Gardeners and Allotmenteers | RCT Action 4 Nature

These actions are aimed at gardeners and allotmenteers who'd like to garden with wildlife in mind.

Create a wildflower garden

You can manage your lawn for wildflowers, either as a meadow or as a short flowering lawn by some simple changes in management, such as not mowing between April and August, and collecting the cuttings. You can also use native species for your beds, which has much more benefit for pollinators than cultivated garden plants. Find out more from Plantlife.

Create your own compost and go Peat-free

You can easily make your own compost from garden and kitchen waste. A compost heap or bin in the garden also provides habitat for invertebrates which in turn increases food for hedgehogs. Grass snakes will also lay their eggs in compost heaps. If you can't make your own compost, ensure you only buy peat-free to protect our precious peat resource from being degraded.

Create Homes for Nature

There are many ways you can make homes for nature in your garden. Why not dig a pond, put up bird or bat boxes, make an insect hotels or a hedgehog hotel? There are lots more ideas here.

Dispose of garden waste responsibly

Non-native invasive plant species are becoming an increasing issue in the countryside, threatening the survival of native plants. Japanese knotweed, Crocosmia and Three-cornered Leek have all spread from garden waste. Ensure that you dispose of garden waste responsibly through council recycling schemes.

Wildlife-friendly Pets

Sadly, the Mammal Society recently estimated that cats in the UK catch up to 100 million prey items over spring and summer, of which 27 million are birds. You can help reduce cat predation by putting a bell on your cats collar - a small action that may make a big difference.

Case Study

Richard's Garden Bees

My garden seems to be a good one for bees. I live somewhere which still has wildflower rich grasslands and grass verges, and my garden has lots of old-fashioned herbaceous plants which are rich in nectar and pollen. My lawn is a little bit of species rich neutral grassland, which I manage as a mini-hay meadow. It has lots of wildflowers amongst the grass and anthills, bird’s-foot trefoil, field scabious, self-heal, rough hawkbit, red clover and lots of black knapweed. In the spring it is full of the little pyramids of soil that are the nests of half a dozen different andrena bee species, including the beautiful, ‘fuzzy orange’ tawny mining bee. These attract half a dozen species of parasitic, wasp like nomad bees which hover around the nesting sites. There are also lots of parasitic bee fly which randomly flick their eggs in the general vicinity of bee nests, and on one occasion a violet oil beetle (which must have emerged, having parasitised a bee nest) was found wandering across the lawn.

Particularly fond of black knapweed flowers are leaf cutter bees. They literally bury themselves in the knapweed flowers, collecting the pollen on the undersides of their abdomens. I have two species in the garden, the patchwork leafcutter (which spends the summer months carrying leaves to nest holes in the underside of the double glazing and the front wall) and the much larger, Willoughby’s leafcutter: this an extremely handsome bee. The abundance of leaf cutter bees also explains why I get the cuckoo bee shiny-vented sharp-tail bee. The pointy tailed female searches the front wall for leaf cutter nests into which she can deposit an egg. The knapweed flowers also attracted a stream of small, long-tailed solitary bees, common furrow bees, the females spend all spring nesting in the front lawn, and on the late summer evening dozens of the males roost together in a tight cluster on the heads of ribwort plantain.

Every year in June I watch males of the incredible and rare long-horned bee as they circle the garden waiting for females. The males of this honey-bee sized species have ridiculously long antennae that are swept back as they dash about. The females are particularly fond of yellow vetchling, which flourishes in my garden. I also get the plain dark bee, surely one of the least exciting names for any insect, but this It is a rare bee and something to be really proud of.

Early in the spring, when the lungwort is in flower, the high-pitched buzz of the furry footed flower bee whines amongst the herbaceous flowers. This is a handsome bumble bee like bee, with jet black furry females and the equally furry, tawny orange males. Later in the summer the stachys in the border attracts the equally distinctive and impressive wool carder bee, while at the same time emerald iridescent ruby wasps run up and down the front wall looking for red mason bee nests to parasite. There are also 7 species of bumblebee including the nationally rare brown-banded carder bee.

So, ‘all in all’, not bad for a small suburban garden. What does all this bee stuff go to prove? Well firstly, that my bog standard garden, with my bog standard flowers is full of bees, wasps and a multitude of other invertebrates. Those species are primarily living and nesting and finding a home in the surrounding wildflower rich mosaic of fields, and road verges and road banks. They only come into my garden for my pleasure and enjoyment, and as such they are an indicator of just how rich the local wildflower resource is. A number of these species are nationally uncommon, even rare, and the fact that they turn up in my garden has given me an important glimpse in the diversity of invertebrates in the local environment. Every year I identify some new species which has buzzed over the garden wall. I suspect the same will be true for many other gardens in many other parts of the County Borough. I suspect RCT has a very rich invertebrate fauna and it is an important illustration of how garden recording can give us valuable clues about our local biodiversity.

Richard Wistow

Do's

Let your grass grow longer in your garden or in some parts of your garden. Every little helps!
See what wildflowers come naturally in your garden. Be patient, wildflowers will come over time. Very quickly grasshoppers and crickets will move in as well as bees and bumblebees will enjoy the longer grass and flowers
Take photos and keep records of what you see. It is fun to see over time how much your meadow will change and thrive. Let us know what you find.
Cut your grass in early September and collect the clippings
Create habitat piles with the grass in the garden if you can. Slow worms will thank you for it! Alternatively, you can compost it using the council’s weekly collection.
Get in touch with us, visit our website, or get involved with your Local Nature Partnership (LNP).
Dispose of your garden waste sensibly.
Love the moss and fungi in your lawn. They are an important part of a grassland ecosystem.
Avoid herbicides and pesticides - these cause significant damage to pollinators and other nature. Slug pellets for example can be deadly for the hedgehogs that eat infected slugs. Investigate natural options instead.
Embrace regenerative gardening

Don'ts

Growing a meadow filled with wildflowers takes time, don’t be tempted to force things by sowing seeds which might not be indigenous (native) to RCT.
Don’t cut your grass every week as you will be cutting out the wildflowers. If you can delay cutting until the autumn – once a year is enough for wildflowers.
Don’t leave the clippings on the surface. The rain then washes them into the soil which feeds the grass as well as suppresses the wildflowers.
Don’t use fertilisers to make the grass grow quicker. This will prevent wildflowers to come up and thrive as they cannot outcompete grass.
Don’t be tempted to force fate by planting flowers straight into your grass
Don’t dig up flowers from the wild
Don’t dump your garden waste into the wild. This is what introduces garden species such as the Spanish bluebell which is now a real threat to our native bluebells.
It can be tempting to move pond plants or frog spawn into a new pond to speed up the process. This can inadvertently spread diseases which could harm your frogs and newts.

Do's and Don'ts of Wildlife Gardening

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