I think some of the most beautiful places are wildflower meadows. I love what you’ve done with your garden, the natural look is peaceful and stunning.👍
Im hopeless with gardens and have very bad soil but Im not giving up. Mentalities about wildlife and biodiversity are changing whether they change fast enough to save the world is very open to debate but everyone moving in the direction you have gone is helping. Every little helps. Thanks for the tips!
Wildflowers actually require nutrient poor soil, so you may think you have bad soil, but it might actually be perfect for native wildflowers. Hopefully, more and more people get the message that wildlife and biodiversity are important, but time will tell.
Beautifully well done. Thank you! I planted a pack of wildflower seeds a couple of years ago. I was amazed at how great they turned out, and that so many of them came back the next year. Cosmos were a real surprise. I had never seen them before, but now they are one of my favorites.
Thank you for filming your progress. I'm live in Pennsylvania in the US. I bought over 2 acres and plan to build a house and plant gardens and wildflower meadows.
I'm hoping to have a bit more success this year. The seeds I planted in this video never really came to much. But I've got loads of seeds left over, so I'll try again.
only 1:23 in and this is fantastic Greg! I absolutely love just letting things grow wild - a refreshing change from everyone's addiction to using their lawnmowers to keep everything neat!
There will be some updates this year. I've got several plans for a few different projects, so hopefully, there'll be a good number of videos to come. Good luck with your garden, let me know how it goes!
I absolutely LOVED watching this video🙏🏽👌🏾💃🏾🌿💜🌿 Im planning on planting wild flower seeds in the garden with my daughter this weekend, its raining in London today so hopefully the soil will be nice and soft this weekend! I love the frog in your mini pond🤗🤩 I just subscribed to your channel, i hope you done a mini pond video. Look forward to watching your clips🌿💜🌿💜🌿💜🌿
Thank you so much! That's really nice of you to say. The mini pond hasn't faired so well since this video and I really need to give it some attention and possibly relocate it somewhere else. It got a bit swamped with fallen leaves.
An inspirational video in so many ways and a gentle voiced commentary to go with it! What could be better for a Sunday evening? Thank you sir. Blessings and peace
Thanks Greg enjoyed this. We have moved 8 times and always ended up with big gardens even though we are not keen gardeners!! Over the 28 years in this house we have spent a kings Ransom on landscape gardeners with little to show for it.
I understand. I don't particularly enjoy gardening myself! That's one reason I'm always looking for low maintenance options. I do like the results though, so I do try to get out and do some when I can.
@@GregsWildlife I am going to order some of those Seedballs. Our Council are now charging us £40.00 a year to take grass away!! Well our rates are very high. One are of the garden that's a bit darkish. That's where I plan to drop all the cut grass on top of the Grave sites of Bunnies my daughter owned and cats.
I am starting my Wildlife garden this year. I added a small pond in an old wine barrel and I am planting close to 20 different flowering plants (mostly natives for my area of the USA). I am starting some of the seeds indoors with a grow light so hopefully I get a jumpstart on my plants flowering this summer. It will be so fun to see it develop as time goes on.
I must admit, I've not had the results from them that I'd hoped for, but I've got loads left over, so I'll try again this year. The neighbours are just enjoying their garden, same as me, but it does make filming rather difficult sometimes! xD
Nice one Greg. I can see myself coming back to refer to this video many times in future to help with native plant ID! If my little pond ends up looking half as good as yours in a couple of years I'll be well chuffed. I had to laugh at the out-take at the end. I feel your pain. I was on the verge of doing a piece to camera in my garden the other week when some neighbours in a nearby street which backs on to our patchwork of gardens suddenly received a batch of noisy guests for a barbecue - and that was while such gatherings were still supposed to be on hold for the lockdown! The trials of film-making, eh? 👍😎👍
Tell me about it. My neighbours two doors down are always out in their garden and they have some very noisy children! I mean it's fine, it's their garden. They're entitled to enjoy it, it just makes my job harder ha ha!
great video! my garden is a flower haven,with all sorts of flowers around all the the different flower beds,and that comes with lots of native wildlife!anyway great video keep it up
That sound great. I've still got a long way to go to get the garden where I want it, I still need loads more flowers. But it's looking better this year than last year.
I keep a controlled nettle patch & this year hundreds of peacock butterfly larvae developed on them. The yellow rattle worked its magic but the best attraction for the pollinators was a huge Scotch thistle & a big patch of knapweed. Keep on doing your thing 👍
Fantastic! I only saw small tortoiseshell caterpillars this year in my nettle patch. But you're right about the thistle, I had a couple of big ones in the garden. I had some goldfinches eating the seeds, first time I'd seen goldfinches for ages.
So many gardening videos from England! Your climate is so good for gardening, long growing season not scorching summers, i envy you limeys, my ancestors came here in 1860 to the Canadian shield. I hope to try your techniques.😊
wow what wonderful energy you have ! i absolutley love this already and im not even half way through. Thank you for sharing and talking us through ure process ive been dreaming of doing something like this in my gardennn for a while now especially planting with the bees and wildlife in mind so thanks for the inspiration ! Sending you love and wishing you well on ure gardening adventures ♥
Thank you so much!! I've been feeling really down as due to some health issues, I've barely done anything to my garden this year, but you've really cheered me up!
You are the first person to show me exactly what I have just done to part of my garden today 30th March. Just left it uncut. I have no idea what to add to the meadow section so any tips would be appreciated thanks
Thank you so much for your time making this video. We are doing similarly but one year behind. Updated our pond but no frogs although two toads last year were seen in the potato patch under the soil. Buddleia, lumps of wood, bird feeders, three sections of wild garden lawn leaving paths to walk (a bit dismal atm but loads of seeding appearing), crab Apple trees, plus a lovely friend gave me an orchid which I put under our apple tree and it has appeared this years. 👏 I shall do watercolour and pen sketches as each flower appears, for a record. This is April 2021... Thank you once again for sharing! 👍
They really are lovely flowers. I've been very lucky to get them every year, always in a different spot in the garden. Fingers crossed you get some this year!
