Our HUGE garden project. Ideas on wildlife friendly plants and garden tips please

ixwood

How exciting!

Any room for wildlife and a herb garden? Very peaceful and relaxing places. Might be good for your boy. Plants generally improve mood and flowers are supposed to calm and relax males with a female chemical.

He could also get close to nature and find a release that way. I'd definitely include some lavenders (maybe a small dividing hedge for a herb garden) and budlias for loads of bees and butterflys.

What about a little veg patch/bed area for growing your own? That too can be very satisfying and rewarding.

Or a little edible hedge maze?

OR, a tree house!!

Any pics?

blue_monkey_2

Ooooh ixwood, I am soooooooooo excited about my new garden - you might regret me getting started on this......

I've uploaded some pics onto Picasa so you can follow the progress if you want:

Garden Before

Taking Shape

We are having a huge decking area to sit out on and play on, some patio and paving (over 50 Sq Mtrs) so the kids can ride their bikes (our main reason for doing this as my son has autism so we cannot get out and play like others can) under the decking we are having some hedgehog homes for when the autumn comes. We have about 12 metres of flower bed area where we are having lots of bee and butterfly homes on the posts as well as bird boxes and lots of butterly and bee friendly plants (suggestions are most welcome), I got a new 'deluxe bird feeding station' to go up. We have a pond now and we have Koi but they are growing bigger then we ever imagined already so we are having a new and deeper pond built and it is being fenced and gated in with a bridge from the decking over the pond to the patio area so totally enclosed and child safe. The old pond is being 'filled in' with large round rocks so that frogs and newts can live amongst them and it will be shallow so the kids can use it for watching the wildlife, this will be our new wildlife pond and the fish are coming out (might get some sticklebacks or minnow though) so the other wildlife can live without the fear of being eaten and there will be no filters running through removing all of the natural food!! We are also having a net frame built over the small pond (it is on the patio area) so that if we have other visiting children they cannot fall in - my kids are used to it but I would worry if other peoples kids were out there. Oh and I want to make some bumble bee nests to put into the earth. While this is a childrens garden there is no reason why kids and wildlife cannot live alongside each other and my children love wildlife, as I did at their age (and still do), so I would love to actively encourage this.

I have thought about a veggie patch and think that once the back end of the garden is done I will get some raised beds from buildbase so the kids can have that at the top end of the garden so they can learn about growing. This garden has SO much potential as we have so much room. I've thought about a playhouse too and we saw one at the weekend but the kids are 5 and 6 and not sure if they'll soon be too big for a playhouse. A local garden centre is installing them free at the moment so a good time to buy I guess.

And then later on we are going to start saving again to get the back end of the garden built (another 30 metres which is where the kids trampoline and play frame is), we are having bat boxes and possibly Owl boxes if we can get them high enough as we have a lot of owls in this area. I found a stag beetle last year when we moved in so we are having some rotting log piles so that we can encourage the stag beetles and other bugs. If we have enough money we are getting a 21 x 15 cabin built (£3,500 the one we have seen) so that I can work from that as I run a business from home, we have found the one we want but it is going to mean around 9 months of solid hard saving - but when you have something to save for it makes it sooooo worthwhile. And then later on, probably next year, we are going to get some patio doors put in so we can come out of those onto the decking or just have the door open in the evening and watch the sun set behind the trees that overlook the house

I am so excited. Can you tell?? I want it done already!! The fish have started coming up from the bottom of the pond now it is getting warmer so I would like it finished by the end of March before the frogs come to spawn. We already have 3 in there as we saw them yesterday, plus we saw a few of the baby fish from last year (a total surprise!!) and they are weeny and so cute. I dread to think how many are there, we bought some fish in July and they spawned a few weeks later and we know we have at least 4 babies left from what we have seen. And the small kio we bought are not so small now and this is why we need the bigger pond. I'll be happy to share, I'l get some pictures of the 'before' later.

Whoooo, I literally just come off the phone, he is starting tomorrow and the digger is coming today. I am so excited I could cry!!

ixwood

Wow. Sounds amazing!

Sounds like you've already got nature well and truely catered for.

Budlias are probably the best butterfly plants. Save the sunniest spot for the butterflies and the bees. And lavenders look amazing covered in 100's of bees.

You can also plant for birds, as well as feeding them.

Fruit bushes and trees are brilliant for wildlife and you. Birds like the cover, Bees love the blossom, they look nice and give you (and the birds and insects more than likely) fruit!

