I have big plans for my wildlife haven next year and it’s all going to start with the flower selection. This year there was a bit of an experimentation with the plants I grew and I wasn’t exactly happy with my choice. One of the plants I grew was borage and I never expected it to grow so big, it took up quite a large amount of space and once it died back it left a huge gap in the border.
There was also calendula, dwarf cosmos, scabious and some candy floss poppies, a few of my favourites and more of what I want to be growing next year. Then there’s the perennials; verbena bonariensis, Penny Lane climbing rose, Katie’s rose and of course the grapevine. Now the grapevine has grown a lot over the past 6 months and I know that one day it will hopefully be covering the entire side of the fruit cage. It’s going to take at least 4 years to grow that big though so until then I can use the area underneath the vine to sow more annual flower seeds.
Now that I have that extra flower patch in the front corner of the plot I can grow more varieties and more cut flowers for myself. I’m not going to forget about the bees though and I have plans to grow some flowers especially for them, and only them. I wanted the pond area to be the specific place where the wildlife can eat, be safe and enjoy. Ideally I would love to leave it untouched, with lots of flowers for the bees, butterflies and insects, and lots of hiding places for the frogs too. I’ll be getting the old seed catalogues out soon and having a good think about what annuals to grow around the pond next year, I’ll keep you all posted with my choices once I figure them out myself! 🙂
6 thoughts on “My Wildlife Haven”
Quite a few annual flowers that are brilliant for cutting and for bees are really tall Katie – Borage as you know, Cornflowers, Scabious, Ammi etc. They all need staking/netting to grow through but I do think they are well worth growing because they often flower well into October. My Scabious and Sweet Peas are still flowering now! You could sow them in late spring to follow on from your shorter blooms. Alternatively choose short varieties (eg Polka Dot Cornflowers) when you are selecting your seeds.
I just adore tall flowers, I need to find some shorter varieties just to fill in the gaps underneath the tall ones 🙂 My scabious has done beautifully this year so I’ll definitely be growing more next year. Thanks for all the tips and help x
I love that you have a ‘wild’ section in your allotment! My Mom (and now me) always did that in our garden – just left one corner of the yard free to do whatever it wanted, with just a bit of help. In our Arizona garden, it ended up being a safe place for the bunnies and quail and other native birds to go to when the hawks and coyotes were around! Love reading your blog! Looking forward to seeing what you do next! 🙂
I secretly love the wild sides to gardens, something so beautiful and natural about them. I love that you carry on a tradition, how lovely! thank you so much 🙂
We love wildlife gardens as well 🙂 This is pretty much british garden style !
I just love the hi-res photos. When I see them expanded it is as if I can almost smell the plants. I hope people know to click on them to get the full effect. Good job, Katie!