Kate Bradbury

Non Flowering Daffodills

Oh well you're doing better than me! I've decided my garden is too shady for daffs

Kate

Wildlife Ponds

Hi MrsSpratt, an old bath makes a good wildlife pond, as long as it has plenty of shallows (tricky with such steep edges). You'll need to seal the plug hole and overflow pipe using a pond sealant (available from aquatic shops). Then I would take some large stones or slabs and use these to create shallows (5cm deep). This is where frogs will spawn in spring.

Choose a sunny site for your pond and inlcude lots of native pond plants - such as marsh marigold, frog bit, hornwort and brooklime.

If you do sink the tub - which is fairly easy to do - make sure wildlife can enter and exit the pond easily. Consider sowing grass seed around the edges and allow it to grow long, which young frogs and toads will use to shelter in. Avoid filling the bath with tap water, but let it fill up naturally instead. This will ensure a healthier pond in the long run.

Hope this helps

Kate
Gardeners' World team

Carol's beehive

Hi louiseww, we believe the bees are doing very well. If you would like to know more about natural beekeeping, visit biobees.com.

Kate
Gardeners' World team

Making Bird Nest Boxes from Recycled Materials.

What a great idea, Malcar. Do you have a photo you could share with us?

Kate
Gardeners' World team

Non Flowering Daffodills

Hello donutmrs, do they get enough sun? It's worth checking that the bulbs are planted deeply in the ground. If they're quite shallow, dig them up and plant them at three times the depth (length) of each bulb, and feel them with a high potash fertiliser such as comfrey solution. It's also a good idea to remove spent flowers, so the plants don't waste energy producing seed. Good luck for next year!

Kate

Talkback: Garden birds and garden pests

Hi all, thanks for your comments.

oldchippy - ingenious! Love the baked-bean-tin bird box.

alittlesliceofeden - my great tits only ever come during breeding season. I don't see them in summer and very rarely in winter. I assume there is enough food for them at other times of the year so they don't need to come in to my garden. But it's perfectly normal to have birds in your garden all year round.

primrose09 - lovely. It sounds as if you have made a brilliant habitat in your wall.

Kate

Talkback: Making nettle beer

I certainly do! And dead nettles are lovely. I'm hoping some self-seed into my garden!

Kate

Absence of Frogs

Hi JenBee, do the frogs normally spawn in your pond? If so, it could be that the one frog is just waiting for the others to arrive. Spawning occurs much later in the east of the UK than in the west, and it has been quite cold lately. We are supposed to have some rain this weekend, so it could be just what your frogs need to finally come to your pond to spawn.

As regards the slowly diminishing number, there could be a number of reasons. It could be that the frogs are choosing other ponds in preference to yours, or that it isn't as easy to accss your garden as it once was. Disease is also a possibility, or even predation by local cats. Adults normally only spend the mating season near ponds, so are often found a fair distance away from water. Also the last couple of years have been very dry in Suffolk, so that could have affected frog numbers.

Take a look at Nature's Calendar for frogspawn sightings in your area: http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/wildlife/factfiles/amphibians/frogspawn.htm

And do let us know if more frogs join in for spawning this year. I'm still waiting for mine to spawn!

Kate

Pot worms

Can you put a photo up Strewberry? Earth/compost worms in pots are normally a good thing, as they eat decaying material and leave worm casts, increasing the nutritional value of the compost.

Kate

Bees Are Already Buzzing!!

Oh, definitely, happymarion, rosemary is a great early source of nectar and polen for insects. I have just spent half an hour at the base of a Berberis julianae, where lots of bees were congregated. I think they hibernate beneath it over winter, so they don't have far to travel for food in spring!

Kate

Talkback: Queen wasp

Lovely x x 

Talkback: Leaf-cutter bees

Saw my first leaf-cutter only a couple of weeks ago Richard. Didn't get a chance to look at its underside... Kate 

Potted ponds in Thailand

Just some of the many 'potted ponds' I found in Thailand 

Frogspawn

Bumblebees?

Ladybirds

Favourite tools

Redesign of garden

Seed buying

Plants still in flower?