'Let it bloom June'

At least we’ve got the freedom to grow..

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/21/the-gardener-who-took-a-canadian-city-to-court-for-the-right-to-not-mow-his-lawn

It’s happened in our garden too, a common fragrant orchid. The first one since we moved here 17 years ago.

We’re looking forward to our privet hedges blooming, these fragrant, insect attracting flowers are missed by those who cut too early. I’ve spotted a lot of nocturnal moths on them in previous years as well as butterflies. @bunnyhop that’s a lovely orchid, it’s amazing that these plants just appear we’ve been here over 30 years and things keep popping up!

Most of these are wild or/ and have self seeded in the garden. Had 2 hover flies and a honey on them too.

They’re back!

Lots of blackfly on the Cardoon (over 8’ tall) again this year but we’ve left them and the ladybirds have been very active eating the flies and also they’ve laid lots of eggs so in a week or so we should see the larvae fighting off the ants and eating the flies!

You will have to imagine as picture posting still not working. It’s taken from below the cardoons with a lovely blue sky as a backdrop. There are at least two ladybirds busying around and the yellowy eggs can be seen on many of the stems and leaves along with thousands of blackfly. I’ll post a picture when we’ve had another whip round!

We’ve had about 25 orchids this year! Loads of oak saplings too 🙂

Yes, I get oaks in all the places the squirrels bury them, plant pots, raised beds and grass!

i've had a good amount of bees recently, just from weeds I've let grow, dunno what plant, but quite pretty purple flowers.

Now I've got a hedge hog!

I heard some scratching so I've put a bit of dog food out for it! :good:

Hopefully it can eat it before the local cats get to it, but it's raining, so chances are good!

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That hedgehog is probably after the slug in the picture, keep it hungry but with places to hide and it’ll help you in the garden!

That hedgehog is probably after the slug in the picture, keep it hungry but with places to hide and it’ll help you in the garden!

I didn't give it too much, just some in a ramekin behind the compost bin...it's now been demolished, so somethings eaten it!

mattyfez can you buy or borrow a wildlife camera? It's amazing what will come into a wildlife garden at night.

Even though 'Let it bloom June' has long gone, we're still going until the end of August  for the 'No Mow'.

Well despite the weather we are continuing to have a fabulous display of flowers on the lawn this year. At the end of June I was away working so took the decision to do a cut before I left. A couple of weeks later and we now have a full carpet of flowering clover which the bees are mad for, mixed in with bobbly round purple flowers which look ace. I don't know what they are but there are lots of them! As usual I have done a two mower wide strip around the edge and it looks classy!

In the rough areas we have a lot of wild geranium, and a tall yellow flower that is similar to a dandelion but on a slender stalk and in groups. Madame is delighted as she has at last got some borage going

I was wondering what to do at the end of the year with all the long grass areas that we have left. Should we do a single cut in autumn, or just leave it?

I usually do a very high cut in September when it’s warm and leave the cut grass down for a few days so the surviving insects can burrow down or the birds can feast. Then I rake it up and put on one of my log piles. If you leave it completely it develops big tussocks (not the caramel wafers!) and the shrews, mice and voles have a lovely winter so I do that too. Your grass sounds good but the like button along with the photo upload still doesn’t work….

I hacked my meadow down yesterday, we’ll see if anything much comes up before the end of the year.

I’m not convinced a summer cut will work well here, the season is so short. But no harm in giving it a go. The grassier end has got very thick over the past years.

I cut round the foxgloves - and also the cherry tree 🙂

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Really pleased with how my meadow is coming on. Loads of poppies this year and a good area of yellow rattle developing. Neighbours half of the adjoining bank gets shaved down to the moss on a regular basis.

Even though ‘Let it bloom June’ has long gone...

"Unruly July" ?

Doesn't work if you say it! 😀

I can't show a picture of my front garden as its to obvious to locate if you know where i live.

But its rife with wild strawberries and foxgloves.

And a very happy little larch in a tub.

Theres also some non native but non invasives in there but generally its in your face wild.

I'm liking unruly July :0)

I've started potting some of the yellow rattle seed and other wildflowers and will plant them out. The scattering hasn't worked too well (it will in time). Because of all the rain the nettles and grasses are higher and more virile than in other years, they seem to be taking over along with cleavers, these seem to be easy to pull out though.

Did you scarify your grass before you started?

My partner has some experimental plots on a public area green space with various different treatments. The best plots were turf stripped, but good results were also achieved by by raking the grass and leaving only about 30% coverage. This weakens the grass and give the yellow rattle and other plants a better chance.

