5 reasons to create a fabulous front garden

In all of the years we’ve been designing gardens we’re rarely asked to do anything with a front garden. Not many of us have a frontage like Kiftsgate, seen here in our image, but most of us do seem to think long and hard about what we want from our back gardens but rarely approach our front gardens with the same level of gusto – or indeed with any level of gusto to be fair – which is a shame.

When we ask clients what they want from their back gardens the lists we get back are usually long and multi-faceted but ask somebody what they want from their front garden and most people tend to lean towards the ‘somewhere to park the car’ and ‘somewhere to hide the bins’ approach, and don’t take their thoughts any further. But why stop there? We may not want to sit out and entertain in the front garden but a fabulous front garden is in reach of anyone who has one and in this blog we’re going to try to convince you why it’s worth going beyond the total paving approach to our front gardens and opting instead for a beautiful, planted but still functional space.

So, in no particular order here are our top 5 reasons to create a fabulous front garden…

Aesthetics. Put simply, a street full of lovely front gardens is a nicer place to be and see, but aesthetics have an economic trade off as well because that kerbside appeal translates into improved house prices. A well kept front garden tops the list of the top 5 exterior must-haves for homebuyers with almost a third of us being willing to pay up to 20% more for a home with kerbside-appeal.
Supporting wildlife. While gardens will never replace natural habitats they are an important nature reserve that can support a substantial range of wildlife. Evidence is growing that some species that were once common in low-intensity farmland are now more abundant in urban areas and particularly in domestic gardens.
Mitigate flooding. More and more of us are increasing the amount of paving we have in our gardens, especially our front gardens; a trend that has been linked to a higher frequency and magnitude of flooding in those areas with increased levels of impervious paving. Recognising these problems the UK now has legislation relating to front gardens and flooding. Simply put, permeable surfaces and planted up front gardens help prevent flooding. Vegetation, especially trees, acts like a storm water management tool. It captures intense rainfall and temporarily holds it in its canopy which eases demands on urban drains. At its other end vegetation encourages better infiltration of water into the soil which reduces surface water flows.
Reduce urban temperatures. Urban areas – dominated by dark and impervious surfaces – absorb considerably more heat and reflect considerably less than planted surfaces; which makes them warmer than planted areas. This is essentially what causes the urban heat island effect where cities experience higher than normal temperatures as compared to surrounding rural areas. Current research suggests that a 10% increase in vegetated surfaces in urban areas would help manage the rise of summertime air temperatures due to climate change; our front gardens have the potential to significantly contribute to this goal.
Improve human health. Much research points to the benefit of green spaces in human health terms – alleviating stress, improving cognitive function, improved self discipline; reduced illness levels, better relaxation and being able to cope with trauma have all been evidenced, while the act of gardening brings with it physical health benefits too.

This list isn’t exhaustive but when so many positive consequences can come from reconsidering and treating your front garden as a garden rather than a car park and bin store why wouldn’t you opt for a fabulous front garden?

Winter, you’ve never smelled so good

Winter, you’ve never smelled so good

According to a recent garden trends survey 49% of us use our gardens to feed/watch or to encourage wildlife. We spend around £250 million a year on feeding birds alone but whilst many of us step up our bird feeding habits through the winter it can be a tough time of year for our beleaguered winter-active pollinators, with natural food sources being generally, and literally, very thin on the ground. But that doesn’t have to be the case in our gardens. There are some fantastic winter flowering plants that can not only be a life saving food source for our pollinators, but can also add beauty, interest and often masses of scent to our winter gardens too.

In no particular order here are some of our scented winter favourites that are perfect for pollinators too:

