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Garden
Diary
from Country and Border Life
Magazine |
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HOME |
AUGUST |
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Gardening-wise
August
can be a lazy month. Lawns are growing more slowly, annual flowers are
all in place in pots and border spaces, perennials need little attention
and for the wildlife gardener there are, as yet, no meadows to cut.
Although haymaking in the countryside is traditionally done in July or
even late June if the weather has been fine, a garden meadow need not be
cut this early. Leaving mine for a couple more months means that I can
continue to enjoy the later flowering blooms of bedstraw, meadowsweet and
field scabious which may flower into September, as well as the seed heads
of knapweed and wild carrot and of course the grasses.
So the best moments of warm August days are
spent beside the pond, drink in hand. Water is a magnet to my garden
wildlife this month as birds drink and bathe and a succession of
dragonflies joust for possession of a territory in which to lay their
eggs. Dragonflies and damselflies never cease to fascinate me – their
appearance, life cycle and habits are all extraordinary and it is easy to
forget that the wonderful flying creatures we see around our ponds this
month are the brief culmination of a much longer life – several years for
some species - under the water as rather ugly and fearsome looking larvae.
If you have the time to sit and watch, look out for the adult insect’s
astonishing ability to catch its prey, and eat it, on the wing.
With so much happening at eye level it is
easy to forget to look skyward occasionally when I’m wandering around my
garden in mid summer. The call of a buzzard will draw my eyes upwards
though and if the sky is clear there may well be several of these
magnificent birds of prey circling on thermals. Our record here is
twenty-nine! On these occasions too I sometimes see a red kite, which
makes me wonder how many I miss by gazing at the ground!
So August gives the gardener a little
breathing space before summer comes to an end and garden maintenance
begins again in earnest. I will be preparing myself for the hard work of
haymaking. |
What to
do in August
- If you
grow vegetables don’t forget to sow more cut-and-come-again lettuces now
for autumn salads, plus spinach and chard for the spring.
- Herbs
can be gathered this month for drying for winter use. Pick
non-flowering shoots, strip the leaves and spread them on sheets of
clean paper on sunny windowsills. Thyme, sage, marjoram, dill and
fennel all dry well.
- Now
nesting has finished you may want to prune back early flowering shrubs
such as forsythia and flowering currant to encourage plenty of blossom
next spring.
- Dead
head buddleia as the flowers fade to ensure that more spikes develop.
These will keep your butterflies happy into the late summer.
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August
Project - Collect your own seeds
The best
way to increase the plants in your garden – and the most economical in
terms of transportation miles and use of compost and pots, is to grow your
own from seed. This month you can start to collect seeds from some of
your favourite plants to sow in the autumn or next spring. Not all will
come true from seed but half the excitement is the surprise element! If
you are new to collecting your own, stick to plants with larger, easy to
handle seeds rather than the ‘dust’ produced by foxgloves or verbascums.
Cowslips, primroses, Jacob’s ladder, aquilegia, hollyhock and delphiniums
and annuals such as poppies, nigella and larkspur will all germinate with
ease if sown at the right time. Collect whole seed heads on a dry day and
place them into well-labelled paper envelopes. Store them in a small
cardboard box in a cool room until you want to sow them. You can re-use
garden centre seed trays, plastic module and pots for an eco-friendly
approach. |
JULY |
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Although we think of
July
as the very height of summer, it is rather sad to think that the day
length is already shortening. Actually I prefer not to think about that
and make sure I enjoy the garden and countryside around me while it is at
its best. Work in my garden is minimal this month except for successional
sowing of salad crops, weeding here and there and of course watering where
it is essential. I prefer not to water the garden at all and certainly
never the lawn. Plants are more likely have shallow roots if there is
water readily available. Left to their own devices they develop deeper
roots to find moisture lower down in the soil. Watering pots is a
different matter though, but I try to keep pots to a minimum and use
so-called ‘grey’ water as well as anything that may be available from the
water butts. No problems there last year!!
July is a great month for insects in the
garden, especially bumblebees and butterflies. Dragonflies too, if you or
your neighbours have a pond, are likely to appear, hawking around and
searching for prey which they catch on the wing. These amazing aerobatic
creatures are wonderful to watch, but identification can be somewhat
difficult. Their old country name of ‘horse stingers’ gives the
impression that they are rather dangerous creatures, but they have no
sting. Devil’s darning needle is another rather quaint name, but I prefer
to think of them as aerial jewels as their colours are so bright.