Brilliant video. Really encouraging and I am off to copy this. I like your great attitude to nature. I am going to have a nettle area. I agree with you about neighbours but keep going! You are doing. a fantastic thing.
Hi Greg! Thanks for these videos - exactly what I need and you explain everything so well. I live in Almería, Southern Spain - the only desert in Europe! I haven't a big garden but I'm thinking of having a go at a mini wildlife garden. We're having extreme heat at the mo - 40c forecast for this weekend - and it's spring! Watering is laborious but we've never had a hosepipe ban in the nearly 17years we've been here. I've bought a wildflower mix from Amazon and the seeds included are named so I'll go through them and see if they'll tolerate the conditions I can offer. Wish me luck! Even in a desert, if the plant is located well there's a good chance of some success. God bless and thanks again🤗
Thank you! It seems like you've got some tough conditions there! Look into what kind of plants are native to the area, you'll want to find drought tolerant plants which will grow better and be less work for you. And if they're native to your area, they will be of huge benefit to the local wildlife. Good luck!
Thank you nice job! We are planting wildflower seeds today for the first time and hope for some great results. We picked up 2 seed oaks from our local Tractor Supply Store. We are in South East Georgia USA.... Hopefully I can put it on video for sharing with our New Bees we installed yesterday. Hopefully on a week I will post the Video. Thanks much!
I live in Western Australian & it's hot & dry with a mild winter. I love our native plants as many are drought tolerant & require minimum maintenance. I have two large melaleuca trees (paperbark) on my verge. They bring lots of insects, spiders, lizards & birds including owls, especially when in flower.
We do need to green our spaces more. Instead of mowing them, plant flower meadows. In our yards let's create areas for these pollinators to thrive. Even if you don't have a yard, use a flower pot and put pollinator flowers in that. I live in a condo with a deck and small front porch that I can put flowers on. I am probably going to ask my HOA landscape lady if I can plant a couple things in the ground around my deck. I saw a video on TH-cam once where in certain states, instead of mowing the sides of their highways, they plant miles of flower seeds. I drove past one of these stretches of highway and it was beautiful and so wonderful for nature.
Absolutely. There's so much that could be done with our green spaces. Hopefully, more and more people will do some small things that will overall make a big difference.
It's a nice thing other people like the natural look of grasslands. I encourage wildflowers too, though the weather is different in central europe so the species are not exactly the same. I've collected the seeds from the nearby wilderness.
Nice to see your love for nature and the comments of others who the same passion, I have a large area I plan to make a wild meadow along with my flowerbeds, it’s great for the kids to see and hopefully will follow in our footsteps, too many concrete jungles out there.
Well done. I hope you are reconciled with those wild plants which you didn't plant but which grow anyway. (You can eat Shepherd's purse!) I've no idea how you came to have Bee orchids so quickly! Or even at all. I note that your treatment was different from my own (see below), which is also successful in a rural patch 1700+ m². I haven't planted any seed, I just mow and gather the grass at certain times of year. After that, it all happens! I agree with you about stamping out Ground Elder if you can, and controlling some other "hooligans" like Convolvulus and Brambles. For butterflies there are also Buddleia (watering and dead-heading prolongs flowering) and Lavender (you can get varieties which flower twice each year). You already have Knapweed and thistles. The Yellow Rattle is a great asset: I haven't managed to get any to grow yet, but I'll try again this year. Two thoughts I would pass on: 1 - Impoverish the soil. It's generally only grass that needs much nitrogen, and grass is the great enemy of wild flowers (except Yellow rattle!). I saw that you put the grass cuttings in the bin - which I also do. 2 - Choosing the time of your first grass (hay) cut - after flowering - will discriminate against those plants which would have seeded later, and they'll be greatly reduced in 3 years of this cutting. The hay cut should be left to dry before gathering, to allow seed from desired plants to fall. 3 - Another technique, which you won't be using, is to turn up soil from half a metre deep so as to expose old seed from many years ago. You'd get Poppies that way, among others. This is usually only done at the beginning of the project. I didn't do this. I have 5 species of orchid in my patch each year, and some years I have one-time only visitors! I've had 6 of these! My other plants are too numerous to list, but the highlights include Fumitory, Restharrow, Wild arum and Milkwort. But I've been doing this for the last 28 years. Best of luck and continuing success. Clive.
Thank you for the tips! You obviously have a lot of knowledge and experience which I am yet to acquire, so I'm very happy to take on board any advice. I've had so many people tell me I'm wrong for removing the grass cuttings, telling me that I'm taking away a natural fertilizer, I try to explain that wildflowers need poor-nutrient soil. A big thing I struggle with is knowing when to do certain operations - like cutting the grass. I still haven't really established a decent patch of wildflowers and still have a long way to go to get results I'm happy with. However, the yellow rattle has returned every year and seems fairly well established, and bee orchids pop up in several places each year too. I will hopefully have some more garden videos this year and a few new projects too. Thanks for your comments :-)
Another technique you could’ve used is to just throw the seed balls and wherever they landed to plant them. Is sowed lots of wildflowers in spring and the only things which came up are poppies and something else which is about to flower in a week or two.
That's not a bad idea. Poppies are pretty fast growing, I've found that a lot of wildflowers take a long time to grow. Most of the seeds I planted last year only grew this year, so it may be the case with those that I planted in this video won't grow until next year.
Great reference for future season planting, nice bug info too and smashing to see real suburban gardening. . We can all make a difference. The planet is depending on people like you friend..#happydigging 🌾☘🌍🍁🌎🌷🌼💚🌍🌷🤘
Beautiful ❤ I am trying to do the same ,some of my seeds didn't germinate but this year I have massive oxe eye daisies buttercups clover and some other stuff which I don't know the names but lovely...( my brother who is a garden tidy fan says my garden is a 🐝mess!) I said....well if you went to a nature reserve to see wildlife but you saw a neat stripey lawn you wouldn't see any nature,! I love it,it isn't for everyone but I can sit for ages watching bees bugs butterflies etc its ace , ty for your tips too ❤
Thank you. It's so pretty. I live in a basement and the window well is rusty metal with little direct light. It's sort of sad to look at, so I'd like to make the bottom into a shade medow. I'm not quite sure how to add soil for it.