Clematis ‘Jingle Bells’ flowers between January and March. An evergreen climber its citrus-scented flowers are creamy white and bell shaped. There are plenty of other winter-flowering, scented clematis too such as balearica or ‘Lansdowne Gem’.
Mahonia – an evergreen shrub with spiney green leaves and clusters of often heavily scented, usually yellow flowers in autumn through to spring – try ‘Sweet Winter’ or ‘Charity’
Daphnes are super-fragrant. Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’, for instance, is a much-used evergreen shrub with variegated green and yellow leaves. Its clusters of richly smelling purple buds to pink flowers appear January to March.
Sarcococca – also known as Christmas Box or Sweet Box because of its sweetly scented pure white flowers which appear from December through to March. An evergreen shrub perfect for shade.
Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ – often looking like a very small tree this deciduous shrub produces dense clusters of richly fragrant dark pink flowers on its bare stems from November to March.
Chimonanthus praecox – its common name, wintersweet gives the game away. It produces small, sweetly scented yellow flowers with purple centres, on bare branches from December to February.
Hamamelis x intermedia also produces its flowers on bare branches in December through to February. Different varieties produce different flower colours from Pallida’s sulphur yellow to Diane’s coppery-red.
Winter honeysuckle such as Lonicera fragrantissima is a deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub that produces scented, creamy-white flowers in December through to March.
For scented perennials that pollinators adore, try Hellebores. Not all of them are scented but varieties such as ‘Miss Jekyll’s Scented’ or odorus are, and can produce flowers from December through to May. These nodding, often semi-evergreen perennials are a star of the winter border.
A variety of spring bulbs including aconite, crocus, daffodil, muscari, tulip and snowdrops all have scented varieties too and are all fabulous for pollinators. A mix of varieties can provide flowers and scent from February through to May and by adding scented cyclamen varieties too, this season can be extended all the way back to October.

Winter flowers tend to be less showy than their other-season counterparts but they do often pack a punch scent-wise since that is one of their main communication tools for attracting pollinators. So, including as many plants like these in your winter garden will pretty much guarantee a busy, pollinator-viewing winter experience. Though in terms of designing with scent try to choose plants whose scents complement each other rather than compete. Too many different scents can be overpowering but if all you’re likely to do is look at your winter garden through the windows of your home then competing scents aren’t going to be problematic. If you’re likely to be immersed in your winter garden then choosing plants whose scents complement each other or placing plants carefully when scents are likely to compete with each other, then becomes key.

Generally speaking, placing scented plants under windows, or next to doorways and gates and along pathways or the edges of patios, works wonderfully well for us because they allow us to engage more easily with their scent. But wherever they are placed, scented, winter-flowering plants can be life-savers for our winter-active pollinators.

Garden Trends – 20 for the 20s

It’s that time of year…

Chances are you’re starting to think about your garden. If you’re not sure where to take it we thought that with the start of a new decade it would be fun to have a go at predicting some of the garden trends and practices we’d expect to be seeing over the next decade. It might help inform some of the decisions you make in your own garden. So, in no particular order here are our 20 for the 20’s…

Purposeful. Gardens will be more than something to look at and enjoy; we think they will be increasingly designed and built to achieve things too. So, for instance, they might be helping to manage rain water within your property, or boosting wildlife habitat, etc.
Wildlife. We’d expect to see a more relaxed style to our gardens as supporting wildlife becomes ever more important. Increasing development plans brings with it decreasing wildlife habitat and we expect to see more and more people want to do more for our beleaguered wildlife.
GYO. As plant based diets, increasing food costs and the need to know where our food comes from continue to surge we’d expect to see more people growing their own.
Indoor. Houseplants sales have been a growing trend over the last few years and we’d expect that trend to continue, driven mainly by increasing urbanisation, pollution and lack of access to nature.
Containers. With increasing numbers of renters and gardens getting smaller and smaller container gardening is likely to make a big step forward as a portable, viable option for many dealing with little or no-soil spaces.
Vertical. We’d expect to see many more living walls appear driven mainly by lack of space and a changing climate.
Green roofs. Currently concentrated around London, Birmingham and Manchester we’d expect to see green roofs more widely spread around the UK. The benefits of them far outweigh any negatives.
Low maintenance. While we see the drivers behind people’s decisions about their gardens changing, time-poor people generally want to enjoy their gardens rather than ’maintain’ them.
Technology. Where there’s a will there’s usually an app for it! We expect the use of tech in the garden to grow over the next decade.
Sustainable choices. As awareness of the climate crisis grows we expect growing consumer demand for more sustainable options to elicit significant changes in garden related markets.
Soil. We expect to see soil care taking centre stage in gardens with no-dig outweighing dig methods, home composts and green manures being increasingly used.
Composting. We expect to see increasing numbers of people home composting driven by soil and waste awareness, and economics.
Organic. The organic market has seen consistent steady growth over the last six years and we expect to see that trend continuing through the next decade.
Plastic. Worth a mention of its own, the plastics battle is likely to rage throughout the 20s and beyond. In the design and gardening fields we expect to see a major shift in demand to natural and plastic-free materials.
RRR. We expect to see a buoyant reclamation sector emerge around the landscaping industry as people’s desire to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle materials grows. On more individual levels we expect to see a growing trend for personal upcycling/repurposing garden projects.
Water management. Future predictions for the UK weather points to hotter, drier summers and much wetter, warmer winters so water management is likely to play an increasingly important part of our garden planning.
Adaptive planting. Increasingly our plants need to cope with significant weather events so we expect to see more adaptive planting styles coming to the fore. Plants are likely to be chosen more for their adaptability than their looks.
Trees, shrubs & hedges. With their superior ability to help mitigate flooding, reduce temperature and support wildlife we expect to see a resurgence of tree, shrub and hedge planting across UK gardens.
Plant biosecurity. Increasing awareness of the potential import of foreign pests and diseases into our fragile eco-system will see the demand for reputable plant suppliers rise. However, with new customs practices and probable rise in plant costs we also wouldn’t be surprised to see a rise in black market plant sales potentially bypassing the plant passport system.
British grown. Linked to the above we expect to see a big rise in the use of British grown plants.

