Free Form Garden

My daughter calls my garden a jungle, lol I don't like formal gardens, I plant things where I want them & whatever seeds itself I leave there, they must want to grow there so why stop them, I have trees, shrubs & perennials in the gareden some in tubs as well & then hanging baskets all over the garden, some hang from trees where they brighten a dull area up, things having flowered earlier, I have tubs everywhere too & 2 manger raised beds on the patio which do great, don't let anyone tell you how your garden should be, it's yours, do with it as you please & enjoy it

Just been out to have a little water of my containers , and realised how bumble bees we have in the garden .

Monty Don would be proud as it shows there are the right plants planted.

A few pollinators about, bumbles and honey bees and hover flies too but
I am awash with stag beetles /maybugs..not sure which..flying about in the evening and crawling about and mating on the grass!

DGD1 saw one yesterday morning before school. It was moving but was just head and upper torso the larger part of it body and wings had gone (for a birds dinner?)..she was fascinated and asked if i could check on it during the day to see how long it lived for

'Shabby chic' is my garden motto. I just love finding self / bird sown plants. Those in a difficult place, I pot up, nurture and pass on to others. Hopefully they sometimes bring me their 'spares'!
Have seen loads of bees, of all sorts. I love the orange bottomed ones! This year there does not seem to be saw fly caterpillars eating the Solomon Seal. It looks lovely. Happy Gardening. X

It is possible to have a beehive as a sort of garden lodger. We were asked once by a London beekeeper if we would consider housing one of his hives in our garden. All we had to do was let him put it in the garden and he would do the looking-after. We didn't take up the offer as we were away quite a lot at the time and he would have needed to come and attend to it.

I like the pothole garden, shysal. One of my grandsons likes gardens and I think he would enjoy making one of those. My late-flowering rowan has been heavy with blossom - my car, sitting under it, is covered every morning with tiny white petals and a lot of them have found their way inside - I need to vacuum today. The honey bees have been busy on the flowers and I predict a huge crop of berries this autumn - the yellow ones that the birds ignore until all other sources of nutrient have been exhausted.

Lovely!

The tray garden photos are super, shysal. The sunny yellow lounger is a nice touch!

Bags, I did collect together the stuff for a pothole garden with GCs, but couldn't find a suitable position away from traffic, so they ended up making a garden in a tray instead. I have put photos on my profile. GCs were adamant that I was not to tweek it!

I did see that Butty. Wondered if it would be hard wearing enough? I have heard that camomile lawns not nearly as tough as grass? You have to have the right kind of low nutrient soil don't you to get hay meadow flowers to bloom. Otherwise the nutrient-hungry grasses will take over.

Maybe you could become a pothole gardener too, shysal

What a good idea, shysal.

I love it Butty! I notice he had sprinklers going in the background, I avoid watering where possible. In the car park which serves my row of houses there is a patch of rubble-filled waste ground on a slope. My neighbour and I are gradually adding seeds and plants, but the dandelions and buttercups predominate. I put an edging of lavender in last week which should bring in bees. We are growing-on some ground cover plants from division and cuttings, so when the blister on my trowel hand heals (almost impossible to dig even small plant holes), and after much needed rain, I shall continue.

I like this idea
A scented lawn to encourage bees. Looks pretty, too.

I think every town and village should have wild flower designated areas to encourage insects and wildlife, they look so pretty too. I have noticed several roadside plots just across the border in Staffordshire.

Just a couple of weeks ago there were lovely natural areas of wild flowers in the local churchyard..........Then some do gooder decided to hack them down in order to tidy up for the village wakes I did complain but it fell on deaf ears.

I can't say I have noticed many bees, butterflys or ladybirds in the garden so far.

I've got lots of bees (don't know which type) on the blue geraniums and I've seen a few ladybirds so they are about...

This year I've noticed lots of self-seeded plants, particularly achimilla mollis that has filled in lots of gaps in the flower beds and on the paving. Cornflowers are everywhere just now. It feels like a gift from the garden and I'm very grateful - this is a new garden (this is the fourth summer) and it's taken a lot of money and effort to plant up but this year, despite the harsh winter and spring, it's looking wonderful! All those gaps I worried about last year have magically disappeared!

Yes, the lavender, when it flowers will be the ultimate test Jess that is normally swarming with bees. I agree about the tubular flowers which is why I mentioned foxgloves. Very worrying. I'd love to have a hive at the bottom of the garden. Has anyone on GN any experience of bee keeping?

Mine is planted with bumble bees etc in mind, but they are very few this year. Fruit farmers are predicting good apple crops etc this year due to cool spring but we shall see.
Bees like short tubular flowers like lavender.

merlot, I hope some of them were honey bees. My cotoneasters are covered in bees too, but none of them are honey bees. This year I'm seeing wasps on them too –presumably looking for tiny insects in the flowers rather than nectar.

There is something I don't recognise growing out of one of my compost heaps. I'm waiting for it to reveal itself...

Orchid count so far this year: 4. Two are in the same place as last year; two are newies.

My brand new garden is filling out nicely. This is helped by the grandchildren who sprinkled handfuls of poppy, calendula, cornflower, aster and nigella in between the designers carefully planted perennials and shrubs. This means I have a good basic design that can naturalise nicely!

Merlot .

Sexy gardening help , [give MR. M a rest] and ladybirds if you lucky , what more could a girl want ?

No aphids this year. Haven't seen a single ladybird

Sook. I would expect a lot done....in the garden of course.

Shades of Desperate Housewives merlot .

Ha Ha, Nonu, DH has help with the heavy work every Thursday afternoon. Mostly hedge trimming at this time of the year so maybe it's about time I got myself a sexy young gardener.