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DIGGING DEEP
Gardening with Pulse
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e’ve spent the past couple of issues advising how and when to start planning the year ahead for your garden and when to think about putting down the seeds that will provide good stuff throughout the year – including fruit and vegetables. But this month, we are turning our attention to something else you can do to enhance your outside space, and it’s an easy way to help bees and butterflies find their way to you; by sowing wildflowers. Wildflowers will transform a bland space into an attractive one that is bursting with colour and life. As a youngster, I used to love feeling the sun on my back, taking in the views of the blooming wildflowers, and listening to the chirping of grasshoppers, but it’s something that future generations will never experience unless we act now. In less than a century, 97% of our wild flower meadows have been lost. Of course, our own back gardens don’t lend themselves to a luscious green meadow bursting with pops of wildflower colour, but we can still help to make a difference. If we all do a little, the combined efforts count for a lot. We can start by ditching the fake stuff! Insects can’t live in fake grass, birds can’t feed from it, and it uses plastic which can’t be recycled. At a time when our wildlife is struggling to adapt to loss of habitat because of our intensive farming and new builds, do we
Top Tip... With so much attention focused on our outside spaces, it can be easy to overlook what’s going on inside the home - but our houseplants need a little TLC too. Too much water is more likely to kill your plant, as opposed to too little. Plants don’t like warm water and they hate icy cold water just as much - when giving them a drink, make sure the water is at room temperature, and you might need to increase the frequency or amount you give at this time of the year, simply because many of our plants tend to grow more in the spring and summer. In next month’s issue, we’ll be exploring how you can ensure your houseplants are healthy and happy. 58
How does your garden grow? Companion Planting
Wildflowers will help bring your garden to life
really need to add plastic grass into the mix of issues for them? Micro plastics will also find their way into our soil, and the contamination will last for centuries. And, while you might think they look attractive, it won’t take too many years before the fake lawns look nasty. We’re not trying to vilify those of you who are looking outside at your own plastic installation, but if you do have a fake lawn, you will also know that while they remove the need for a mower, they still need to be washed and brushed...even hoovered! It’s best to turf out the pretend turf and get back to nature. The birds and the butterflies will love you for it, and there’s a reason why we are told to get closer to nature – it’s good for mind, body and spirit. Having established that there is no substitute for the real thing, the quickest way to increase colour and support to the garden is to stop mowing – allowing a patch to grow wild will increase biodiversity. Wildflower seeds and seed bombs are commonplace in stores and online and are an easy way to help launch a wildflower patch or ‘mini-meadow’ – but don’t just expect to toss the seeds on the ground and enjoy instant success; instructions are there for a reason, so do heed them. Lady’s Bedstraw, oxeye-daisy, common daisies, wild carrot, cowslip, cornflower, common knapweed, selfheal and white and red campion are among those delicate blooms which are aesthetically pleasing, and they will ‘bee’ brilliant for our pollinators. Our actions today will benefit tomorrow’s generations, and that has got to be worth causing a buzz about!
If you watched David Attenborough’s Green Planet recently, you will know that plants, like people, have friends, and they support each other, both above and below the ground. What nature does naturally, we call companion planting. We can improve our crops by planting together those plants that like each other. Onions like to be with beetroot, parsnips or tomatoes, but don’t like beans near them. Also, you can plant to deter pests. What better way than to plant poached egg plants, Limnanthes douglasii, on which hoverflies lay their eggs, and which hatch into devourers of aphids and blackfly. No nasty chemicals needed. Another example is the smell of French Marigolds, Tagetes, which will keep whitefly off your tomatoes. These are just two examples. Mix and match is the secret. Nasturtiums near brassicas and courgettes; garlic near roses; calendulas, dotted here and there, provide support for most plants, and they give colour, breaking up the one solid green which tells predators where their meal is. The petals are edible and they self seed. A ladybird lava Be a good companion A voracious consumer of aphids! to your garden, however big or small, by sowing plants that improve the soil, repel harmful insects, attract beneficial ones, and attract birds to your patch. You can check online to find a list that will tell you which plants like to be together and use this when planning your patch. Happy gardening. Carol Smith and Jan Taylor, Bletchley Garden Club > Bletchley Garden Club (BGC) meet each month at Freeman Memorial Methodist Church Hall, Buckingham Road, MK3 5HH. New members welcome. For details visit bletchleygardenclub.org
April 2022 | MK Pulse Magazine | 32,000 Copies delivered every month door to door across Milton Keynes
