Wild About Gardens Volunteers - February 2022 Update
Update from Wendy Smith, Wild About Gardens volunteer
A friend suggested I might like to open my garden with Kent Wildlife Trust. It seemed like a good idea, but when the date was arranged, I got cold feet. I am not a wildlife gardener. My garden is not a wildlife garden. I emailed Maureen and Maria and suggested mine might not be what they were looking for. They replied that mine might be just what they were looking for, so they came. As they arrived, I was standing on the front drive watching part of a house that was stuck across the road and, equally entranced, Maureen and Maria walked right past me!
Once in the garden I was cagey ‘What do you want me to tell you?’
‘Just talk about your garden’, they said and (no stopping me) I waffled about the garden’s history, my planting, recent projects…it wasn’t hard.
It turned out that my garden was just what they wanted. I said I am not a wildlife gardener and yet somehow, I am. I want year-round interest in the garden. So does wildlife. I have hedges, sometimes laborious for me but ideal for birds and other creatures. As a plantaholic I have planted a variety of trees including Crab apples and Rowan, and shrubs both deciduous and evergreen. I have a huge number of flowering plants from snowdrops to Michaelmas daisies. That suits the wildlife too. I favour cottage garden type simpler flowers to overbred floozies and that is better for the pollinators. My garden is not over manicured (any more than I am - gardeners’ hands) so in winter the remains of flowering perennials stand, leaves gather in corners. That’s good for wildlife. I recently made a tiny pond which I hope the damsel flies and frogs will find. I know someone uses it as I find stones knocked in from the edge. I have bird feeders of course but also berries and aphids and caterpillars for hungry birds. I even have a few nettles, not by choice, but courtesy of the railway line along the end of the garden (which is itself a wildlife corridor) and they creep into the hedges along with brambles. I encourage self-seeding. At the end of the garden there is so much creeping buttercup and wild strawberry it is easier to let it be. Foxgloves and evening primrose self-seed there. I like it and it turns out wildlife does too. In one corner I chuck branches, in another large flints that I dig up. Beyond the railway is Lydden Down National Nature Reserve where Buzzards wheel and Orchids grow.
It seems my garden is rather good for wildlife when I mostly thought it was good for me! It has not all been accidental of course. I never use bug sprays, but I do use organically approved slug pellets when I first plant out courgettes under cloches and in my tiny greenhouse. I adored Geoff Hamilton and like him I seek a balance in the garden. When the greenfly strike, I wait for the ladybirds and the hover flies. I wanted a tiny pond because my dad had ponds that teemed with frogs and newts. Two Christmases ago I was given four bug hotels by family members! I am no lover of lawns so mine is small. There are bulbs in it which means I can delay mowing until the foliage dies back and then ‘No Mow May’ takes me to June. Plus, I leave a small stretch unmown near the pond as I know longer grass is good for wildlife. I never use any chemicals on the lawn as I know it’s bad for the environment and it suits my rather laissez faire way of gardening!
I would describe my style as attempting to garden in harmony with nature. Now that my garden has been accepted as part of Kent Wildlife Trust’s Open Gardens scheme and I have become one of their volunteers I am learning more. Early on I netted the hedges to deter rabbits but now I have made holes each side of the garden in the hopes that hedgehogs will use them. I have a broken pot upturned near the pond for any sheltering amphibians. I am not turning the compost heaps until the weather warms up so as not to disturb anyone overwintering there. I have begun a dead hedge which also provides shelter. And I am aiming to try peat free compost again if someone can recommend a good one to me!
On the last Saturday in June my garden will be open and I hope that visitors will realise that they too are already gardening for wildlife and will be keen to see what else they can do. A garden that is good for humans can be wonderful for wildlife too!
If you would like to visit Wendy’s Garden, or any of the others, we are already taking bookings via the website. Just follow this link: https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/wilder-gardens
We are already looking for different gardens to open for us in 2023, if you know one which might be suitable, please contact Maureen.rainey@kentwildlife.org.uk
