Natural Surroundings Offshoot

I hope you enjoyed Anne’s plant story explaining how she came to build her series of small wildlife gardens on a field in Norfolk. Now, in this offshoot episode, you can take a tour around the gardens.

Key points to build your wildlife garden

The goal is to attract and support insects; bees, butterflies, moths and other wildlife year-round. In Anne’s gardens - Natural Surroundings - over 800 species of moths and 40 bee species, including solitary and bumblebees have been recorded. The gardens literally hum and buzz with life - as you will hear. Even tiny spaces can support pollinators and other wildlife with annuals, ponds, or bee hotels and I hope we will all take away one or two ideas from Anne.

Design Principles

Always have something flowering in every season (April–October and beyond).

• Mix of habitats: meadows, woodland, bee garden, ponds, annual patches, microclimates.

• Use of water in any size — from barrels and sunken tyres, to ponds

• Incorporate bee hotels (homemade using bamboo, wood, oasis blocks).

• Accept a certain amount of “wildness” — avoid over-tidiness.

• Provide materials: sand, soil, bark, logs for insects.

Plants mentioned in the episode

Meadow & Wildflowers

• Cornfield annuals:

  • Poppies

  • Corn marigolds

  • Cornflowers

  • Corn chamomile

  • Corn cockle

  • Bladder campion

Pollinator Plants

• Common knapweed

• Catmint (Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’)

• Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare)

• Echinops (globe thistle)

• Hemp agrimony

• Honesty

• Aquilegias

• Woodruff (spring)

• Cardoon

• Water mint

• Marshmallow gold

Bulbs

• Snowdrops

• Daffodils (emphasis on wild/naturalised forms)

• Crocus

Gunnera Species (National Collection)

• Gunnera magellanica

• Gunnera hamiltonii

Bees

Anne encourages us all to build or buy a bee hotel (or several!) and there are lots of instructions to be found online. She leaves hers out all year, letting nature take its course. The bee garden with its mix of pollinator plants and different habitats like a sand mound or bark or a bee hotel has attracted over 40+ bee species, including:

• Mining bees

• Leafcutter bees

• Resin bees

• Woolcarder bees

• Mason bees

• Bumblebees

• Hairy-footed flower bees

Recommended Reading

How to Make a Wildlife Garden, by Chris Baines.

Maybe curl up with a copy of this over winter and start to make your lists of things to do to make your garden a little more wildlife friendly. And if you haven’t listened to the first episode with Anne describing her journey into wildlife friendly gardening you can listen below.

And if you can take a visit to Natural Surroundings in Norfolk in the UK, you too will be able to wander around the bee garden or the bog garden, peer into the creepy-crawly garden or gaze on the butterfly garden. Take a look at the website for opening times.