native lawn grasses. It will get there, but it will take a good few years yet. On the right is a contrasting area that was overwintered with the grass removed, and then sown with a starter wildflower seed mix last year. At the start of September, it had a good variety of appealing and colourful native flowers. Not necessarily all the species we would personally have used, perhaps, but the process has been kick-started.

It is easy to shrug off gardens as not being especially important for wildlife. Perhaps this is the case if you live in a distant country community, small village etc, but most people live in towns and cities where private domestic (sub)urban gardens constitute a considerable proportion of available “green space” and are therefore of significance for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem service provision in the places that we live. Once there was a widespread belief that gardens, highly managed and dominated by alien plants as they were (and sometimes still are), provided few resources for native animals. However, published reports of wildlife in domestic gardens have now become more prevalent, and it is clear that the value of urban gardens for biodiversity is substantial. Indeed, some declining species, once common in low-intensity farmland, are now more abundant in urban areas, and particularly in domestic gardens and urban green spaces and parks than they are in the wider countryside.

The path to my greenhouse

Here is what you might do.

1. Walk round your garden and think about what you have. Maybe sketch a rough plan and note which areas are shaded and which in full sun.

2. Unless, like us, you want to do it all at once, begin with a limited area in good sun near the edge of your lawn and mark it out. Perhaps about eight or ten feet long and no more than three wide – that means it is manageable, and plants can be reached easily without stepping onto the plot more than you have to. If there are small shrubs within two or three metres in which birds can shelter, then so much the better. Enough room to experiment with.

3. Decide -

   1. You can cut the lawn grass short, dig small planting holes and insert native plants you have grown from seed or purchased at a garden centre. I will suggest some suitable species in a future article but you can’t go far wrong with golden rod, rudbeckias, asters and echinacea which give you plenty of late summer colour, attract bees and butterflies and provide seed for birds. Keep the grasses under control so as not to swamp the new plantings - hand shears are the best.

   2. Or you can replace the grass using a spade or by covering the area with thick cardboard topped with a few inches of good soil and compost containing wildflower seeds interspersed with choice pot-grown specimens to get you going. In the long term, this gives the best results as the lawn grasses are (mostly) removed right from the beginning but it needs patience and sometimes a strong back.

4. Tend your plot – the usual things, water, control grasses, etc. Feed only sparingly if at all as native species generally are not as fertilizer dependant as horticultural varieties and grasses. You do not want to feed the grasses. If grass is starting to take over, then trim it short with hand shears so that it does not out-compete the plants you are trying to grow at this early stage.

5. Think about having a (small) pond and waterfall - those really do provide a magnetic attraction for wildlife. One of the best investments of your time.

6. Patience – the first year will be encouraging, the second better, and by years three and four you will be thoroughly enjoying what you have created and considering extending the area you have changed. It doesn’t have to be much more complex than this, regardless of what some books and blogs might suggest. Plants know what they need, and all we have to do is help them settle in. Above all, be guided by the circumstances of your particular garden and local climate. Listen to what your plants are telling you. Remember that many native plants do not flower in their first year - don’t be disappointed, it’s nature.

I will make some suggestions in a future article about the species of plants you might want to start considering and about creating a wildlife water feature/pond.

Monarch butterfly alighting on flowers of Rudbeckia laciniata

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Listen to a Forest for a Minute

I have discovered a neat way of lowering the blood pressure ... spend a minute in a (random, if you wish) forest and listen to the sounds.

I have just “visited” forests in Ghana, Nicaragua and just outside Moscow … here’s a link to the sounds of a Russian forest to get you started.

https://www.tree.fm/forest/26

… and this link, from the above site, will help you to zoom in on your favourite forest all over the world.

https://timberfestival.org.uk/soundsoftheforest-soundmap/

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Can’t leave without offering a new species to look out for … and as spring approaches, it should be one that heralds the end of winter and one which is common, easy to see, easier to hear and universally recognized. We will look at “difficult” birds when migration starts in a couple of months. Meanwhile, keep a look put for …

Red-winged Blackbirds

We are on the very leading edge this week of Red-winged Blackbird return, with the main rush yet to come. There are already a very few males, mostly near wetlands and river margins. They will announce their presence as you walk around with their unmistakable “Conk-a-ree” calls. The first to return are the males looking for the best territory. In some ways, coming back this early puts the birds at risk of not finding enough food and of getting very cold indeed. On the other hand those that do pull it off and make it through the next month will have the very best nesting territory staked out and be ready for the females when they follow in a second wave.

Good territory is centred on wetland areas with thick vegetation like cattails along wetlands or on field edges. Males are exceptionally territorial and it has been estimated spend a quarter of their time simply defending their territory against competitors by constant display of their red “epaulettes”. More mature males have glossier feathers while the red wings get brighter. They will also perform flight displays over their territory, at slow speed. The brighter the male’s wings the more females are attracted.

Females are quite unlike the males with a mottled brownish coloration making it easier for them to remain unseen in the undergrowth which is a good thing when there is a nest to defend.

They can sometimes be seen mobbing hawks and owls. They can maneuver around a larger and less maneuverable raptor, harassing it until it moves away from vulnerable nestlings. Not only that, but may even dive bomb foxes, cats, dogs and, even humans that they consider to be too close to their nests.

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