Bushes and the like are generally much easier to grow and require much less maintance than veg, as veg are annuals that need sowing and protecting every year. Bushes, shrubs and trees are perianals that are better at looking after themselves. And MUCH better for wildlife.

The "discount" supermarkets, wilkos, poundland etc have cottoned on to the green revolution that's happening and keep getting loads of fruit bushes and trees in very cheap, as well as other gardening stuff.

Fill your boot.. Garden! I have been. I'm in the process of making a fruit and nut garden.

ixwood

Old teapots can be used for bumble bee nests. google it for details, but basically you bury it and leave the spout as an access tunnel.

Koi get very big and are very mucky fish. People spend £1000's building the sort of pond and filtration they require as they get bigger.

The patio door idea sound nice. Have you consider the newish posh folding doors instead? You see them on grand designs, but more commonly available now from the likes of B & Q. The whole lot fold/slide out of the way removing any barrier and making it one seamless space.

Have you thought about a meadow area? All insects/wildlife will love it and they look great.

ixwood

With all that space to plant, you can fit loads of useful and nice plants in.

I love:-

http://www.pfaf.org/index.php

It's basically a database of virtually every useful plant you can grow here. You can have a beautiful, wildlife friendly, edible/useful garden all in one.

Are chickens an option? Another healthy and rewarding interest!

Sorry if I'm getting carried away. I'm living my huge garden fantasy/dream theough this thread/your garden. lol.

ixwood

If you've got that much spave, plant some ash along a boundary (or hawthorn, cherry, pear, apple...) and get a wood burner.

aliasojo

blue_monkey wrote: »

I've uploaded some pics onto snapfish and started a 'Group Project Room' so you can follow the progress if you want: www.ourgardenlandscapingproject.snapfish.co.uk/snapfishuk

Lol...my garden is tiny compared to yours. I'd love to watch the progress though, it might make me get a move on to start mine. I'm jealous.:D

When I clicked on your link, it just goes to a snapfish page....I cant see any pics?

blue_monkey_2

Hi Jo, I think you have to register to look as I've set up a 'project/group' thing so I can add more pics as we go.

Ixy, thank you for all of those suggestions. I already have a bag of bulbs and plants we bought last year (in the sale) and some raspberry bushes. I am not keen on hawthorn in case the kids fall into it. The nieghbours have chickens - that is enough for us, I know I might forget to lock them up, they lost their rabbit and a g pig to the foxes in the summer and it has made me a bit fearful for getting little outside things now, there are a lot of foxes around here - plus some dogs with bloody irresponsible owners that seem to let them off wherever. I've had 3 labs in the last 3 weeks sniffing around the garden and last year a springer came into the house from the back of the garden and attacked one of my cats as well. Mind you we are getting a big fence - that is the next job as the damn labs knocked down the fence we have.

I am not sure if you can see but under the slide of the play frame there is a row of apple trees, we trimmed them back last year and now they should grow around the tower so that eventually the tower will be enclosed in apple trees

Again, I have thought about a wood burner as it would look lovely but my son would not understand it is hot so we cannot have one of those. We looked at some fire pits the otherday but I know he would get hurt, so for now it's a no-no.

You can all get carried away as much as you like I love more inspiration. I've got some buddliea roots from our ast place - we never got around to planting them last year, so they are waiting to go in. I am just so excited, the kids will have their sunflowers as well.

My husband already bought this super filter system for the pond (you know men and their gadgets!) but I have always loved Ghost Carp and I thought they would look fab darting around in the pool so I bought 3 and then get another 2 as well as 2 koi, 2 shubumkins and 3 Goldfish we had bought with us from our last house. We also bought 2 Golden Tench to clean the bottom and we have some mussles as well, it'll be nice to get them in the bigger and deeper pond though.

I've not seen the patio doors you are talking about I shall mention these to my hubby.

I've felt a bit down about the garden and I've always been unmotivated but having it done and getting it look nice has been a huge inspiration and now I cannot wait to get everything planted.

The chap showed me pictures of the work he had done before and in all of them the lady of the house is out planting before the chaps had even cleaned up and left, LOL. That'll be me!! Everything is arriving next week and I think it'll be lovely for the 2 weeks over Easter, hopefully the sun will come out and we can have some time to appreciate it and get the new plants in. I've got plans to do it with the kids.

I'll be updating it of course. I'll go and amend the title of this thread as well so others can give their inspiration. The more the merrier

aliasojo

I've just registered and I still cant see any pics *sob*. What am I doing wrong?

ixwood

Here's the sliding door type things:-

http://www.foldingslidingdoors.com/

(That was the 1st random site I found by the way. )