Garden tips - how and why

Don't forget the newts
Plant them a forget-me-not

Female Great crested newts use their muscular thighs to fold over the leaves of plants like Water forget-me-not to make a pocket in which they lay their eggs.  The white eggs are hidden from predators until they hatch.

Great Crested Newts (Triturus cristatus)
(Image by Acorn Media)

Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum)
(© Daniel Reed - www.2bnthewild.com)

Grow teasels and feed a goldfinch for free

The goldfinch uses its relatively long thin beak like tweezers to pick seeds from deep inside the spiky seed heads of teasels (see picture opposite), knapweeds and burdocks.  Broader beaked finches like green finches have to wait on the ground to pick up seeds dropped by the goldfinches.

Make a compost heap
- Attract multi-coloured woodlice

Most woodlice are grey or brownish, but two species come in brighter colours.  Philoscia has a dark head and a stripe down the back which is often yellow or chestnut red.  Androniscus on the other hand is usually bright pink with a yellow line down the back (see picture opposite).
Woodlice feed on the fungal hyphae, thin white fungus roots, that break down tough plant material 

Androniscus dentiger
(With kind permission of Robert Maidstone)

Holly Blue Butterfly (Celastrina argiolus)
(With kind permission of Robert Maidstone)

Plant holly and ivy for a blue butterfly

One of the few butterflies that can live in our urban gardens is the Holly Blue (see picture opposite).  This pale blue butterfly can be seen flying around evergreen bushes in June and again in August.  The spring butterflies lay their eggs on the flowers of the Holly, the green slug-like caterpillar then feeds on the unripe berries.  These caterpillars turn into butterflies in August and lay their eggs on the flower buds of Ivy on which the caterpillars then feed.  The berries and flowers of both the green and varigated holly or ivy plants are equally attractive to the butterflies.

Create a wildflower meadow - nurture a weed

Leaving large areas of the lawn to grow wild can be unsightly, but by choosing a single 'weed' species with unusual leaves or flowers in the lawn and mowing around it, it can add colour and diversity to your lawn (see picture opposite).
Choose different plants in different parts of the lawn in the spring, mid and late summer then mow after the wild flowers have faded.

Meadow saxifrage (Saxifraga granulata)
(With kind permission of Robert Maidstone)

Install a Rainwater butt - support swallows and bats

Containers of stagnant water can become green and contain  bacteria harmful to wildlife and man.  Nature has evolved a team of water cleaners headed by the larvae of gnats, mosquitos and midges.  These creatures filter the bacteria and algae out of the water and eat it, leaving the water clean.  The adult insects congregate in large swarms in the late afternoon and early evening providing a fly-through fast-food restaurant for swallows and bats.  Fortunately for us most of these insects that breed in water butts are the non-biting kind.

Plant honeysuckles and fuschia
- to attract pink elephants!

Honeysuckle attract bright pink Elephant Hawk Moths, who hover in front of the scented flowers and use their long tongues to suck up the nectar without landing.  The moths lay their eggs on willowherb in the countryside and fuschia in gardens.  The name elephant is derived from the fat caterpillar which has four large false eye-spots and a long thin neck.

 
Elephant Hawk Moth (Deilephila elpenor)
(With kind permission of Robert Maidstone)