Last weekend I was inspired by a programme by Chris Packham called “The British  Garden: Life and Death on your Lawn”. Ok so a silly sensationalist title ( why do they do this?) for what turned out to be a rather interesting programme about the sheer number and variety of wildlife in a group of British suburban gardens in Hertfordshire.

The gardens were followed through the year, illustrating the changing seasons and highlighting key garden activity. It reminded me why I always loved natural history, from primary school nature tables through to my A level Biology field trip. The idea that all this activity and life is going on literally under our feet and all around us is both inspiring and magical to me.

The interesting conclusion of the programme was a count of the variety of wildlife in each garden, from the most manicured to the most over-grown and ‘wild’ and guess what? The garden with the biggest number and variety of wildlife was not the ‘wild’ garden as predicted but the ‘casually cultivated’ garden with fruit trees and areas of flower beds and more neglected areas where wild plants had invaded. They concluded that it was the variety of habitats, and especially the fact that there was something in flower pretty much throughout the year, that made all the difference.

I am inspired! the advice was to provide a variety of habitats with fruit trees, a pond flowers and wild areas. This is not going to be difficult for me to replicate. I am in the process of increasing the variety of ‘types’ of garden from the completely wild woodland at the end to the ‘cottage garden’, the ‘orchard’, the ‘water garden’ and a more secluded meditation garden in the middle with plenty of scented flowering shrubs and ferny ground cover. My aim in the garden is to have something flowering at all times of the year and of course in the end I want to have bees. So exciting!