latest FuFWiG resident

Well she may not add greatly to the habitat value of the garden, but she does impart a certain old-world charm, don't you think?

it's Tree O'Clock in the garden

As part of the BBC's Tree O'Clock attempt on the world simultaneous tree-planting record on Saturday 5 December, four of us bulked up the perimeter hedge with a further 37 native trees - courtesy of Adrian Hall Garden Centre and The Natural History Museum wildlife garden.

We'll find out shortly if the attempt was successful.

welcoming the wet

It's a bumper year for spiders, and a appropriately we have a cross garden spider in the church's garden.

They like the wet, and so hopefully will our new plantings - mostly bulbs, a few perennials (both from wild seed and dug out of gardens) and shrubs.

Out of curiosity I tried germinating the red campion seed in a seed tray first. As I knew I'd forget to water them, I added some cheap water-retaining gel. Seems to have worked - the photo shows a seedling three months after sowing.

FuFWiG hits the headlines!

Don't be too quick to put your Council-issue h&f news into your Council-issue Smart Sack this week - for there on p.20 is a very nice half-page report on the wildlife garden.

Thanks Magda - I like the "beetles banish yobs" angle!

Next FuFWiG event - bulb planting!

Here's a good one if you're interested in the whole wildlife garden thing but find the subject a bit daunting, or don't fancy doing loads of hard work, or are worried about doing it all wrong.

Bulb planting is easy (even young children can do it), quick, and you get to admire your handiwork every spring from then on. But although most bulbs bloom in spring (certainly all the ones we'll be planting), the time to plant them is autumn.

We've set a date of Saturday 3rd October from 10 till 11 in the morning for the work. If you can provide your own trowel that would help greatly. Please get in touch beforehand to say you're coming, so I know how many to expect.

Thanks, and see you there.

For wildlife geeks only...

This might seem a bit nerdy, but what follows is an inventory of what's been growing in the garden, intentionally and otherwise, and what animal life has been spotted, since we began work on it in spring.

Why? Well it's easy to imagine one is doing one's bit for biodiversity, but harder to show that nature is indeed benefiting from one's efforts. It would be good to have some record of whether or not that's happening at FuFWiG.

Anyway, first up: shrubs, hedging & climbers that we planted:

• blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
• burnet rose (Rosa spinossima)
  
• dog rose (Rosa canina)
• dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)
• elder (Sambucus nigra)
• field maple (Acer campestre)
• field rose (Rosa arvensis)
• goat willow (Salix capraea)
• guelder rose (Viburnum opulus)
• hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
• honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)
• hop (Humulus lupulus)
• spindle (Euonymus europaeus)
• traveller's joy (Clematis vitalba; old man's beard)
• tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum)
• wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana)

Then a couple of climbing/scrambling plants that were already there:

• bramble (Rubus fruticosus)
• ivy (Hedera helix)

Next, herbaceous plants, mostly annuals, that we sowed from seed:

• corncockle (Agrostemma githago),
• cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)
• corn marigold (Chrysanthemum segatum)
• feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
• foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
• mayweed (Matricaria maritima)
• oxeye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum)
• poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
• wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

And herbaceous plants that self-sowed (to the untutored eye, "weeds"):

• black medick (Medicago lupulina)
• broad-leaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius)
• chickweed (Stellaria media)
• common mallow (Malva sylvestris)
• dovesfoot cranesbill (Geranium molle)
• fat hen (Chenopodium album)
• groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)
• nipplewort (Lapsana communis)
• prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola)
• red dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)
• shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)
• Solomon's seal (Polygonatum multiflorum)
• sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis)

Lastly, animals (in the wider sense) - harder to record as we're not there much except to work; contributions welcome here:

• blackbird (Turdus merula; nested)
• ?buff-tailed bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris)
• grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
• red admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
• seven-spot ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata)
• wood pigeon (Columba palumbus)

Not a bad collection in all. Would be nice to see more non-flowering plants (working on that) and spring bulbs (that too), and also to get more animal sightings. Watch this space.

is wetter better?