Interesting, I have never heard it called cleaver. We call it sticky willy or incorrectly bindweed. We have some massive longs strips of it, right up through the hedge

Apparently it's edible, can't say I fancy it

Has also been a good teazel year

Now the search function and photo posting have returned…

The Cardoons mentioned above were rescued by the hatching of the ladybirds, it took some belief and patience but we have had the best blooms so far. The stems are over 2.5m tall so the pictures are from the top of a step ladder! The other picture’s are of our very old greenhouse- it’s a bit unstable so the glass kept breaking and also the watering regime required was a bit onerous for us. I didn’t want to scrap it and I’d had an idea for a brick folly  there so my wife came up with this brilliant idea. We removed the glass, strengthened it, covered it with chicken wire and planted climbers round it. It’s a lovely place to sit and was cheap to complete. The passion flowers and hops have been particularly good.

Cleavers with an s, a name I only first heard when moving south to Bedford (and working in agricultural research, it's a significant weed in some crops). Sticky willy (is that mostly a scottish name?) or goose grass.

I also have some cardoons, started from a packet of seed and only one took off, took a few years but they are amazing now. I've taken a couple of offsets, the original has maybe 60 flower heads and is also well over 2m. Planted in a miserable raised bed only about a foot wide and deep against the wall of the house, but faces south and grabs whatever sun we get (not much usually). The ones I see in proper professional gardens are nothing like as big (and also, sometimes quite spiky leaves - mine are not). I assume there's a bit of variability within the species. I tried eating some of the leaves last year and they are horrible BTW. The ribs are supposed to be a bit like celery. Well, maybe if you boil celery in ...something horrid. Ugh.

As for the meadow, the summer cut doesn't really seem to have worked. I waited for the yellow rattle to set seed and since cutting nothing much has grown up or flowered - a bit more on the clover and that's about it. I think perhaps the season here is a bit short (especially in our garden which is exposed and cold). Don't think I'll bother next year.

Where I did a summer cut a fair few flowers have come up, I'm fairly pleased. Although to be honest I also like the uncut verges which are verdant this year with vetch in amongst the greenery

Perennial cornflowers have had a second bloom which has been a nice surprise

I've got some flowering carrots that look nice, they have flopped across my small lawn. Teasels are spectacular and starting to go purple, they are everywhere which o like but madam insists they keep out of the veg. Once established they go crazy. Bees are drunk on them and goldfinch are on them every morning. They are so big I put supports in to stop them going over in the wind

Cardoons we propagated this year and are looking good now, next year should be good. I love them and teasels as winter structure on a frosty morning

well the weather has turned a bit now we are mid september. We might get some decent days still, but i'm beginning to think about a proper cut of all the long grass areas before they get soggy - what are other people doing with the long grass?

I think I will do a strim as per wheelsonfire above, leave for a few days then collect

On my small formal lawn area which probably gets cut every two weeks I seem to have developed a bit of moss, it is south facing but I think reflective of the cold and damp summer we have had this year.

what would be best for dealing with that? Just a good rake and aeration? We have a fairly strict no chemical policy in the garden and its only small so a bit of elbow grease wont be too onerous

Yes a very low strim more of a scalping is on my to do list. Weakens the grass and creates some bare patches for other things to take. I've also got several dog poo bags full of local wildflower seed to throw down.

kormoran, I inherited an electric scarifier from somewhere which does a great job of raking moss (and old thatch) but a rake should work. Do you really leave cardoons through the winter? I’ve just chopped mine down, they already were very tatty following recent storms.

I grew some teasels from seed a few years back and now we get random volunteers around the garden but not many of them.

Ah yes a scarifier would be excellent, I will keep an eye on marketplace place one is bound to come up

The cardoons we will keep up and support if necessary, we are pretty windy though so will see how it fares. My dream garden at culross palace has them through the winter but they are very sheltered and relatively mild.

Teasels have been incredibly good this year, we went from none to hundreds and I've been giving them away. I thought I'd try supporting them this year with a chestnut pale that we had left from a fence project, it's worked really well. Otherwise you can end up with a spaghetti plant that is all over the place due to the wind. Bees all over them still

Has anyone taking blackberries cuttings successfully? I have a wild hedge project at the boundary and they would be ideal as well as giving fruit. They strike me as quite keen growers so maybe cuttings would work?

@kormoran Cut my long grass on the highest setting two weeks ago, as it was “tussocky” there’s still plenty left. I allowed the cuttings to dry and then collected up to cover one of my small beast heaps. I don’t know whether brambles grow from cuttings but I know that they are very sneaky and self layer. Sometimes they send out shoots that go for metres across the garden and then the tip puts out roots and hey presto there’s another plant! If you can’t find any local to you then I can bag some up and post them to you?

@kormoran I noticed on another thread you're in/near Inverness. I'm Inverness based and have a scarifier you'd be welcome to borrow.

