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Recommendations for North-facing wildlife planting please

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Obelixx:
That bubblegum pink geranium can be a pain but there are many more - white, blue, purple - that will be really good.   Variegated ivy is slower and there are creamy and gold varsions with different sizes of leaf so have a good look round before you choose one.

You can find all sorts of info about plants on the RHS site - colours, size, soil preferences etc and whether or not they are good for pollinators.   Things with berries will attract birds and do, please, let the birds deal with any aphids.  Tits and sparrows will feed them to their nestlings.

gray1720:

--- Quote from: Obelixx on December 15, 2019, 23:01:16 --- do, please, let the birds deal with any aphids.  Tits and sparrows will feed them to their nestlings.

--- End quote ---

More than likely anyway - I try to keep the hedge bindweed from getting too rampant with Stuff and one or two of the houseplants get a little spray when they get bugs but beyond that, I really don't use any chemicals that aren't either in Tomorite or are dihydrogen monoxide. I've always tried to encourage tits into my garden. And small colourful songbirds too.

Adrian

lavenderlux:
For wild flowers, plant some 'Ox-eye Daisies' and Red and White Campions, they are excellent for pollinators, they are perennials and will self seed;  for attractive flowers and then seed heads grow some Teasels, the flowers are attractive to pollinators and the seed heads will attract Goldfinches over the winter. 

gray1720:
Well, I am attempting to make a start. A couple of annoyances lie in the way at the mo. The other next door neighbours have yet to shift the last bit of leylandii (it's over their side of the fence, despite the root being on my side, and it's behind their greenhouse - if  I drop a tree on mine, que sera sera, if I drop one on someone elses...), and I can't really get the fence up until the last stump is out. I've also found what I assume was originally the support for the washing line - a large, deep lump of nuclear bunker grade concrete with a steel post through it - right where I want to put my rose bush. I may have to see just how deep the blighter goes, but 10" down it's still like Gibraltar, can belt it with the pickaxe and all that happens is I break my wrists.

On the other hand, I've worked out where I'm going to swipe spare cotoneaster from and, as it's in my front garden, I know it'll be fine for things like light and soil.
I've also found a couple of pyracantha in the "reduced" section at a local nursery, so paid £10 instead of £35.98. Trained into an odd shape, and rather pot bound, but a bit of TLC and space will sort both. I've also got some golden ivy that fell off my mother's garden potted up ready to go, and I've found that our local nursery (as opposed to garden centre - this is the real thing) will flog me a bare-rooted Great Maiden's Blush for a tenner - more cash for other things like appropriate seed mixes.

Add to that the three free trees I've just removed from the front driveway and heeled in that will fill another gap, and I'm doing OK... just need some action from next door on that last d**n tree!

Adrian

gray1720:
In case anyone is bored of lockdown, and desperate for some drivel to read, I thought I'd give an update.

The bad news. That last tree is *still* effing there.

The good news - I am slowly accumulating bits and pieces to "do" the fence and garden. Only yesterday I picked up a bunch of re-usable metposts that will save me a a tenner apiece, and today picked up both plants and ideas at nearby Waterperry. They sell a number of different Hydrangea paniculata and dwarf buddhleias which will be added in Duke Horse. My efforts to grow geraniums from seed have finally borne fruit as I have a single Geranium phaeum seedling. Meanwhile I'm weeding out the local cranesbills furiously...

I've put much of my vast collection of "might come in handy" compost sacks down on the ground to keep the weeds from getting out of hand and I've also made a "pea fence". I reckoned that legumes would be a good call for something that would grow in crappy soil starved of nutrients by leylandii, and didn't know how often I'd be getting to the allotment, so I put up some wire net and planted peas along it. I now have several varieties of pea along it, hopefully giving a sucession, and enough for a few pleasant helpings and fresh peas in salads. Only problem is it's worked so well it might have to become a fixture!

As it turns out, despite facing almost due north, the garden is long enough that it will actually get a fair amount of sun from east and west. There will be a darker corner owing to the shedette, which I can exploit, and at the moment it gets a bit more sun that it will because the existing boundary fence is 3ft and I intend to go to 6ft, but I think it will be alright.

Then I have to replace the disintegrating shed... remove the concrete hardstanding... replace with topsoil, except the bit I want to pave... Ah well, it keeps me from spending all my money on beer and women!

Oh, ETA that I finally shifted the lump of concrete with a pick axe but buggered my back in the process and walked like John Wayne for a fortnight as a result. I reckon it started wobbling, so someone dug a big hole round it and threw in lots of brick ends and more concrete. It took some shifting!

Adrian

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