Welcome

Hi, thanks for reading my blog on creating and maintaining wildlife friendly homes for my garden.

You can expect to see ideas on how to make homes for wildlife with the minimum of cost.

My garden is small, around 13' wide by 30' long.  I've crammed a lot of plants in some of which include Hebes, Bamboo (perfect for growing your own canes), Honeysuckle and quite a few native British trees which include Oak, Alder and Hawthorn to name but a few.

Because the garden is small, most of the plants are pot grown.  I enjoy this way of growing plants.  It does take longer for them to grow but the idea of being able to move a plant within the garden without affecting it appeals to me.

Growing in pots does have a downside though.  Apart from the fact watering takes up a lot of time, I also have to contend with bugs which cause considerable damage.

At present (July 16) I'm fighting an infestation Vine Weevil (or Wine Weebles if you listen to my Dad).  So far they have destroyed two of my plants.  Unfortunately I can't risk losing other plants so I've had to turn to a chemical approach.  Some of my plants are at real risk, such as the Acers.  I've used Bug Clear Ultra.  This is a quick and effective approach.

I don't particularly like using chemicals in the garden for a few reasons, one of which is my dog.  I always try to find solutions which will not harm her should she come into contact with them.

Because the vine weevil are so widespread in the garden I'm treating everything (and I mean everything) with nematodes.  These are microscopic worms which you water into the soil.  They seek out the vine weevil and without being too gruesome, they kill them.  You can get nematodes to sort out other problems.  Have a look at Nemaslugdirect.co.uk which is where I purchased mine from.  They're really quick to dispatch orders.

The packet I've purchased contains over 50 million nematodes and it's only 3" square by 3/4" deep.  They work until the temperature drops below 5DegC.

Anyway, enough of that.  On with the projects and remember, absolutely anything you do to help wildlife counts.  Even if it's leaving a patch of grass to become overgrown, it will help.

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