I tried to DM you but the interface went a bit crackers.

Yesterday was warm and sunny, so NBT had the back breaking job of hand cutting the mini meadow. Nowhere to store the ‘hay’ so it went in the green bin, but we rescued many frogs. I then scattered the saved rattle seeds, planted some plug grown wild flowers. Will be interesting to see if they take hold. 

Thanks @stevious and @wheelsonfire1

In a moment of unusual energy we got our old grass rake out and went for it with the moss and it's largely out. The lawns only 4×5m or so , I reckon it was an hour's graft. Then I aerated with a fork, it looks pretty healthy. A spell of warm weather should see it good before winter

Then I went on a spree and found a bramble in the lane, a quick snip and I've got a dozen cuttings in the hedge project. Currently drinking tea and feeling smug

Bunnyhops post reminded me we had a toad in our back door the other day, It was a shock to everyone involved including toady when the light went on. It's slugmageddon this year so he or she is welcome. Although I'd really like a hedgehog or two.

But highlight of the week was a crossbill in the garden this week. I honestly never thought I would see one but there it was in our veg cage bold as brass. I thought it was trapped but it knew the way out

Rattle really needs contact with bare earth to get going - scalp and de-thatch the grass if you can.  And lightly cut the grass until Feb as rattle needs light to germinate and grass left until then will crowd it out

But highlight of the week was a crossbill in the garden this week

Wow! How exciting. I've only ever seen crossbills in Scotland, Wales and the Alps, in heavily wooded areas.

Wow! How exciting. I’ve only ever seen crossbills in Scotland, Wales and the Alps, in heavily wooded areas.

I was amazed how big it was compared to our normal visitors. Lovely colour too. It was so close, maybe a metre at one point. The beak is tremendous!

Very jealous of your crossbill!

I cut and scarified our wild patches today. Quite a lot of new stuff has seeded in there, including some heather!

at this rate in a few years we’ll be able to charge oligarchs thousands of pounds to go shooting in our garden.

And we're off.

No mow May has been and gone, it's time to carry on the good work helping nature. 

'Let it bloom June'.

Now is the time to trample your cowslips! Best done after rain, walk on your cowslips and primroses as it mimics the action of cattle hooves and presses the seeds into the ground.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TDNJGTWv1nkxjc6w9

Second season for my ‘orchard’. I deturfed and covered for a season to get rid of perennials then reseeded a meadow seed mix. Quite a bit seems to have come back successfully! The mown path makes it look rather more intentional than abandoned, and gives access to the fruit trees

Our little 'wild patch' is looking a bit better after some sun and rain. There haven't been many butterflies this month. May was better. The insect count seems to be higher now that the grass is at a decent 30cm or so. 

I've planted some ragged robin and teasles. 

  Lots of blackfly on the Cardoon’s but we’re not concerned, these little beauties are going to sort them out! Lot’s of eggs on the plant and a variety of adults too. 

I’ve left some lawn that is usually cut regularly, partly to spot dog poo and partly to set the flower border off. I’ve not cut it for a couple of weeks as it’s been too hot and dry anyway. Loads of flowers emerged, some lovely delicate grasses, and a lot of yellow rough hawkbit and purple selfheal. They must be good for insects as the blackbirds have been very busy feeding their fledglings. The privet is now flowering, smells wonderful and has moths round it in the evening.

Beauty and nature for very little effort!

Ours... although my wife does all of the hard work. I just build the walls.  

Ooooh love the topiary bush HtS.

We've got through the 'Let it bloom June'. Our mini meadow is doing well with visiting butterflies (some caught laying eggs on our nettle patch), bees, ladybirds and other insects in the last two days. I mowed around this area on a high cut to keep the clover. Last year's common spotted orchid is flowering again and the yellow rattle has gone mad. Still time for plenty of the other flowers to bloom, got some teasles growing too.

Going to keep the meadow until the end of September.

Ooooh love the topiary bush HtS.

We inherited that when we moved in and it only had two or three twists in it. Getting a bit tricky to prune now as it is about 12ft high.

An amazing amount of insects around this year, the grass that I’ve not cut has turned golden brown and is alive with butterflies, moths, beetles and also the most ladybirds I’ve ever seen. These are all over the garden and have successfully eaten the massive amounts of blackfly on the cardoon. We’ve been here over thirty years and our garden is becoming balanced. The trees are alive with a variety of birds, we have hedgehogs and foxes, owls, blackcaps, chiff chaffs and goldcrests.

It takes some work but the chemical free approach does work.

I absolutely agree. 

The amount of butterflies, moths, beetles, bees (ladybirds) and other flying wee beasties has been brilliant over the last few weeks.

Nature at it's best doing what she intended.