Up Front Garden Design

Up Front Garden Design

I thought I’d make a change from normal proceedings this time around, and rather than focus on a garden design principle or tip I thought I’d consider a specific area of our home: often overlooked, but always on view, our front gardens frequently get short shrift when it comes to imaginative home improvement.

Recent trends in front gardens have seen significant increases in full paving practices and substantial reductions in plants both of which have detrimental knock on effects to humans, wildlife and the planet as a whole. It may sound dramatic and it’s easy to think that ‘my little bit’ won’t make a difference but cumulatively lots of ‘little bits’ following these trends are increasing the possibilities of flooding, contributing to climbing urban temperatures and pollution levels, impacting negatively on wildlife and making our environment more fractious, depressing places to live.

It may sound trite to say that a little bit of garden design inspiration can help mitigate these very real threats to ours and our natural world’s existence but if we all start to really think about the space outside our homes as a ‘garden’ first and a car park or a bin store or a mere transition point from a pavement to our front door second, then we just might stand a chance of reversing these damaging trends. Don’t get me wrong, I still stand by the design mantra of ‘form ever follows function’ but there’s no ‘form’ in fully paving a front garden; it is functionality without form and it is that idea – that you have to sacrifice form entirely in order to get a car (as an example) onto your front garden – that I want us all to reconsider. With a little bit of imagination and an application of design principles there is no reason why we can’t have our cake and eat it too i.e. have a functional but still lovely front garden.

So, some top tips for achieving it? Read on…

Approach your front garden design as you would your back garden. Be considered!
Make a plan of your front garden so you know how much space you have available to you. Make particular note of boundaries and house walls too.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the only option available to you is to completely pave over your garden!
Minimise paving as much as you can, either don’t include any at all or combine paving with permeable surfaces so that rainwater can penetrate to the ground below. This will help mitigate the potential for flooding.
Make a list of what you want to use your front garden for. If its car parking for instance, consider how many cars you really need to park on your front garden (if space allows!). If the number includes ‘occasional’ or overspill spaces you can be more creative with that. For instance you can occasionally park on a lawn (especially if it’s been reinforced with plastic cell/mesh products!). And night time and weekend only cars can be accommodated with gravel options and drive over planting such as Thyme, Creeping Jenny (use this one sparingly, it can be invasive!) or Ajuga.
Aim to maximise planting – it reduces pollution, urban heating, can help reduce flooding, is great for wildlife and humans alike:
- Consider hedges instead of boundary walls or fences – hedges are great for screening, for wildlife and also act as a filter for dust from the street – they also look great!
- If you can’t use a hedge look at your boundaries and house walls for vertical and climbing plant potential.
- Use corners for planting opportunities – you usually can’t park in a corner! Consider small trees in corners that can add height and interest to your space.
- If you have very little space available to you utilise containers to their best effect – you can still get plants around you!
- Also consider green roofing – can you plant up your car port or bin store roof?

Hopefully this will give you some ideas of where to start and we can all begin to make our neighbourhoods lovelier places to be! Check out the RHS website too for more ideas about how to green your little bit of grey Britain.