The seriously wet July has been a mixed blessing in the garden. Most of the plants that are supposed to be there are doing OK. Some that aren't, like fat hen and the distinctly inedible-looking prickly lettuce are doing spectacularly.




Another odd development is that people are leaving bread in the garden. Mostly it sits around going soggy before any wildlife takes an interest in it. But it's nice that people are contributing...

FuFWiG Mansions - open to residents

At last we have a habitat tower of sorts - one tier short as someone has made off with one of our pallets!

There are still "slots" available within it if anyone would like to contribute.

Mindful of the requirements of stag beetle, we have also installed some interred decaying wood (a tree stump and railway sleeper) for extra habitat goodness.

broadening the habitat pallet

Paolo has suggested a more achievable habitat tower design - using discarded pallets, like this one shown at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show three years ago this week.

Well, we have the pallets, but we could still do with the following to put within them:

• any sort of untreated dead wood, e.g. pruned branches, logs
• terracotta plant pots or (even better) pipe sections
• those sorts of bricks with holes in them (I'm sure there's a technical term)
• bamboo canes and other tube-like woody plant stems
• straw
• corrugated cardboard
• ivy plants

We will install all this on the morning of next Saturday (11 July) between 10 and 12, i.e. before our Summer Fun Day - any help and/or loan of tools is appreciated!

never say die!

Despite the prolonged warm dry spell, several of the hedging plants I'd given up on are showing some regrowth.

Also doing surprisingly well are flowers from the "wildflower mix" sown in spring. I'm not sure if the likes of cornflower, field poppy and marigold would naturally be found in a shady, nutrient-rich spot like FuFWiG, but they are a welcome dash of colour anyway.

There are also a number of ladybirds, though whether they are the invasive harlequins is hard to tell as these come in a perplexingly wide range of coloration. Could we unwittingly be providing habitat for the bad guys?

few April showers, but some May flowers

It's now late May and the wildlife garden is coming to life - most of it, anyway. A lot of the hawthorns in the "hedge" appear to have died. The spring has been dry, but most other things have pulled through, which makes me wonder if it was a dodgy batch - or perhaps hawthorns are just more vulnerable.

Apart from that, we have blackbirds nesting in the dense foliage of one of the lime pollards, and an interesting variety of annuals popping up in the sunnier ground at the front, including dovesfoot cranesbill and black medick. We're pulling out a lot of the mercury though, otherwise it'll just smother everything else.

Next goals are the logpile and habitat tower. The latter seem very trendy right now, even featuring at last week's Chelsea Flower Show, at Ark Design Management's Future Nature show garden (pictured). I don't think we'll be doing anything on quite that scale...

I'll have some of those

An eye-catching centrepiece of the RHS "Greener Gardening" Show last week was this display of "habitat towers" by the Trust for Urban Ecology. These allow a variety of wildlife habitats in a confined space, and being made of reclaimed wood, which eventually breaks down in the soil, they're pretty green themselves - as well as making quite an architectural statement while they're up.

Some day we'll have them at FuFWiG - watch this space!

A helping hand for the hedge

Okay, it's not very pretty, but I'm grateful to Neil Manning of Hammersmith & Fulham Parks Dept and his contractors for putting up this temporary (we hope!) fence, to help the mixed hedge establish unmolested.

Action stations!

Many thanks to those who helped clear up and plant the wildlife garden on Saturday 14 March 2009. In a brisk couple of hours we transplanted the remaining plants from the main site into the (bare) inner corner plot. We also planted a protective hedge of mixed native species, and some native shrubs and wildflower seeds on the main site.

humble origins

Hello and welcome to the Fulham Fields Wildlife Garden blog.

We're still at the "before" stage, as you can see from the images here - although we are almost ready to begin planting.

Stay tuned!