Sustainable Garden
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Keep up with articles from Sustainable Garden. On the outskirts of Nottingham, England, in the lonely ethical left field Rob is developing beautiful organic gardens for wildlife.
Sustainable Garden
12h ago
Day 309 #365DaysWild
Kedleston Hall, Derby.
Go there for veteran trees.
And bluebells ..read more
Sustainable Garden
1d ago
Day 308 #365DaysWild
Don't ever give up hoping.
The last record of a hedgehog here was in 2017. Seven years ago.
They are:
Killed on roads.
Poisoned with pesticides.
Blocked from roaming by our walls and fences.
Predated by badgers.
Killed with kindness by milk and bread..
Drowned in steep-sided ponds.
Emaciated.
Dehydrated.
Readers of this blog will know I've got my hopes raised before but to no avail..........
Then this little fellah appeared on the camera in the Woodland Garden last night!
Just about as excited as a man can get!!!!
Welcome home spiky ..read more
Sustainable Garden
3d ago
Day 307 #365DaysWild
On our national day - our national bird photographed in the garden.
Little stunner ..read more
Sustainable Garden
4d ago
Day 306 #365DaysWild
Around 2012 I was clearing brambles on the boundary and discovered a little clump of native bluebells.
One small clump of four flower spikes in a six-acre site!
I had seen bluebells growing abundantly in areas within Bestwood Country Park so decided to buy plants ‘in the green’ for planting near our one existing clump.
Twelve years in and you can see the progress.
I added further bulbs for a few years.
And then began casting seed.
The results are satisfying ..read more
Sustainable Garden
5d ago
Day 304 #365DaysWild
Down at George’s Pond …
Another day, another stag-do for mallard drakes.
How many can you count..?
Granddaughter (4) says 2
Grandson (6) says 3
Daughter says 4
Son-in-law says 5.
The judges decision is final ..read more
Sustainable Garden
6d ago
Day 302 #365DaysWild
Can a poo not be a thing of beauty?
Approx one inch (2.5cm) long..
No idea from which creature’s bottom it emerged ..read more
Sustainable Garden
1w ago
Day 302 #365DaysWild
Bluebells at Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire today..
Also through this azure celebration we’re white to soft mauve wood anenome, butter-yellow celandine and understated but pretty-white stitchwort.
A wonderful mixture of our woodland understory flora.
I struggle to imagine anything more natural - and beautiful!
Thanks to our wonderful friends Mike and Gill for sharing this with us on a walk this morning ..read more
Sustainable Garden
1w ago
Day 301 #365DaysWild
‘Garden of ten ponds’ #2
Continuing my 'series' on our garden ponds...
This is a small pond in the woodland garden made from a recycled mini-vegetable bed reclaimed from a skip.
Enjoyed by birds and small mammals.
Believe it or not, my hope is for rat-tailed maggots in it this summer. Rat-tailed maggots love the gunk in ponds.
On maturity, they will join the rest of the garden hover-fly population ..read more
Sustainable Garden
1w ago
Pipistrelle bat hiding
in the folds of a garden parasol.
Day 300 #365DaysWild
I’ve been looking forward to today for two weeks!! Like a small boy on Christmas morning! Today’s the day when we open up the bar detectors and discover what data is hidden inside!
And I wasn’t disappointed!! Notts Bat Group bat detector SD cards were so loaded with data from the garden that there was only enough room for eight out of the fourteen days active.
So much so that John had to take the cards away for analysis.
Initially we saw lots of common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle sonogram activity ..read more
Sustainable Garden
1w ago
Day 298 #365DaysWild
Our first night for months with suitable weather for months!
Lunar marbled brown
Larval food Pedunculate oak
Coxcomb prominent
Larval food Broadleaves trees
A month early ..?
Brindled beauty
Larval food Silver birch, Common lime, Pedunculate oak
Hebrew character
Larval food Stinging nettle, Silver birch, Common lime, Pedunculate oak
Muslin moth
Larval food Broad-leaved dock, Red dead nettle
Grey birch
Larval food Silver birch
‘..a confined distribution in Nottinghamshire..’ Eakring Birds ..read more