Colour in the Garden – Outstanding Yellow

What’s not to love about yellow you might think – it’s bright, cheery, striking; there are some gorgeous yellow- flowered and leafed plants; it’s sunshiny disposition is a tonic, managing to uplift us all, especially in spring. But yellow is not without its detractors it seems. The modernists of the 50’s for instance disliked yellow for its intensity, considering it way too jarring to be comfortable; and yellow has been banned from many a ‘snob’s’ garden for simply being considered the colour of ‘the people’.

Controversy and prejudice aside though yellow has a lot going for it in terms of garden design and if you can harness its power effectively the results can be spectacular.

Like red, yellow is both a primary colour and a ‘hot’ one and many of the attributes of red also apply to yellow. For instance both colours draw attention and as such seem to ‘advance’ – useful if you want to make a large space appear smaller. Play around with hues though and yellow becomes much more versatile than red. Paler yellow can act as a soothing balm to other colours for instance – odd for a hot colour; and an all yellow – but different shades – scheme works so much better than an all red planting scheme. The secret to its success is probably in its positioning on the colour wheel. Sitting right next to green – THE predominant neutral colour of any garden – yellow blends with green like no other colour.

But it’s not only green that yellow works well with. Pair it with blues and purples (violet) and it acts as a spectacular foil to its complementary colours; and still further, no hot border will ever be complete without the analogous colours of red, orange and yellow.

Yellow is also one of the best natural reflectors of light in a garden – edge a pathway with yellow foliage or flowered plants and you instantly create a ‘light marker’ along the path. Position yellow in areas that get early or late sunshine and you create golden ‘glows’ around your garden. Pale yellows, like white, seem to glow in a night time garden.

Whilst yellow can seem super fresh and radiant on hot sunny days, summer time is perhaps its least effective season because of its reflective qualities. Depending on the tone of yellow, very bright sunshine can make a bright yellow seem far too dazzling and overpowering whereas the softer light of spring, autumn and winter tends to only bring out the best of yellow.

One of the tricks of using yellow to its best advantage is to mass plant with it rather than dot it around a border. Think how striking fields of sunflowers or rapeseed are when seen en masse and whilst we don’t all have a field available to us we can proportionally mass plant within the space we do have. And one more thing about yellow (flowers) that’s worth mentioning: bees love it (even though they think its blue)… and we love bees… so what’s not to love?

Planning for Spring in Autumn

Yes, that’s right and there’s no better time than late autumn to plan for spring! The garden centres, nurseries and in some cases even supermarkets have huge amounts of spring flowering bulbs for sale right now so it really is the perfect time to buy and plant them. Just the sight of snowdrops or daffodils can make even us feel just a little excited that spring is on the way and the cold winter months are being left far behind us. Spring plants are also one of the earliest sources of nectar for our emerging bees and other pollinating insects that really need do need a food source.

Some people I have spoken to see bulbs on sale and buy a selection of those they know or have heard of and plant them up and there is nothing wrong with that at all. However, if this is you why not try something different this year and here’s a few questions to ask yourself which could influence your decision:

What bulbs did you buy last year?
Does your garden have a particular colour scheme throughout the year?
Are you aware of any planting gaps in the borders around spring?

Once you have the answers to these questions you’ll have more of an idea how to plan for early colour next year. If you don’t have a colour scheme in your garden don’t worry just try to think of a pleasing colour scheme and use it to plan for spring. T. 'Flaming Spring Green', for instance, looks great paired with blue Forget-me-nots (as shown in our image) where it can give a real pop of colour.

There are so many different varieties of tulips some are late spring and others early summer but you can find those that are a solid colour and others mixed. Let’s take soft, muted pinks and purples as our colour scheme for this example Tulips, e.g. Tulipa ‘China Pink’, T. ‘Ballade’, T. ‘Greuze’ or T. ‘Queen of the Night’. So, where do daffodils fit with these colours? There are several varieties of daffodils that are white or cream with limited yellow in the centre so you could look out for those rather than the bright yellow ones that are likely to clash e.g. Narcissus ‘Actaea’ or N. ‘Cool Crystal’. White is a colour that is often used sparingly in planting design for the eye to naturally rest and this provides a comfortable break or pause from colours. Snowdrops will do this perfectly, there are so many different varieties why not try a different one this year? You could try Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ or G. elwesii. There are a huge variety of bulbs or other small flowering plants in so many different colour schemes that can add interest in your spring garden such as Fritillaria meleagris, Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’, Eryanthis hyemalis, Muscari armeniacum, Primula vulgaris also crocus and various cylamen.