Oh, that's a really good idea. There are plenty of plants that do really well in shade. I'm not an expert, but you might want to do some research on what type of plants you want to grow and find out what type of soil they prefer and then see if you can find some compost of that type.
Again, I think it will depend on the type of plants you want. Some plants will do really well in stony, low nutrient soil. Sorry to be vague, but there is such a huge variety of plants with differing requirements, it's tricky to give advice over TH-cam comments! Haha!
You might have discovered it now but there are apps like Plantnet where you can photo the plant and get it identified. I've just sown a wildflower area in my allotment, I'm excited to see what turns up. Those bee orchards look really special, it's so rewarding encouraging wildflowers and nature. Also, the plants you call 'European pansies' look like wild edible violas. I love to grow them every year for salads, they have a fresh menthol like taste! But obviously make sure you have the edible version before eating.
I use inaturalist most of the time. I think they are field pansies, which I believe is a species of viola, however I don't think they are edible. I probably got my ID from inaturalist so it's possible I'm mistaken.
I am nurturing a wildlife garden - I have a split level garden and the top garden is all wild flowers - I have to be careful which varieties tho as I have a free roaming tortoise in that section!
The bind weed is beautiful but it can get outta hand mine tried taking over my morning glories last year . Hope to some day have an English cottage / wild life flower garden .
Yeah, the bindweed flowers look really nice and the bees love them, but it gets everywhere and it's currently taking over large parts of the garden. It does need controlling.
The best video I have found so far on how to sow wild flowers in an existing lawn. Thank you. A quick question if you don't mind. Do you cover the seed balls anfter pushing them into the soil? Thanks. John.
Thank you! I left the seed balls uncovered. Unfortunately, after I planted them there was a massive heat wave which killed off all the seedlings. My fault really, I don't think I watered them enough. But before the heat wave they had started to sprout. I'll try again this year and hopefully get better results. If you use seed balls like this, make sure you water them lots!
Thanks for sharing, I came here as I’m about to sow my wildflower patch in our garden. I notice you put your grass clippings in a bin….why not start a small compost area for veg/fruit scraps and garden clippings????? I started one 3 years ago now have 3 and they provide fantastic mulch material during hot summers and over winter. I can’t believe how life underground has increased because if it.
I must admit, growing veggies has never really appealed to me. I know that certain herbs and veggies can be very good at attracting wildlife, so maybe I should consider it.
Hey man. With wildflowers its all about soil fertility. Gotta take the life out of the grass. Easiest way to go this in my experience is removal of as much topsoil as possible. Less topsoil means less nutrients and better conditions for wildflowers. The other way is to cut the grass when its growing and collect all the arisings and remove them from the site. Takes time but will work. You should check out dorset county council's cut and collect programme. Its the most extensive im aware of. Good luck :)
Thanks for the tips! I must admit, these flowers I planted didn't really come to much. So I'll have to try again this year. This wildlife garden project will almost certainly take years to get going properly, but each year I hope to make some progress.
Hi Greg, this video is very inspiring, nothing flash, just simply explained, you just went for it with basic preperation and you´re getting wonderful results. i will definately give it a go, i´m in germany with a big lawn a lot of which has been taking over by moss, do you think it will still work?
I'm sure it would work. Just expose a bit of bare soil and you should be good to go. You could try raking the lawn first as that should pull up a lot of moss, but it might make your lawn look a bit messy to start with - not that that would bother me, I like a bit of mess in the garden!
Hi ; I've started my wildlife garden end of year so I be watching to take notes 😉. Just wondering if u compost your grass cutting or not? As the compost is a great place for frogs/toads/newts and bugs to call home and hibernate over winter. Also it be good to use for the garden next spring. It also reduce waste. Cheers
I don't actually. I do use the council brown bin scheme, so they take away garden waste. It's a good point on the hibernation thing, maybe I should think about it.
Compost is a great place for Hedgehogs as well to call home and source of food for them as it also attracts slugs; snails ; worms etc. And as hedgehogs population is in decline they need all the help they can get. Cheers.
Unfortunately, not long after this video was filmed we had a massive heat wave that killed anything that had started growing, so results were inconclusive. I have planted some more this year, so I'm hoping to see some results, that I will make a video on later in the year. I have had several people tell me they had great results from Seedball, so I'm hopeful.
those orchids are great. We've just had some show up this summer, and I learnt that they're actually in the ground for up to 4 years before they show up as flowers! Also, is it true you have to leave the wildflower seeds to undergo a cold winter before they sprout?
I'm not sure about all wildflowers, but I know that's true for the yellow rattle. I was worried it didn't get cold enough for the seeds I planted last year, since we had such a mild winter. But there's loads of them all over the garden.
That's certainly a possibility. Although I tend to find I have more than I need. Wildflowers tend to want low nutrient soil, so you don't really need much compost. Although when I get to planting some more established, ornamental (yet still wildlife friendly) plants, the compost may come in more useful.
That's an interesting idea, I'm not sure. But it will definitely encourage natural pest control by encouraging aphid-eating insects to live in the garden and they may well spread to other areas, keeping the aphid population down.
This is one of the questions I struggle with the most as there seems to be several different answers. I usually cut the grass sometime during winter, maybe February time, if there's a stretch of dry weather. But there is an argument for leaving it longer. Many insects will overwinter in long grass so you might want to leave it until you start to see the first butterflies emerge. But by that time a lot of plants will have started their new growth... so it's a complicated answer. But for me, I cut it before spring starts so I have a clean slate, so to speak, to start the year with. Hope that helps!
I wasn't familiar with that particular flower, so I looked it up. It appears it is a native of USA so doesn't grow here. It is a relative of milkweed, which we do have and I think it is imported as an ornamental flower, but doesn't grow naturally.
A lot of the flowers just showed up. There's a lot of dormant seeds in the soil, and if the grass isn't cut short every week, you may be surprised by what starts to grow.
