Notes and Photos from Sallie

Brian and I have had an email from group member Sallie Corfield to say that, having been furloughed from work this week, she is spending more time in her garden. 

I'll let Sallie explain the following photos in her own words by 'cut & pasting' them from her email.

"The photo of the blackbird nest is from my back garden, apologies for the poor quality, I was trying to be really quick when the bird was off the nest so I didn’t disturb her. The nest is tucked into some ivy growing on the fence."

Blackbird (Turdus merula) eggs in nest - Sallie's Blackfordby garden

"The other two photos are my front garden which I decided last year to stop mowing. Last year we had just grasses which I cut just once in September and have left to its own devices. This year so far we’ve had a lot of lesser celandine, lots of dandelions, green alkanet, honesty and now loads of cuckoo flower has appeared! I’m really looking forward to seeing what else appears."

the benefits of  'wilding' a lawn - Sallie's Blackfordby garden

"I’ve also got a patch of the back garden which I intend to leave unmown from this year onwards. Just shows how quickly wildflowers can colonise and that you don’t really need to do much or spend any money to create better habitat at home really easily. It would be great to encourage group members to leave bits of the garden to go wild and see what appears. "

I think that this is a brilliant idea, Sallie, and will be of great benefit to invertebrates, with the knock-on effect of assisting the birds with a food supply too.  Thank you for sharing this.

Last year, I made plans to convert my lawn to a flower meadow for the very same reasons. However, events overtook me and have done so again this year! 

I have been keen to let the Dandelions grow in the lawn (and the rest of the garden) this year, but I have also mown from time to time. I have noticed that, when the grass is relatively short, the birds (mainly Starlings, House Sparrows, and Dunnocks, but other birds too) like to peck at the lawn looking for leatherjackets, worms and insects. This got me wondering if I should shelve my plans to lose the lawn and just concentrate on insect-friendly plants in the garden. Sallie's intiative has caused me to rethink my ideas and I suspect that our lawn will now be a 'half and half' - half mown and half left to grow (with possibly a few wildflower seeds scattered on it to help with the process).

Thank you, Sallie, for your inspiration. Stay safe and healthy, and keep your ideas and photos coming, please.

Brian - your wildflowers will be in the next blog post!

Take good care everyone - - - Richard