Butterflies are usually plentiful this month
and if you grow a buddleia you are likely to see a good selection of the
larger species including red admiral, small tortoiseshell and peacock. To
attract the small blues, small copper and gatekeeper I make sure I have a
good supply of marjoram in the garden, both our wild native plant and
other varieties of ‘oregano’ which is really just another name for
marjoram. The yellow leaved golden marjoram is especially nice – tasty,
good for insects plus it brightens a border on even the dullest day.
Experience has shown us over the last two
summers that July can be wet and windy, hot and dry or beset with thunder
storms. Whatever comes this summer I’ll be making the most of my garden
and its wildlife. |
What to
do in July
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If you grown vegetables you could sow a
green manure this month into ground that isn’t being used. I use the
lovely plant Phacelia which is turned in once it has produced a good
amount of leaf. If a few seeds stray the lovely mauve flowers are a
magnet for bees
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Remove older leaves from strawberries that
have finished fruiting to encourage strong new growth
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Try to keep on top of vegetables that may
be fruiting – courgettes in particular need to be picked when they are
small and French beans will continue to produce if they are picked
frequently.
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Dead heading some flowers – roses for
instance – is worth the effort if you want flowering to continue into
the late summer months.
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July
Project – bumblebee survey
If you have a little time to spare this
month you may want to have a closer look at the bumblebees around your
garden. It’s well known that these attractive and important insects are
becoming less common in the countryside but gardens are increasingly
important refuges for them. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust needs more
information about our bumblebees and is carrying out several surveys this
summer where the general public can help. Bumblebees nest in a variety of
places, including disused mouse and vole nest in the ground, in compost
heaps and even occasionally in bird boxes. You can let them know about
any nests you find as well as what varieties of bumblebees you have
around. Their website has information on bumblebee identification or you
can send digital photos of the bees in your garden if you are in doubt.
You can find out more at
www.bumblebeeconservation.org
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JUNE
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I have
high hopes for
June this year after last summer’s debacle. The only good
thing to say about the wet weather last year was that everything looked
beautifully green and lush! However, June really is a highlight in the
gardening calendar and it is sad when heavy rain this month flattens
borders and, in my garden, wildflower meadows. My large meadow, sown in
the spring of 2006, has flowered brilliantly since then. New
meadows are best cut in their first year as this enables the grasses to
establish well and cover any bare soil, which helps to exclude weedy
species. May saw a great deal of promise this year and yellow
rattle, ragged robin and common spotted orchids are already flowering
well. As the summer progresses there will be knapweed and lady's
bedstraw. This habitat is a great place for butterflies to find
nectar and the common blue is well established here.
This June I am expecting great things from
my meadow right through until September and also from my nectar borders. This month I will looking out for a plentiful supply of
bumblebees amongst the flowers and hopefully more butterfly species too as
the garden continues to develop. My herbaceous plants have been
chosen especially to provide nectar and pollen and have been planted in
long, deep borders with ornamental grasses that hopefully hums
with insects all through the summer. And with any luck, and decent
weather, our gardens and the countryside will be graced with some of the
migrant butterflies that make their way here from the Mediterranean and
North Africa this month. It seems extraordinary that these flimsy,
delicate creatures can travel such long distances, but the red admiral and
painted lady do just that. They breed here, the former on nettles and the
latter on thistles. Look out for these two colourful species feeding on
Buddleia later this month.
In good weather June can be the most
glorious of months when everything seems to happening at once – birds,
bees and butterflies are breeding and buzzing and its hard to remember the
dreary days of winter. Even if we experience a wet month, our local
wildlife and wildflowers will surely keep our spirits high.
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What to do in June
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If you have any areas of lawn where bulbs
or wildflowers such as cowslips grow, you can cut these at the end of
the month. Divide clumps of daffodils and replant for better flowering
next spring.
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Early summer herbaceous plants such as
lupins and delphiniums can have their spent flower heads cut back now.
This will encourage a few more flowers from side shoots later in the
summer, maintaining the colour in your borders for longer as well as
providing more nectar and pollen for insects.
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If you grow vegetables, now is the time
to plant out your small leeks plus brassicas including broccoli, spouts
and winter cabbages. Keep an eye open for the ‘cabbage’ white
butterflies and squash eggs when you find them, rather than resort to
sprays later which may kill other beneficial insects.
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Continue to feed the birds in your garden
– this is a crucial time when adult birds are feeding their chicks.
Sunflower hearts and peanut kernels will keep the adults going as they
search for insects for their young.