I must admit, I got very little from them. Although many of them started to sprout just as we had a prolonged heat wave and I don't think I watered them enough and I think the heat and dryness killed them all. I've got loads left over, so I'll give it another go this year. I might start them off in indoor pots to get the going.
Love the channel. Just subscribed. We are doibg the same here but 2020 has gona a bit pants to be honest.. got really downhearted with it all. Want to get back on it soon though ready for 2021..
Welcome to the channel! Yes, this year has been...testing. I haven't done as much as I wanted to. I wanted to plant lots of new things, but there was limited shopping opportunities. Roll on next spring!
me: wants to look after frogs, toads and newts, wants to make a wildflower meadow and wants to attract more wildlife to my garden! Greg's Wildlife: makes videos on almost all the things I wanted to do before I even found this channel!
Hey, sorry for the late reply. For some reason TH-cam had censored this comment and never notified me it was made, so I've only just seen it! But those are some great goals, I hope you're able to achieve them this year. Let me know how you get on.
@@GregsWildlife thx, I might only be able to make a small wildflower patch however I will be looking after Rana temporaria, bufo bufo and lissotriton vulgaris!
Awesome. Any size patch of wildflowers is a good thing. I'd love to maybe do toads or newts alongside frogs this year, but I'm not sure I'll find them.
No I don't. It's very unlikely that my garden will become infested with ticks. There will be lots and lots of bees, butterflies, beetles, birds, hedgehogs and many other creatures. But ticks, not so much. This video is a few years old now, still not had any ticks.
@@GregsWildlife neighbours doing neighbouring things. Sometimes they're just hard work. Sometimes they're great. Loved the video though, I enjoy you love of nature.
The grass clippings need to be left on the lawn as a mulch....or at lest scattered around the beds...please don't throw away good organic waste in the bin, thats not natures way.
The grass was being recycled. It was taken away to make compost, so not a complete waste. But also, for my purposes, I don't want the extra nutrients on my lawn. Wildflowers require nutrient poor soil, so leaving grass clippings behind enriches the soil and just encourages more grass growth with prevents wildflowers from growing.
Firstly, ditch your brown bin as you are throwing away the compost you just bought, and also as it rots you dollop some on as a buffalo would lay it's eggs and your meadow will transform, but I moved into a home and the lawn was like a show garden and I just let it grow, to the horror if the old fellow next door, and the first few months I saw an orchid growing. If you throw away your lawnmower and just let nature back in it will transform your garden. But buy a shotgun for the cats that love your new cat toilet you created.
I have many plans for the garden. Getting a compost heap going would be a good addition, although I think I'd generate more garden waste than I could use for compost. It can be amazing to see what grows if you just leave things alone.
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I think some of the most beautiful places are wildflower meadows. I love what you’ve done with your garden, the natural look is peaceful and stunning.👍
Thank you so much!
Im hopeless with gardens and have very bad soil but Im not giving up. Mentalities about wildlife and biodiversity are changing whether they change fast enough to save the world is very open to debate but everyone moving in the direction you have gone is helping. Every little helps. Thanks for the tips!
Wildflowers actually require nutrient poor soil, so you may think you have bad soil, but it might actually be perfect for native wildflowers.
Hopefully, more and more people get the message that wildlife and biodiversity are important, but time will tell.
Beautifully well done. Thank you! I planted a pack of wildflower seeds a couple of years ago. I was amazed at how great they turned out, and that so many of them came back the next year. Cosmos were a real surprise. I had never seen them before, but now they are one of my favorites.
Sounds great!
Thank you for filming your progress. I'm live in Pennsylvania in the US. I bought over 2 acres and plan to build a house and plant gardens and wildflower meadows.
That sounds amazing! What a dream!
That is amazing. You are so lucky.
What a pleasing, calming voice.
Thank you!
I started 2 years ago with this love for wild flowers and last fall I planted seeds of native Indiana flowers
I'm hoping to have a bit more success this year. The seeds I planted in this video never really came to much. But I've got loads of seeds left over, so I'll try again.
Very good job at filming your beautiful growing garden. Thank you from Ozarks in America. Blessings,p
Thanks!
I'm hoping to do some updates later this year.
only 1:23 in and this is fantastic Greg! I absolutely love just letting things grow wild - a refreshing change from everyone's addiction to using their lawnmowers to keep everything neat!
Thank you so much.
I hate neat looking lawns, I really don't see the point in them. I much prefer the wild look.
@@GregsWildlife agreed! wildflower gardens might look a bit messy at first, but once everything comes together in the summer it's more than worth it
Yes, totally agree.
Agreed💯a neat stripey lawn is boring....leave that for the golf course! Wildlife everywhere everytime 🐌🦋🐛🐜🐝🪲🐞🕷🪳🪰🪺
Love this. I’m starting to enjoy my garden again and want more and more wildflowers and wildlife. Can’t wait 🙌🏽
That's great to hear! I've got so much work I want to do in the garden, it's hard to know where to start.
I would love an update on the garden this year, I’m starting my garden soon fingers crossed!
There will be some updates this year. I've got several plans for a few different projects, so hopefully, there'll be a good number of videos to come.
Good luck with your garden, let me know how it goes!
I absolutely LOVED watching this video🙏🏽👌🏾💃🏾🌿💜🌿 Im planning on planting wild flower seeds in the garden with my daughter this weekend, its raining in London today so hopefully the soil will be nice and soft this weekend! I love the frog in your mini pond🤗🤩 I just subscribed to your channel, i hope you done a mini pond video. Look forward to watching your clips🌿💜🌿💜🌿💜🌿
Thank you so much! That's really nice of you to say.
The mini pond hasn't faired so well since this video and I really need to give it some attention and possibly relocate it somewhere else. It got a bit swamped with fallen leaves.
@@GregsWildlife great videos🌿💜🌿 Keep them coming🙏🏽
An inspirational video in so many ways and a gentle voiced commentary to go with it! What could be better for a Sunday evening? Thank you sir. Blessings and peace
Thank you so much! You've made my day.
