‘Let it bloom June’

‘Plant life’ has followed up ‘No mow May, with ‘let it bloom June’.

Our garden has produced some more red clover, plenty of white clover and the Yellow rattle is starting to flower.

I’ll start planting the poppies, cornflowers and other wild flowers in a few days. These I’ve sown in trays as scattering hasn’t worked too well (maybe not enough rain).

I’ll post up some photos of our garden tomorrow, now that there’s an easy way to post images – yes!.
Never was able to get the hang of posting up piccys before.

Loads of clover in our front lawn and 2 other species of flower I can’t ID. Definitely starting to get more insects hanging around. The back lawn reamins a monoculture putting green (albeit longer).

I’ve decided which areas I’ll let go wild now and have a pal with a utopain garden collecting some seeds to scatter in the autumn. Looking forward to setting the scarifier to DESTROY mode in October.

We are still letting our bank go – the daffodils and tulips have only just really ‘gone over’, the grass is knee deep, it has more and more flowers on. I am going to leave it as long as I can – but I know from past experience that it will become silly shortly.

This and ‘no mow May’ seem like ways for people who don’t like gardening to avoid doing any during the summer months. You can’t mow the lawn now anyway, weather is too dry.

Looking forward to ‘Let it lie July’. 🙂

My canterbury bells have just started to bloom which I grew from seed over 2 years ago so I’ve been happy to see that, just found out they will die off following flowering though so a bit anti-climactic.

Rest of the garden is doing well always chock full of different kinds of bees I’ve spotted some I’ve never seen before like the carder bee, got 4 heirloom tomato varieties, two varieties of strawberries, malling promise raspberries and a lot of general pollinators marigolds, fuschias, pansies, lots of poppies, and a bunch I cant even remember the name of combined with some stragglers from the wildflower seeds I went a bit OTT with last year, let the herb planters flower this year too

This and ‘no mow May’ seem like ways for people who don’t like gardening to avoid doing any during the summer months.

I only wish I could use similar ecological justification to stop hoovering inside too.

I only wish I could use similar ecological justification to stop hoovering inside too.

No vacuum June?

Our overgrown path. Lots of herbs and bee friendly flowering plants.

Apart from dandelions, right? Anything but those…

No vacuum June?

Lots of dust August

The Ox-eye daisys are now fully out in our front garden meadow. Not a bad display considering two years ago it was a building site.

Our cat enjoys hiding in the long grass!

Our bank is great – we’re going to add some more variety to it after this season and then let it rip in future.

The wildflower area has been dominated by the poppy’s this year – again we’re going to manage that after they die back this year.

No vacuum June?

No suck Sunday’s

we started with a bare patch of soil 2 years ago, mostly down to Mrs DB’s efforts and despite the occasional deer incident the front garden has really bloomed this year. Still awaiting the hawthorn hedge to fully establish itself. Also the soil is pretty rocky – the line of boulders are the ones removed from the ground.

Well, the clover blocks from No Mow May have finally stopped flowering so they’re getting strimmed off and mown today. 

The climbing rose is in full bloom and is absolutely alive with bees

No need to add a soundtrack…..

The let it bloom continuation of no mow May has been our method for over 20 years, some of the grass and hedges won’t be touched until September. The reward for us is lots of different flowering grasses and the privet hedge is just about to bloom, very popular with bees, moths and butterflies. Us humans appreciate it too, our neighbour misses out as he’s already cut his side at least twice!

Great pictures.

Mrs GD is not persuaded of no mow May in terms of dealing with the dog eggs etc.

What I need instead is to find a way of using other spaces we have to create those habitats as best we can. We have a couple of large veg beds where my youngest enthusiastically plants carrot seeds etc and then doesn’t weed or maintain them. Those will be my next year objective I think for wild flower planting where they are safe from the Mountfield…

In continuation from “no mow may”, there was someone having a problem with aphids. This year they’re very prolific in our garden, particularly the black ones. We’ve left them alone apart from the odd spray with water, a large cardoon is particularly affected. This morning on closer inspection the ladybirds and hoverflies have arrived and are munching away – my wife says it’s the homemade garlic spray that made the difference – a bit of seasoning!

Nature can balance itself out if allowed to, slugs and snails aren’t a problem now as we’ve got a good variety of birdlife.