June
Project
- sow foxglove seeds
It may seem like an odd time of year to be
sowing seeds but many biennial plants naturally disperse their seeds at
this time. Foxgloves are amongst my favourite flowers and come in all
shapes and sizes. Our native biennial is one of the best bumblebee
attracting plants you can grow and comes in a huge range of colours. If
you fancy something other than our native pink you could try white,
primrose yellow, apricot and of course a whole range of spotted
varieties. The seeds of foxglove are tiny and need sowing with care.
Firm peat-free compost into a seed tray and cover with a thin layer of
horticultural grit, obtainable from garden centres. Gently distribute the
minute seeds as thinly as you can on top of the grit – they will fall into
the spaces between the grit particles. It is very easy to cover them too
thickly with compost so this method works well. Keep the seed tray damp
and prick out the little plants when they are large enough to handle. Pot
up and plant out in the autumn for a fabulous and dramatic display next
May and June.
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MAY
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May is my favourite month in both the
garden and the countryside, when every shade of green is apparent and I
can almost see my plants growing day by day. It is also a great month for
wildlife as many bird species are feeding young in the nest and bumblebees
drone between white dead-nettle flowers in search of nectar. Spring
butterflies around my garden including orange tip and holly blue, mingle
with early summer species and I will be looking out for the first common
blues which breed on the bird’s foot trefoil in my meadow, and the
speckled wood. The common blue is the sweetest little insect - a flash of
silvery blue which, when it alights on a favourite flower reveals pale
blue underwings with golden orange spots. Where the common blue enjoys
May sunshine, the speckled wood is a creature of dappled shade,
frequenting woodland rides and hedgerows. Both species will visit gardens
and in my South Shropshire territory these two species linger and breed.
May is renowned everywhere for one special
wildflower and one extraordinary insect. The bluebell is not an
especially good plant for attracting wildlife – the odd long-tongued
butterfly such as the brimstone will sip its nectar - but it ranks as one
of our most beautiful wildflowers. And the maybug or cockchafer, one of
our largest native beetles, will be out and about, throwing itself at
lighted windows as it whirrs around at dusk.
May is the month when my personal
obsession takes over. My moth trap – a large square box topped with a
bright light – will be operating on warm, overcast nights in my garden.
The catch is not harmed, but hides away in the depths of the trap amongst
old egg boxes, ready to be identified the next morning and released in a
safe place away from too many searching beaks. Chinese Character, iron
Prominent, Hebrew Character and Nut Tree Tussock – the names alone make
these insects interesting. As beautiful as butterflies and much more
varied in shape, size and colour, moths deserve better press! So
with bats and moths at dusk, foxgloves opening their spotted bells in my
burgeoning borders, maybugs hammering against lighted windows and swallows
nesting in my porch, May really is an exciting month in the garden. |
What
to do in May
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By the end of the
month it is safe (hopefully!) to assume that we will have no further
frosts so plant out any tender bedding now. Choose
wildlife friendly bedding where you can especially petunias for moths,
tagetes for butterflies and verbena for bees.
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Dahlias can also be planted out
now. Again some provide nectar and pollens for insects. Varieties such
as Redskin reveal their yellow stamens and attract hoverflies and some
butterflies.
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Cut back spring flowering shrubs
including flowering currant and Forsythia, but first check carefully for
nesting birds.
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If you are a vegetable grower plant
out your courgettes, pumpkins, squashes and French and runner bean
plants at the end of the month.
May Project - make a mini-pond
Adding water to your garden is one of the
most important things you can do for wildlife. If you don’t have room for
a wildlife pond (or for safety reasons would prefer not to have one) you
may still be able to provide a drinking spot for birds and attract the odd
dragonfly or damselfly. A ‘mini-pond’ is easy to create in a large
ceramic pot or, better still, in a half-barrel, available from most garden
centres. Position the barrel in a light but not overly sunny spot and
place garden soil, gravel or a mixture of both in the bottom. Create a
shallower spot on one side with stones, covered with soil. Fill with rain
water from a water butt and add plants – wildflowers such as brooklime and
water mint can be pushed into the gravel, or a miniature water lily or the
native fringed lily placed gently on the bottom in a container. Add
oxygenators, keep your barrel well topped up in dry weather and a great
variety of garden birds will use if for drinking and the smaller
dragonflies and damselflies may lay their eggs in your tiny wetland
habitat.