W0W !!! That Looks Great, Merry Christmas from Auckland, New Zealand ...🙂🙂🙂🙂
Thank you! Hope you had a great Christmas, and have a great new year!
Wow, that's beautiful!! Hope you will get plenty of bees and butterflies and birds in your garden 😍
Thanks, I hope so too!
Decided to look up wildflower stuff on a whim and I'm hooked! Nice stuff!
Thanks!
Thanks Greg enjoyed this. We have moved 8 times and always ended up with big gardens even though we are not keen gardeners!! Over the 28 years in this house we have spent a kings Ransom on landscape gardeners with little to show for it.
I understand. I don't particularly enjoy gardening myself! That's one reason I'm always looking for low maintenance options. I do like the results though, so I do try to get out and do some when I can.
@@GregsWildlife I am going to order some of those Seedballs. Our Council are now charging us £40.00 a year to take grass away!! Well our rates are very high. One are of the garden that's a bit darkish. That's where I plan to drop all the cut grass on top of the Grave sites of Bunnies my daughter owned and cats.
I am starting my Wildlife garden this year. I added a small pond in an old wine barrel and I am planting close to 20 different flowering plants (mostly natives for my area of the USA). I am starting some of the seeds indoors with a grow light so hopefully I get a jumpstart on my plants flowering this summer. It will be so fun to see it develop as time goes on.
That sounds great. I hope you get good results!
Glad someone thinks the same thoughts as me about their neighbours. Those seed balls look amazing
I must admit, I've not had the results from them that I'd hoped for, but I've got loads left over, so I'll try again this year.
The neighbours are just enjoying their garden, same as me, but it does make filming rather difficult sometimes! xD
I have started throwing the odd one on my walks along the Pennine Trail!
Such a great video! We need more rewilded spaces :D
Yes we do. I know it's only a small thing, but I'm doing what I can with my own space.
We are moving house with a huge grass section so l am so interested in your films. Don’t worry about your neighbors that is life and nice to hear .
Thank you!
I'm just very self conscious talking to the camera when there are people around, haha!
Nice one Greg. I can see myself coming back to refer to this video many times in future to help with native plant ID! If my little pond ends up looking half as good as yours in a couple of years I'll be well chuffed.
I had to laugh at the out-take at the end. I feel your pain. I was on the verge of doing a piece to camera in my garden the other week when some neighbours in a nearby street which backs on to our patchwork of gardens suddenly received a batch of noisy guests for a barbecue - and that was while such gatherings were still supposed to be on hold for the lockdown!
The trials of film-making, eh? 👍😎👍
Tell me about it. My neighbours two doors down are always out in their garden and they have some very noisy children! I mean it's fine, it's their garden. They're entitled to enjoy it, it just makes my job harder ha ha!
Love that I found your channel!
I have 6 acres of every element to grow herbs around the edging of and trees.
Looking forward to your videos.
Sounds great!
I'm looking forward to starting the videos up again soon
great video! my garden is a flower haven,with all sorts of flowers around all the the different flower beds,and that comes with lots of native wildlife!anyway great video keep it up
That sound great. I've still got a long way to go to get the garden where I want it, I still need loads more flowers. But it's looking better this year than last year.
How beautiful. Could I just do this in the local backings? where I walk by everyday? because I have no garden of my own.
You'd probably need permission from whomever owns the land if you wanted to plant something.
I keep a controlled nettle patch & this year hundreds of peacock butterfly larvae developed on them. The yellow rattle worked its magic but the best attraction for the pollinators was a huge Scotch thistle & a big patch of knapweed. Keep on doing your thing 👍
Fantastic! I only saw small tortoiseshell caterpillars this year in my nettle patch. But you're right about the thistle, I had a couple of big ones in the garden. I had some goldfinches eating the seeds, first time I'd seen goldfinches for ages.
So many gardening videos from England! Your climate is so good for gardening, long growing season not scorching summers, i envy you limeys, my ancestors came here in 1860 to the Canadian shield. I hope to try your techniques.😊
Thanks! I've got so much work to do in the garden, hopefully I'll get lots more videos out this year too.
I put in a pond at the end of last year and this year I had 2 lots of frog spawn. They have just turned into tadpoles. I am excited about that.
My little pond has been a bit neglected, so sorting that out is on the to-do list. I have had frogs visit it, but no sign of frogspawn.
wow what wonderful energy you have ! i absolutley love this already and im not even half way through. Thank you for sharing and talking us through ure process ive been dreaming of doing something like this in my gardennn for a while now especially planting with the bees and wildlife in mind so thanks for the inspiration ! Sending you love and wishing you well on ure gardening adventures ♥
Thank you so much!!
I've been feeling really down as due to some health issues, I've barely done anything to my garden this year, but you've really cheered me up!
You are the first person to show me exactly what I have just done to part of my garden today 30th March. Just left it uncut. I have no idea what to add to the meadow section so any tips would be appreciated thanks
Yellow rattle is always a good start for meadows. But other than that, you might be surprised as to what just shows up if you let things grow.
Beautiful garden, warmed my soul x
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your time making this video.
We are doing similarly but one year behind. Updated our pond but no frogs although two toads last year were seen in the potato patch under the soil.
Buddleia, lumps of wood, bird feeders, three sections of wild garden lawn leaving paths to walk (a bit dismal atm but loads of seeding appearing), crab Apple trees, plus a lovely friend gave me an orchid which I put under our apple tree and it has appeared this years. 👏
I shall do watercolour and pen sketches as each flower appears, for a record. This is April 2021...
Thank you once again for sharing! 👍
That sounds lovely! I'd love to see your watercolours when they're done!
I’m jealous of your bee orchids! Hope some will appear in my meadow this year
They really are lovely flowers. I've been very lucky to get them every year, always in a different spot in the garden.
Fingers crossed you get some this year!
Brilliant video. Really encouraging and I am off to copy this. I like your great attitude to nature. I am going to have a nettle area. I agree with you about neighbours but keep going! You are doing. a fantastic thing.
Thank you so much! I'm so glad I've inspired you, good luck!
