Lunarz

Feeding poor-soil loving plants in pots?

Hi - I have got several plants that traditionally prefer poorer soil which are growing in pots, e.g. scabious, lavender, sedum, snow in summer, fleabane etc.  Just wondering if these should ever be fed.  I know that planted in the garden the advice is not to feed them, but as they are in pots and have been for a couple of years, there really won't be any nutrients left in the soil now so I want to give them a flower/fruit feed.  Any thoughts on whether this is the right thing to do please?  Thanks  

Will anything benefit from these old pipes?

I started putting mealworms on the floor at night in my garden two years ago and I now have at least 4 or 5 hedgehog visitors every night - I even have hedgehog fights over the mealworms regularly - which consists of them huffing and puffing their disapproval at each other in a very comedic way.  Try sprinkling some mealworms around leading to the shelters and hopefully you'll get them too - the mealworms are much cheaper if you by them on eBay by the way!

How long do Lupins live?

Thanks everyone.  Hope mine last a bit longer than a couple of years as I have quite a few!  Sotongeoff, your lupins look amazing - if only I had a big enough garden to have huge groups of lupins like those!  

Will anything benefit from these old pipes?

As long as it is big enough for a large hedgehog to turn around in, then it would be great if you blocked one end up - the end that faces the prevailing wind would be best.  Maybe you could pile some logs up against the end, or even fasten a plastic bag around the end and then pile some logs against that to make it waterproof - I have done this in my garden for hedgehogs and it has stayed water tight for a couple of years.  You are going to need a lot of logs aren't you  

Where have all the birds gone?

I do hope you're right donutsmrs - we did have a successful blue tit brood in our garden ourselves, although I know they started very early in the year, and I have seen a baby sparrow and a baby chaffinch too.  Just nowhere near last year's numbers.  Springwatch was really depressing - every day they showed another load of babies dying in the nest, all the while being filmed, either by starvation or flooding or predation.  According to the, it was mainly because the adults couldn't find enough food in all the rain.  I had to stop watching after the first three days as I am just too soft to watch that kind of thing!

Will anything benefit from these old pipes?

Hedgehogs might like them too - I agree with Alina, maybe put logs around them and leave piles of leaves nearby in autumn?  If animals think that they are a log pile, they will be more likely to approach them.  I'm sure some animals will be grateful for such a nice, warm home  

Sparrowhawk dilemma

I have a sparrowhawk too, who has taken four baby starlings from my garden this year.  I put mealworms on the ground and s/he just swoops down and catches them.  I had the sparrowhawk last year too, but it stopped visiting around the end of June and I figured that it had successfully fed it's babies until they fledged and then no longer needed the food.  Perhaps it was also the fact that older birds are quicker and it lost interest when it couldn't catch anything any more!  It's an incredible noise that all of the small birds make when the sparrowhawk approaches - definitely a step up in urgency compared to their normal alarm calls.  Whenever I hear it, I get the camera out...

How long do Lupins live?

Hi everyone.  It mentioned in the latest Gardeners' World blog that Lupins are only short-lived.  Just wondered roughly how many years they live for, and how to identify if one is on the way out.  I have quite a few in my garden and I've noticed that one of them has only very small flowers this year compared to the others - perhaps only 2 to 3 inches tall.  Does that mean it is on the way out? 

Where have all the birds gone?

On Springwatch this year they said that adults will never feed baby birds from feeders, as they need moisture content in their food as previous posters have said.  However, the adults still visit the feeders to feed themselves - but presumably only one at a time whilst they are brooding.  Sadly,apparently high numbers of baby birds never got to fledge this year as the terrible wet weather meant that the parent birds couldn't find enough food to keep them fed whilst in the nest.  I am wondering if the large number of birds I had last year was actually later in the year when the adults were showing their fledglings where to get food.  If hardly any fledglings made it this year, perhaps that explains why there doesn't seem to be many birds around  

Where have all the birds gone?

Hi - I have several feeders in my garden, offering sunflower seed, suet, mealworms and peanuts.  Last year I had a huge number of birds in the garden, including flocks of 20 to 30 goldfinch several times a day, plus green finch, chaffinches, all types of tit, and the other more usual birds.  Things started off well this year again in March to May, but at the beginning of June I began to notice that there were less and less birds coming, and now apart from some blackbirds, some juvenile starlings and some blue tits, all the others have more or less gone.  There is still the occasional goldfinch or chaffinch, but nothing like the numbers of last year or earlier this year.  Any ideas on why they might have left?  Is it normal at this time of year? Any ideas gratefully received!

Starlings not migrating

Hedgehogs near extinction

Absolutely enormous slug

Lupins destroyed by greenfly

Bird seed falling in pond

The mystery of the disappearing hedgehogs

Discouraging Starlings

Very short echinacea

Are astilbes poisonous to some insects?

Are sterile plants any good for wildlife?

Is organic fertilizer OK?

Feeding poor-soil loving plants in pots?

How long do Lupins live?

Where have all the birds gone?

Is everyone else's plants very late this year?