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APRIL |
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In
April
my wildlife garden is a hive of activity – literally. The honeybees from
our beehives are making the most of any pollen they can find to feed their
offspring in the comb. Bumblebees too are active this month. The huge
queens have emerged from hibernation and they will be searching for pollen
and nectar before seeking a suitable nest site. This will usually be an
underground disused mouse nest still with its bundle of dried grass, but a
queen bumblebee will take her own nesting material into a suitable hole in
a bank. And it is not just the bees that are out celebrating the change
in the weather. My hedges will be full of nesting birds and some species,
including robins and dunnocks, will already be feeding their newly hatched
fledglings.
Birds rather dominate my garden this month as migrants, including the
chiffchaffs and blackcaps whose songs define this time of year, return.
Hopefully willow warblers too will sing their cascading notes from the
hawthorn trees on my boundary as they did last year. And I’ll be keeping
my eyes skyward for the first swallows and ensuring that there is mud
around the edges of the ponds for the house martins to use for building
their nests. I will be hoping too for butterflies, especially the
wonderful little holly blue. The female lays her eggs in April on the
flower buds of holly, or if her preferred plant is not available, on
dogwood. Small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma and brimstone
butterflies, all of which have spent the winter months in hibernation
should now have emerged, often the worse for wear, with tattered wings.
Gardening in April
is fast and furious – so much to do and not enough time! Vegetables to
sow, lawns to cut and borders to tidy now that hibernating insects have
emerged. I will be planting additional small wildflowers in my recently
established meadows, and squeezing last minute bare rooted native shrubs
into the spaces in my new hedges where there have been winter casualties. |
What to do in April
- If you wish to
increase your stocks of herbaceous border plants, you can sow seeds of
easy to grow perennials such as lupins, scabious or achillea, in seed
trays to prick out later. These will flower in their first summer and
attract bees and butterflies to your garden.
- There is just
time to plant bare rooted native hedging at the beginning of April as
long as the weather is damp. A native hedge is a fantastic habitat in
even the smallest garden, providing shelter, food and nesting places for
a wealth of wildlife.
- Continue to
sow salad crops including rocket, coriander and mixed lettuce leaves
now, as well as carrots, beetroot, spring onions and broad beans.
- Leave all
hedges and shrubs alone from now on as any cutting or pruning may
disturb nesting birds.
April Project -
make a cornfield bed
If spring makes you
feel energetic and keen to get out and do something new and exciting in
your garden, there is no better month to sow a stunningly colouful area of
cornfield annuals. Poppies, corn marigolds, corncockles, cornflowers and
corn chamomile - available as a seed mix from many seed suppliers - are
all annual wildflowers that were once common on field margins, but are now
less frequently seen. Begin by preparing an area of bare soil in full
sun, making sure you remove any invasive perennials such as thistles,
dandelions or couch grass. Rake the soil down to a fine tilth and scatter
the seed as evenly as possible over the area. You may want to add a
handful of silver sand to the seed, to aid distribution. Walk over the
area, gently pushing the seed into the soil but resist the temptation to
rake the seed in too deeply. These species rely on light to trigger
their germination. Water the area if the weather is dry but little else
is needed to create your cornfield patch.
MARCH |
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Spring is upon us
and in my garden the month of March
brings more than just the inevitable excitement of getting out and sowing
seeds. This is the month when the garden seems to be bursting at the
seams with life, whatever the weather. Robins and long tailed tits start
their nest building in the hedges, mounds of frogspawn appear in the
wildlife pond and the occasional peacock butterfly, bedraggled after four
months of hibernation, seeks nectar from the many golden dandelions in the
lawns. For me most of March’s gardening activities are about looking
ahead and preparing for the summer.
My fledgling
wildflower meadow will have a spring cut late this month with the mower on
a high setting, but then it can be left completely alone until my annual
‘haymaking’ event in September. Any spaces in the new nectar borders will
be filled with home grown plants that have over wintered in a sheltered
spot outside, and work to establish wetland wildflowers will continue
around the new wildlife pond this month, now full with winter’s
rainwater. March is a month of contrasts in any garden – mild but
welcome sunshine or icy winds whipping through the daffodils and
hellebores – but there is always the promise of great things to come. |
What to do in March
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Start to cut lawns
this month, but remember to leave areas where wildflowers and bulbs are
established.
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Don’t overdo the
tidying in your herbaceous borders just yet. These areas provide
shelter for many beneficial insects including ladybirds, which will be
your natural allies in months to come.
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Sow hardy annuals
into border spaces at the end of the month if your soil is not too wet.