Hi Greg! Thanks for these videos - exactly what I need and you explain everything so well. I live in Almería, Southern Spain - the only desert in Europe! I haven't a big garden but I'm thinking of having a go at a mini wildlife garden. We're having extreme heat at the mo - 40c forecast for this weekend - and it's spring! Watering is laborious but we've never had a hosepipe ban in the nearly 17years we've been here. I've bought a wildflower mix from Amazon and the seeds included are named so I'll go through them and see if they'll tolerate the conditions I can offer. Wish me luck! Even in a desert, if the plant is located well there's a good chance of some success. God bless and thanks again🤗
Thank you!
It seems like you've got some tough conditions there! Look into what kind of plants are native to the area, you'll want to find drought tolerant plants which will grow better and be less work for you. And if they're native to your area, they will be of huge benefit to the local wildlife.
Good luck!
@@GregsWildlife What wise words. Thank you Greg - what you say makes so
@@GregsWildlife As I was saying - you make so much sense. Appreciate your advice! God bless👍🤗
Thank you nice job! We are planting wildflower seeds today for the first time and hope for some great results. We picked up 2 seed oaks from our local Tractor Supply Store. We are in South East Georgia USA.... Hopefully I can put it on video for sharing with our New Bees we installed yesterday. Hopefully on a week I will post the Video. Thanks much!
Sounds great! Good luck!
Thanks for this lovely and informative video. I just subscribed!
Thank you! Welcome to the channel
Amazing!
Thanks!
I live in Western Australian & it's hot & dry with a mild winter. I love our native plants as many are drought tolerant & require minimum maintenance. I have two large melaleuca trees (paperbark) on my verge. They bring lots of insects, spiders, lizards & birds including owls, especially when in flower.
That sounds amazing. I'd love lizards to show up in my garden, but I doubt that will ever happen.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for your video, going to attempt my own this year, wish me luck.
You can do it!
We do need to green our spaces more. Instead of mowing them, plant flower meadows. In our yards let's create areas for these pollinators to thrive. Even if you don't have a yard, use a flower pot and put pollinator flowers in that. I live in a condo with a deck and small front porch that I can put flowers on. I am probably going to ask my HOA landscape lady if I can plant a couple things in the ground around my deck. I saw a video on TH-cam once where in certain states, instead of mowing the sides of their highways, they plant miles of flower seeds. I drove past one of these stretches of highway and it was beautiful and so wonderful for nature.
Absolutely. There's so much that could be done with our green spaces. Hopefully, more and more people will do some small things that will overall make a big difference.
It's a nice thing other people like the natural look of grasslands. I encourage wildflowers too, though the weather is different in central europe so the species are not exactly the same. I've collected the seeds from the nearby wilderness.
I find the natural look so much nicer than the manicured look. It buzzes with so much life.
So lovely ❤
Thank you :-)
Nice to see your love for nature and the comments of others who the same passion, I have a large area I plan to make a wild meadow along with my flowerbeds, it’s great for the kids to see and hopefully will follow in our footsteps, too many concrete jungles out there.
Absolutely! It hurts to see all these artificial grass and concrete gardens seemingly increasing.
Well done. I hope you are reconciled with those wild plants which you didn't plant but which grow anyway. (You can eat Shepherd's purse!) I've no idea how you came to have Bee orchids so quickly! Or even at all. I note that your treatment was different from my own (see below), which is also successful in a rural patch 1700+ m². I haven't planted any seed, I just mow and gather the grass at certain times of year. After that, it all happens!
I agree with you about stamping out Ground Elder if you can, and controlling some other "hooligans" like Convolvulus and Brambles.
For butterflies there are also Buddleia (watering and dead-heading prolongs flowering) and Lavender (you can get varieties which flower twice each year). You already have Knapweed and thistles.
The Yellow Rattle is a great asset: I haven't managed to get any to grow yet, but I'll try again this year.
Two thoughts I would pass on:
1 - Impoverish the soil. It's generally only grass that needs much nitrogen, and grass is the great enemy of wild flowers (except Yellow rattle!). I saw that you put the grass cuttings in the bin - which I also do.
2 - Choosing the time of your first grass (hay) cut - after flowering - will discriminate against those plants which would have seeded later, and they'll be greatly reduced in 3 years of this cutting. The hay cut should be left to dry before gathering, to allow seed from desired plants to fall.
3 - Another technique, which you won't be using, is to turn up soil from half a metre deep so as to expose old seed from many years ago. You'd get Poppies that way, among others. This is usually only done at the beginning of the project. I didn't do this.
I have 5 species of orchid in my patch each year, and some years I have one-time only visitors! I've had 6 of these! My other plants are too numerous to list, but the highlights include Fumitory, Restharrow, Wild arum and Milkwort. But I've been doing this for the last 28 years.
Best of luck and continuing success. Clive.
Thank you for the tips! You obviously have a lot of knowledge and experience which I am yet to acquire, so I'm very happy to take on board any advice.
I've had so many people tell me I'm wrong for removing the grass cuttings, telling me that I'm taking away a natural fertilizer, I try to explain that wildflowers need poor-nutrient soil.
A big thing I struggle with is knowing when to do certain operations - like cutting the grass.
I still haven't really established a decent patch of wildflowers and still have a long way to go to get results I'm happy with. However, the yellow rattle has returned every year and seems fairly well established, and bee orchids pop up in several places each year too.
I will hopefully have some more garden videos this year and a few new projects too.
Thanks for your comments :-)
Another technique you could’ve used is to just throw the seed balls and wherever they landed to plant them. Is sowed lots of wildflowers in spring and the only things which came up are poppies and something else which is about to flower in a week or two.
That's not a bad idea.
Poppies are pretty fast growing, I've found that a lot of wildflowers take a long time to grow. Most of the seeds I planted last year only grew this year, so it may be the case with those that I planted in this video won't grow until next year.
Greg's Wildlife I’ll post a picture on the discord server picture gallery later
Yes! Please do.
Great reference for future season planting, nice bug info too and smashing to see real suburban gardening. .
We can all make a difference. The planet is depending on people like you friend..#happydigging 🌾☘🌍🍁🌎🌷🌼💚🌍🌷🤘
Thanks!