Once you have decided upon your bulbs check which months they flower to ensure that you have colour as early as possible and every month right through until your established garden plants begin to come into their own. Don’t forget to plant up your containers too as they will give you more interest and you can move them around the garden. If you have squirrels in your area lay some chicken wire or similar over the containers for protection until they start to grow.

The next stage is to buy them and remember a tool to plant them with, if you have only bought a few you would get away with a hand held tool if you’ve bought a lot it would be worth investing in one with a long handle that you can use standing up. Buying the right tools for the job makes the job much more pleasurable and less painful!!

We’ve only really touched lightly on planning for spring, if you want to know what to do now for your garden in spring give us a call we’ll be happy to come out and give you some advice.

Pledge for Pollinators

Pledge for Pollinators

Here at Blue Daisy we’re really passionate about saving our humble British bumble bee and other pollinating insects like hoverflies, moths and butterflies. The decline in our pollinating insects, especially bees, has been noticed through various studies over the last 50 years or so, the reasons are far reaching but one has been the reduction of our wild-flower meadows through the use of chemicals. Recently it has become a hot topic with many organisations including the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) taking up the mantel led by Sarah Raven, to help gardeners identify the best plants in garden centres. They have introduced a badge called ‘Perfect for Pollinators’ which will be on plant labels in all good garden centres.

Why are we interested in pollinating insects? Well in brief, they transfer the pollen from one flower to the next allowing it to be fertilized, which means it will have the ability to set seed or produce fruits. This is really important for us all, if plants aren’t able to set seed we risk reducing the amount of plants we can have as they could become endangered or extinct. The worst case scenario is that the pollinated flowers don’t turn into fruit which means it could have a huge impact on what we are growing and eating, or not eating as the case may be! The pollination would need to be done by hand, it would be such a laborious task taking so many hours that the products themselves would subsequently be so highly priced the average person in the street may not be able to afford them.

We rely on insects to pollinate apples, raspberries, strawberries, red and blackcurrants, plums and pears so that we may eat and enjoy them. It doesn’t just stop at fruit the bean family i.e. broad beans and runner beans also the marrow and pumpkin family too are pollinated by insects. The value of insect-pollinated fruit and vegetables grown here in the UK is a staggering £220 million every year.*

What can we do? There are so many things that we as garden owners can do to help the bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies. Did you know that the combined area of our gardens is larger than all of our nature reserves combined? It goes without saying if we change but one thing in our garden we are helping the biodiversity for our community which in turn will have a beneficial effect for our diets, also our colour and variety rich gardens. Here are just a few things you can do:

Avoid ‘doubles’ or showy blooms because they have been bred specifically for show, there is either little or no nectar available making it so difficult for the insects to find.
Plant insect friendly plants in a sunny spot clumped together so they can be visited without too much effort of flying a huge way to find a food source
Don't use pesticides
Attract moths by planting nocturnal flowering plants
Leave a small amount of fallen fruit under a tree in the autumn as butterflies feed on the over-ripe juices.
Leave an area in your garden to nature, let the grass and weeds grow a bit longer.
Have clean water available as all insects need to drink, make sure there is a shallow ledge or a few stones in there so they can stand safely whilst drinking.
Consider growing all types of plants from trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals to encourage a wider range of insects to visit your garden.

Here at Blue Daisy this year we will be encouraging our customers to consider the insects in their gardens. We will be advising which plants to buy to extend the pollinating seasons and above all we guarantee that all our planting plans will have pollinator friendly plants incorporated.

Blue Daisy is asking you to consider what you can do to help our insects, asking you to think about what new plants you are buying and making sure that at least 50% of them are pollinator friendly from now on. You don’t have to start from scratch in your garden it’s about being realistic, it’s about understanding what is in your garden now and what you can add to make it more friendly.

From now on please consider our pollinating insects every time you buy new plants for your garden or as presents for friends and relatives. Blue Daisy is a small business but if we and all of our customers, old and new, commit and if we can convince anyone else to along the way, together we will hopefully be starting a wave of change! So please, commit now yourself and use our social media buttons at the bottom of this article to get the message out to others! We really can't afford to lose our pollinators and we CAN do something about it, so please, let's try.

