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07.08.2023 - 11:41 / blog.fantasticgardeners.co.uk
Birds make a great addition to your garden, they’re great to look at and they’re useful as well. For instance, they will eat slugs, snails, aphids, insects and other well-known troublemakers.
It’s not difficult to attract birds to your garden, here are our top tips.
There are many species of birds in the UK and most of them can be easily attracted to your garden, as long as your house isn’t situated too close to a big city. Big cities are usually only penetrated by predatory birds, like owls and gulls (in cities near the shore).
Some often-seen species are:
And many others. See a full list onBritish Garden Birds.
Nothing attracts animals, as well as food, does. Feeding birds year-round will make them stay with you. Avoid wheat unless you want pigeons (most gardeners don’t)! A mixture of seeds including millet, sunflower and hemp will attach many of the more colourful specimens, like tits and even bullfinches.
Fat balls are especially useful in the winter months as the high energy content will help your feathered friends resist the cold. Buy these in any garden centre, most DIY stores, or make your own.
You can easily make your own bird feeder with recycled materials. Here is a quick guide.
Unfrozen drinking water is vital in winter, but many birds also enjoy bathing and a simple bird bath will only set you back a few pounds. Bathing birds are great fun to watch!
Many species like to pop over to the bird feeder for a quick snack, then retreat into the safe cover of nearby trees or shrubs. Many plants that provide shelter will also double up as a food source in berries which also add autumn colour to your garden.
Birds use the winter to check out nesting sites and will be suspicious of new boxes initially. But, once they deem your
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“April showers bring May flowers.” English proverb
Here in the UK it’s traditional to take a couple of weeks off work over the summer and head off to somewhere with better weather – or at least somewhere that you can get away from it all for a little while. It’s one of the ironies of life that this takes you away from the garden at a time when it really could use your help. If you have a gardening neighbour then you can rely on them to take care of your garden while you’re away, but if you don’t and don’t want to come home to dead plants, weeds and giant marrows then there are a few things you can do to prepare your garden for your absence.
Header image: *Psyche Delia*/Flickr, CC BY-NC
Pea shoots are an oriental delicacy, regularly grown in gardens across China, but rarely seen for sale here in the UK because they’re very expensive for their weight. Cheap and easy to grow, pea shoots are an ideal candidate for growing in a kitchen garden because you’ll be getting a lot of value for your money and your space – even if all you have is a windowsill or a small container garden.
I grew up understanding the phrase “a bit Heath Robinson” as meaning something that had been cobbled together, but I wasn’t really aware of the fact that Heath Robinson was a real person. Born in 1872, he was an English cartoonist and illustrator, and he became famous for drawings of convoluted contraptions – ridiculously complicated machines that achieved things you don’t need a machine for. It was in this capacity that ‘Heath Robinson’ entered the dictionary in 1912; he became more synonymous with cobbling things together during the ‘Make Do and Mend’ campaign of the Second World War. In fact, one of the automated analysis machines at Bletchley Park – a forerunner of the codebreaking Colossus – was named Heath Robinson in his honour.
Emma White, University of Surrey and Sarah Golding, University of Surrey
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Gardening for some provides the daily bread, for others, it’s an escape from reality and for you, it might be your favourite hobby. Nevertheless, a garden decorated to your own preferences will act as a source of inspiration and will provide you a place to gather up your thoughts.
In their original environments, invasive plants are restrained by their natural adversaries, with whom they co-evolved. However, when they are introduced to a new environment without these natural enemies, some plants can flourish and spread uncontrollably, ultimately becoming invasive.
Have you ever wondered which flower best reflects your personality? Fantastic Gardeners just made a quiz which aims to define exactly your inner soul flower, based on your answers in a quest-like scenario. Let’s dig deep into psychology!
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