I really didn't get to do much last year, so I've got lots to do this year.
I hope to plant a lot more this year.
Great vid greg
Thanks Sam!
I am not sam lol it is not me
Okay. That's confusing.
Beautiful ❤ I am trying to do the same ,some of my seeds didn't germinate but this year I have massive oxe eye daisies buttercups clover and some other stuff which I don't know the names but lovely...( my brother who is a garden tidy fan says my garden is a 🐝mess!) I said....well if you went to a nature reserve to see wildlife but you saw a neat stripey lawn you wouldn't see any nature,! I love it,it isn't for everyone but I can sit for ages watching bees bugs butterflies etc its ace , ty for your tips too ❤
Wonderful! If only more people had your attitude. Mess is beautiful!
Thank you. It's so pretty. I live in a basement and the window well is rusty metal with little direct light. It's sort of sad to look at, so I'd like to make the bottom into a shade medow. I'm not quite sure how to add soil for it.
Oh, that's a really good idea. There are plenty of plants that do really well in shade. I'm not an expert, but you might want to do some research on what type of plants you want to grow and find out what type of soil they prefer and then see if you can find some compost of that type.
@@GregsWildlife Thank you.
@@GregsWildlife Do I need to remove the rocks or should I treat them sort of like mulch?
Again, I think it will depend on the type of plants you want. Some plants will do really well in stony, low nutrient soil. Sorry to be vague, but there is such a huge variety of plants with differing requirements, it's tricky to give advice over TH-cam comments! Haha!
Maybe just move in under the rocks. Better than the basement. Just kidding.
Brilliant thanks.
You're welcome!
I made a butterfly fountain like a small dish with sweet water they love it .
Sounds great!
You might have discovered it now but there are apps like Plantnet where you can photo the plant and get it identified. I've just sown a wildflower area in my allotment, I'm excited to see what turns up. Those bee orchards look really special, it's so rewarding encouraging wildflowers and nature.
Also, the plants you call 'European pansies' look like wild edible violas. I love to grow them every year for salads, they have a fresh menthol like taste! But obviously make sure you have the edible version before eating.
I use inaturalist most of the time.
I think they are field pansies, which I believe is a species of viola, however I don't think they are edible. I probably got my ID from inaturalist so it's possible I'm mistaken.
This is my absolute goal in life to do this but I don’t have a clue how to do it. I hope this can teach me.
I hope it helps
Great work
Thank you so much 😀
I am nurturing a wildlife garden - I have a split level garden and the top garden is all wild flowers - I have to be careful which varieties tho as I have a free roaming tortoise in that section!
That sounds great!
The bind weed is beautiful but it can get outta hand mine tried taking over my morning glories last year . Hope to some day have an English cottage / wild life flower garden .
Yeah, the bindweed flowers look really nice and the bees love them, but it gets everywhere and it's currently taking over large parts of the garden. It does need controlling.
enjoyed this
Thanks! I appreciate that :-)
Love it.
Thanks!
Good video ❤️
Thanks!
Good video 👍
Thanks 👍
The best video I have found so far on how to sow wild flowers in an existing lawn. Thank you. A quick question if you don't mind. Do you cover the seed balls anfter pushing them into the soil? Thanks. John.
Thank you!
I left the seed balls uncovered. Unfortunately, after I planted them there was a massive heat wave which killed off all the seedlings. My fault really, I don't think I watered them enough. But before the heat wave they had started to sprout. I'll try again this year and hopefully get better results. If you use seed balls like this, make sure you water them lots!
@@GregsWildlife Thanks for the tip. Much appreciated 🙂👍
👍
👍
Thanks for sharing, I came here as I’m about to sow my wildflower patch in our garden. I notice you put your grass clippings in a bin….why not start a small compost area for veg/fruit scraps and garden clippings????? I started one 3 years ago now have 3 and they provide fantastic mulch material during hot summers and over winter. I can’t believe how life underground has increased because if it.
I must admit, growing veggies has never really appealed to me. I know that certain herbs and veggies can be very good at attracting wildlife, so maybe I should consider it.
Hey man. With wildflowers its all about soil fertility. Gotta take the life out of the grass. Easiest way to go this in my experience is removal of as much topsoil as possible. Less topsoil means less nutrients and better conditions for wildflowers. The other way is to cut the grass when its growing and collect all the arisings and remove them from the site. Takes time but will work. You should check out dorset county council's cut and collect programme. Its the most extensive im aware of. Good luck :)
Thanks for the tips! I must admit, these flowers I planted didn't really come to much. So I'll have to try again this year. This wildlife garden project will almost certainly take years to get going properly, but each year I hope to make some progress.
Hi Greg, this video is very inspiring, nothing flash, just simply explained, you just went for it with basic preperation and you´re getting wonderful results. i will definately give it a go, i´m in germany with a big lawn a lot of which has been taking over by moss, do you think it will still work?
I'm sure it would work. Just expose a bit of bare soil and you should be good to go. You could try raking the lawn first as that should pull up a lot of moss, but it might make your lawn look a bit messy to start with - not that that would bother me, I like a bit of mess in the garden!
Hi ; I've started my wildlife garden end of year so I be watching to take notes 😉. Just wondering if u compost your grass cutting or not? As the compost is a great place for frogs/toads/newts and bugs to call home and hibernate over winter. Also it be good to use for the garden next spring. It also reduce waste. Cheers
I don't actually. I do use the council brown bin scheme, so they take away garden waste.
It's a good point on the hibernation thing, maybe I should think about it.
Compost is a great place for Hedgehogs as well to call home and source of food for them as it also attracts slugs; snails ; worms etc. And as hedgehogs population is in decline they need all the help they can get. Cheers.
I love wild gardens I wish I could do it but the weather here in egypt is too hot I'm trying my best in my garden
Nice :-)
I have no idea about the kind of plants you could grow in that kind of climate, but good luck!
Would you recommend the seed balls Greg?
How long did it take to see progress from?
Another great video!