*Source: www.rhs.org.uk

Good Pollinator Plants

The RHS has produced a list of plants that are perfect for pollinators and here are a few of our favourite plants from that list:

Winter:
Sarcococca hookeriana (winter box)
Galanthus nivalis (single snowdrop)

Spring:
Chaenomeles x superba (Japanese quince)
Geranium phaeum (dusky cransebill)
Ribes sanquineum (flowering currant)

Summer:
Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush)
Lavender cultivars
Verbena bonariensis

Autumn:
Anemone hupehensis (Japanese anenome)
Dahlia cultivars (single flowering )

Useful Pollinator Links

A Garden for all Seasons

A garden isn't just for summer - it's for 12 months of the year!

Some people often think that as soon as the leaves fall and the dark nights come everything stops in the garden. Well, they couldn’t be more wrong – while, for most of the year your garden is an entertaining space, a playground for children or a showcase for your favourite plants – it’s also there for 12 months of the year and since I’m sure you’ll be able to see it from more than one window of your home, it's also a winter vista, so why not make the most of it?

Personal Style

We all have a preferred way we like our home and gardens to look and that identity is very personal, it isn’t right or wrong, it is just our choice. Some people like to have their garden pristine with lawn edges sharp, any sign of dead or decaying plants quickly removed; perennials that are beginning to die down and over winter underground are swiftly cut back. This results in a very neat and tidy garden for winter which more often than not just leaves the evergreen plants or shrubs and any deciduous trees or shrubs as the only structure in the garden.

Other people will remove anything that is dead, diseased or damaged and remove any fallen leaves but leave perennials with seed heads throughout the winter. This does have its advantages with seed heads swaying in the breeze and glistening on a frosty morning providing something different to look at over the winter. Of course, the other benefit is to the insects as this will provide them with places to overwinter.

Regardless of your style the autumn and winter are a great time to ask yourself:

Are there any gaps in the planting?
Can I see colour in the borders?
Do I have something to look at?
Can I still see wildlife in my garden?
What month do I lose the plant interest and what month does it start again?

Planning Ahead

These questions are really helpful to prolong the interest in your garden through the winter – but can also be considered in other months too. A photo diary can help too – take photos throughout the year to see if there are any places that have bare patches, are less interesting or even are too full. This helps you plan but a few things you can do to make sure your garden does its job for the full 12 months are:

Consider buying some shrubs that have winter interest whether that is for the striking coloured bark of Dogwoods (e.g. Cornus kesslerignii, Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’) or you could consider Christmas Box or Witch Hazel (e.g. Sarcococca confusa, Hamamelis mollis) both have flowers and a lovely winter fragrance that fills the air on a cold and frosty day!
Plan ahead - buy and plant spring flowering bulbs and either plant in specific places or for a more natural look simply mix them up, throw them in the air and plant them where they fall.
Don’t forget your containers! Nip out to the local garden centre or nursery and buy some seasonal plants to provide immediate interest, you can plant bulbs in there or add them to your current containers which will offer you something different to look at in spring.

Go ahead, enjoy your winter garden. If you need any help or advice please do contact Nicki at Blue Daisy.

Lawns Gone Wild!

Just let it go…

I recently read an interesting article by Frank Ronan in Gardens Illustrated (May 2010) called ‘Live and Let Grow’ which has inspired us to write another lawn related blog. It is something that we really like the idea of and have recently seen some great examples. Some people can be quite obsessed about their lawns ensuring they are highly manicured, so if you recognise yourself in that description, the following may be quite a scary concept for you!

Consider letting your lawn or an area within your lawn just grow long and wild. The grasses will eventually flower and other flowers will self seed and look beautiful and natural as they sway in the breeze. Not just good for aesthetic reasons alone it also encourages a whole new level of bio-diversity into your garden.

The best way to do this is to mow an edge around the proposed meadow area for two reasons, one is for ease of maintaining and keeping pathways clear. The other is to provide a ‘frame’ for the meadow area making a feature of it so that it can be admired by your friends and family members.

How to do it? Well simply just leave an area not mowed in the springtime and as it all begins to grow it will provide an area for small insects and as the flowers set seed the birds will have a feast! Leave the grass long overwinter as it can provide a useful habitat for small creatures to hibernate. Next spring just cut it back and let it grow all over again!

Wild areas in the garden whether it is the lawn or a pile of logs needn't look messy – get creative as insects, animals and birds don’t really mind as long as they can access the nectar, seeds or simply take shelter in longer grasses, so make it look chic!

If this is something that you’re interested in and live in or near to Kenilworth we’d love to help you create that meadow look either with or for you.