On birdlife can I recommend the free app called “Merlin”? Now my Dad’s died I’m having to identify birdsong myself, it’s absolutely fabulous and revealing of birds that I’d no idea visited our garden.

Happy listening!

Merlin is amazing – tells me the goldfinches, which we’ve not seen in the garden for a couple of years, are still nearby.

Bunny hop

Festival rubra

Dactyls glomerata

Not sure maybe Festival pratensis

Maybe Alopecurus mysuroides

An Agrostis

A Poa

Lolium perenne

Ooh thanks a_a, nice to know the grass names. All found in our uncut lawn.

Yes ‘Merlin’ bird song app is great. Found out about it last week. My brother was walking in the forest of Dean and it alerted him to a firecrest. He didn’t see the tiny bird but he knew it was there as he heard it.

Exciting for us, as last night at dusk a hedgehog came rootling in the long grass, then snuffled around for about half an hour. Hope it comes back tonight as there’ll be more slugs and snails around in the wet.

Festival rubra

Dactyls glomerata

Not sure maybe Festival pratensis

Maybe Alopecurus mysuroides

An Agrostis

A Poa

Bloody auto correct, that’s Festuca not Festival!!

The new opening credits for BBC Countryfile, appear to show 2 mtbers sitting on a clifftop overlooking the sea. Nice.

Now July of course and the long grass has moths and butterflies round and in it, not as many as there should be but the Earth is dying… I’ve still left hedge cutting as the privet is still blooming, moths in particular enjoy it and there is a blackbird around feeding young still, nesting season is still with us!

My first picture posting!

Now August and thinking of cutting the hedges, still a blackbird feeding though so I’ll proceed carefully. Letting plants be pays dividends in the long run, the long grass has flowered and is greening up underneath and quite dense with lots of insects round it. The pictures are of ragwort, once a notifiable “weed”, this has been next to the old greenhouse where I hope to build a small brick, stone and slate “ruined” shelter in winter. If you look closely you can see the black and yellow striped caterpillars of the black and red cinnabar moth on their favourite food plant. 

I gave some of the grass it’s annual cut today, I’m leaving the cut grass on the ground for a few days so the insects can tunnel down deeper. The Cinnabar caterpillars above have started moving down the plant and will overwinter in the grass before emerging in all their black and red glory in spring. The mystery of the wasps nest has been solved, I’m allergic to their stings so I like to know where they are… we’ve got one in the eaves but I’ve seen and heard them chewing my shed and fence for nest material but couldn’t spot the nest. My mowing activities have livened them up a bit and they’ve revealed themselves to be using a hedgehog box under one of my shrubs, they’ve cut the grass in front to give them a clearer flight path. I’ll steer clear until winter I think and not poke anything in the entrance – it can result in a hospital admission- ask me how I know!

Monty Don was giving good advice regarding cutting the meadow or long grass sections of a lawn:
Make a bit of noise and maybe move a stick through the grass to warn any small creatures before strimming or hand cutting.
I shall be cutting in a week, leaving the grass to lie, then raking up. There are still some new wildflowers making a show. Also time to cut the hedges (before our elderly neighbour has another fit).
Next year I’ll be sewing the wild flower seeds and planting them up from seedlings, scattering hasn’t worked too well.

I’ve finally strimmed our wild areas of banking. The cuttings lay for a week before I cleared them up, hoping to lay some more seed down.
We’re planning on adding to it next year – there’s such poor variety of plants in there currently.

No Mow May seems to have been a success around our area.

Now it’s time to carry on the good work of letting nature take over a little.

Please join me in:- Let It Bloom June. I thank you.

Our poor quality lawn is now 99.743% tired daffodils and moss

Up here in the far north west are very much still in no mow despite it being June. The last week or two has seen a big leap forward in blooms and growth, lots of interesting insects appearing. We have a large area of little moustache like weeds, they have amazingly started to flower with fire orange heads on long thin stalks. Remarkable.

We have seeded some comfrey and teasels, plus transplants. Once a teasel is established you’ll never be short of them!

Does anyone know about moths? I’m quite keen to set a trap up one night to see what’s about. Is it too early? Should I wait a bit? We are a few weeks behind Edinburgh in terms of season id say