Unfortunately, not long after this video was filmed we had a massive heat wave that killed anything that had started growing, so results were inconclusive.
I have planted some more this year, so I'm hoping to see some results, that I will make a video on later in the year.
I have had several people tell me they had great results from Seedball, so I'm hopeful.
great
Thanks!
those orchids are great. We've just had some show up this summer, and I learnt that they're actually in the ground for up to 4 years before they show up as flowers! Also, is it true you have to leave the wildflower seeds to undergo a cold winter before they sprout?
I'm not sure about all wildflowers, but I know that's true for the yellow rattle. I was worried it didn't get cold enough for the seeds I planted last year, since we had such a mild winter. But there's loads of them all over the garden.
@@GregsWildlife interesting, looks like you've done a brilliant job either way! thanks for replying
So have all these flowers just been planted as seeds to start with directly in the ground?
Best to compost your grass clippings in your garden.
That's certainly a possibility. Although I tend to find I have more than I need. Wildflowers tend to want low nutrient soil, so you don't really need much compost. Although when I get to planting some more established, ornamental (yet still wildlife friendly) plants, the compost may come in more useful.
Great video! Do you think the nettle helps keep the aphid population in a remote corner of the garden resulting in other areas having fewer pests?
That's an interesting idea, I'm not sure. But it will definitely encourage natural pest control by encouraging aphid-eating insects to live in the garden and they may well spread to other areas, keeping the aphid population down.
How do you keep from growing too big? Do you mow the grass normally after the season?
This is one of the questions I struggle with the most as there seems to be several different answers.
I usually cut the grass sometime during winter, maybe February time, if there's a stretch of dry weather. But there is an argument for leaving it longer. Many insects will overwinter in long grass so you might want to leave it until you start to see the first butterflies emerge. But by that time a lot of plants will have started their new growth... so it's a complicated answer.
But for me, I cut it before spring starts so I have a clean slate, so to speak, to start the year with. Hope that helps!
Do you have butterfly weed in the uk? They’re bright orange and the bees and butterflies love them.
I wasn't familiar with that particular flower, so I looked it up. It appears it is a native of USA so doesn't grow here. It is a relative of milkweed, which we do have and I think it is imported as an ornamental flower, but doesn't grow naturally.
@@GregsWildlife oh I know they enjoy full sun. One of my favorite plants.
Nice !!!
Thanks!
So have all these flowers just come from seeds that you planted directly in the ground?
A lot of the flowers just showed up. There's a lot of dormant seeds in the soil, and if the grass isn't cut short every week, you may be surprised by what starts to grow.
Sweet vid but please get yourself a battery mower! Well done 👍
Thanks. I've tried battery powered strimmers before and I've never been impressed with them. The battery always seems to run out too quickly!
I tried those seed bombs but nothing came up I was very disappointed. I hope you did better. Compost heap would be a haven for wildlife!
I must admit, I got very little from them. Although many of them started to sprout just as we had a prolonged heat wave and I don't think I watered them enough and I think the heat and dryness killed them all. I've got loads left over, so I'll give it another go this year. I might start them off in indoor pots to get the going.
Great videos tho i feel like it could have been half the length
Thanks for your feedback
Love the channel. Just subscribed. We are doibg the same here but 2020 has gona a bit pants to be honest.. got really downhearted with it all. Want to get back on it soon though ready for 2021..
Welcome to the channel! Yes, this year has been...testing. I haven't done as much as I wanted to. I wanted to plant lots of new things, but there was limited shopping opportunities. Roll on next spring!
YO WHERE CAN I BUY THAT SEED MIX
The seed balls can be bought from seedball.co.uk
me: wants to look after frogs, toads and newts, wants to make a wildflower meadow and wants to attract more wildlife to my garden!
Greg's Wildlife: makes videos on almost all the things I wanted to do before I even found this channel!
Hey, sorry for the late reply. For some reason TH-cam had censored this comment and never notified me it was made, so I've only just seen it!
But those are some great goals, I hope you're able to achieve them this year. Let me know how you get on.
@@GregsWildlife thx, I might only be able to make a small wildflower patch however I will be looking after Rana temporaria, bufo bufo and lissotriton vulgaris!
I can't wait!
Awesome. Any size patch of wildflowers is a good thing. I'd love to maybe do toads or newts alongside frogs this year, but I'm not sure I'll find them.
@@GregsWildlife if u can find a location that has them it would be great to have you doing them alongside me!
#savesoil
I got coneflower yarrow butterfly weed swamp milkweed Joe Pye weed
Sounds lovely!
Now you have a garden full of ticks that you can’t use
No I don't.
It's very unlikely that my garden will become infested with ticks. There will be lots and lots of bees, butterflies, beetles, birds, hedgehogs and many other creatures. But ticks, not so much.
This video is a few years old now, still not had any ticks.
neighbors..
Ha ha! I can't get too annoyed with them, but they do make me have to do several takes xD
@@GregsWildlife neighbours doing neighbouring things. Sometimes they're just hard work. Sometimes they're great. Loved the video though, I enjoy you love of nature.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
The grass clippings need to be left on the lawn as a mulch....or at lest scattered around the beds...please don't throw away good organic waste in the bin, thats not natures way.
The grass was being recycled. It was taken away to make compost, so not a complete waste. But also, for my purposes, I don't want the extra nutrients on my lawn. Wildflowers require nutrient poor soil, so leaving grass clippings behind enriches the soil and just encourages more grass growth with prevents wildflowers from growing.
Firstly, ditch your brown bin as you are throwing away the compost you just bought, and also as it rots you dollop some on as a buffalo would lay it's eggs and your meadow will transform, but I moved into a home and the lawn was like a show garden and I just let it grow, to the horror if the old fellow next door, and the first few months I saw an orchid growing. If you throw away your lawnmower and just let nature back in it will transform your garden. But buy a shotgun for the cats that love your new cat toilet you created.
I have many plans for the garden. Getting a compost heap going would be a good addition, although I think I'd generate more garden waste than I could use for compost.
It can be amazing to see what grows if you just leave things alone.
The music is irritating and distracting.
Okay