Larkspur, California poppies and English marigolds will bring early
summer colour and provide bees and hoverflies with pollen, or try
night-scented stock to fill the evening garden with perfume in May and
June.
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Prepare vegetable
plots for sowing, but hold off planting shallots, broad beans and salad
crops until next month if the weather is wet and cold.
March
Project - sow some vegetables
If you are not a
vegetable gardener, this could be the month to turn over a new leaf. Any
small patch of soil can be used to grow your own salad crops – so much
tastier and healthier than shop bought bags of days old lettuce. You
don’t need a dedicated vegetable area – for starters mixed baby salad
leaves can be sown into small empty spaces in borders or I use large
terracotta pots which stand outside the kitchen door. These can be
quickly harvested in a ‘cut-and-come-again’ fashion for a healthy and
attractive garnish or an addition to a lunchtime sandwich.
Fill pots with peat
free compost, firm lightly and sprinkle with a salad leaf mixture
containing ‘baby leaf’ red and green lollo rossa, oak leaf lettuce,
rocket, endive, chicory and radicchio. Cover with a little compost and
water lightly when the compost looks dry. If you prefer to fill border
spaces, choose open sunny spots. Rake the soil to a fine tilth, sprinkle
seeds and cover lightly. These attractive mixtures are ready to harvest
in four or five weeks.
FEBRUARY
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February is possibly my least favourite month in the garden – so much gloom
and mist. But even in this dank month there are signs of spring with
blossom on wild plum in my hedges, snowdrops in flower and catkins
lengthening daily on the hazel. Even so, I’m glad the month is a short one
and look forward with great anticipation to sowing seeds as soon as the soil
is dry enough next month. This month I have to be content with pruning the
fruit trees and preparing vegetable beds while eagerly watching for the
return of our local yellowhammers on the hedge tops. Through the winter
months they feed elsewhere but as natural sustenance in the countryside is
depleted they find the courage to approach my low bird table. As yellow as
a canary, the male stands out like a sore thumb – a prime target for the
local sparrow hawk. On bright days the yellowhammers, together with the
local great tits, thrushes and chaffinches, begin their territorial songs.
It
is easy not to notice how quickly the days lengthen at this time of year.
By February it is light until 6pm and this rapid change in day length not
only stimulates song birds. Many plants are growing now and buds appear on
daffodils and crocuses. Frogs too are starting to feel amorous and appear
around the garden and the natural pond in the field next door as they
prepare for the orgy of activity ahead.
I
love the month of March, when so much changes in the garden and there is
everything to look forward to. In the meantime I am happy to watch, listen
and wait.
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What to do in February
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If you planted new native hedging last
winter, this is a good month to cut the shrubs back or plant new ones as
long as the ground is not frozen. New bare rooted trees can also be planted
now.
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Buddleia is one of the mainstays of a
wildlife friendly garden, attracting a wide range of the larger butterfly
species. This shrub flowers best on new wood prune Buddleias hard at end of
month to encourage new flowering shoots.
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Prruning of fruit trees should be completed this month if possible.
Stack your prunings on a twig pile to create a wildlife habitat unless any
are diseased – these are best burnt quickly on a very hot bonfire.
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In mild areas you can start sowing. Broad beans, parsnips, shallots,
garlic and Jerusalem artichokes can be sown outside, but most of us will
need to wait until next month. Salads, perennial flowers and annuals such
as sweet peas can be sown under cover.
February Project – put up a bird box
February heralds the yearly campaign known as National Nest Box Week which
runs from the 14th of February (Valentines Day) to the 21st.
Many people may well think it is rather early to be putting up a nest box,
but some species will already be nesting and robins and tits will be
actively seeking nest sites this month. Many types of nest box are
available but if you are hoping to increase the success of breeding birds in
your garden choose one from the RSPB, British Trust for Ornithology or from
a specialist bird care company. There are still a great many boxes
around that are entirely unsuitable, having the wrong size hole, a small
perch at the front (ideal for a predator to sit on!) or the depth of the box
is incorrect.
If you don’t already have a nest box in your garden choose one for a blue or
great tit as these are most likely to try out a new box. Boxes should be
attached to walls, fences or trees at head height or above and make sure the
entrance hole is not obscured by vegetation. If you have grey squirrels
around you may want to fix a metal plate over the hole to prevent them from
chewing their way in. Woodpeckers, magpies and cats may all see an easy
meal in a nest box so be aware of the box position. Tits eat a huge number
of small insects so with any luck you will soon have your own family of
natural pest controllers.
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©
Text and photographs Jenny Steel 2010
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