Biodiversifying the garden: an update

In 2019 I wrote a post about the gradual attempts to turn our house’s previously rather standard lawn into a wildflower meadow of sorts.

Two pandemic-infused summers have passed since then, so what has happened?

Management changes and vegetation responses:

1. We learned that raking and reseeding didn’t really do much.
2. And the area we essentially left as a control got pretty rank with grass and not much else happened (apart from a bit of surprise sorrel).
3. Either plug-planting wildflower plantlets or else removing a layer of turf and then reseeding seems to be more effective, so we adopted this more widely, a bit in 2020 and then a lot in 2021.
4. A mole lived in the garden for most of 2020. This was a really exciting inclusion – by turning over the soil and causing disturbance, it allowed some of the seedbank to do more interesting things – from late 2020 onwards a big patch of cornflower appeared (much to goldfinches’ delight), and the molehills also permitted a bit of new reseeding so we acquired some bedstraw, etc. The mole sadly moved on by late 2020 but maybe a new one will visit in future!
5. 2020 was fairly dry; 2021 was rather wet. This result in…a lot of biomass. Whereas the previous year had really let the wild liquorice thrive, this year it barely got a look-in as it had to compete with 4ft tall birdsfoot trefoil, hundreds of ox-eye daisy heads, and vibrant yarrow.
6. We will need to thin the ox-eye daisy as it’s doing a bit too well!
7. Some slow-starters are making better progress now – red clover and scabious in particular.
8. We added some more plants this year – more white clover (Melitta leporina wants to come to the garden, but with the long sward there wasn’t much on offer for it), yellow rattle (hopefully will thin the grass a bit!), etc. Attempts to add rattle from seed haven’t done well so this year we did it with plug plants, which went much better.
9. The acquisition of a scythette improved management this year. I think next year we may need to do some more mosaic cutting to provide a range of sward heights.

And what did the entomology do?

This has been a real success. We must be up to 30+ bee species in the garden now, including some of the slightly less ubiquitous species like Andrena gravida, Dasypoda hirtipes (good populations in 2021!) and Melitta leporina. We’ve also had a range of Cerambycidae, both the “usual” beefly species in solid numbers, and 2021 in particular saw a brilliant number of Bombus hortorum. It’s a smallish garden in a village that isn’t ecologically particularly noteworthy, so I’m not holding my breath for anything super-rare, but it seems to be supporting a good diversity of insect species now. I also enjoyed the surprise appearance of a Brown Argus butterfly.

This is also feeding into decent bird numbers. Mostly house sparrows, granted, but also goldfinches and blackbirds.

So what next?

I think we’ll need to introduce some disturbance over winter to turn over the seed bank a bit, and thin some of the ultra-dense ox-eye patches.

The Ollerton pollination surveys have really helped flag the bee diversity and longhorn beetle diversity (among other things) in the garden so I’m excited about continuing that in some form in future.

We may need to look at some partial cuts during the year to try and stop it turning too intense!

But overall…it’s working!

Neither an island, nor having monkeys

Next to the A249 in Kent is a small patch of lowland heath, sandpit and heathy woodland. It’s about a hectare in total, probably somewhat less. It’s popular with local dirt-bikers, and tends to accumulate a fair amount of human rubbish (discarded food/drinks containers, barbeques, etc. and worse). Locally it’s called Monkey Island (something to do with a long-lost church or priory, allegedly).

Ecologically, it’s fascinating. North Kent has a mixture of chalky soils (alkaline) and London Clay and Thanet Beds (brickearth) (neutral-acid), but heathland of course requires more acidic soil. So there, on the edges of a couple of fields, is this dome of heather and broom. I’d love to know what it looked like 2000, 5000 or 10000 years ago!

I discovered it in 2020 during lockdowns, when I think many of us became very familiar with local walking routes, official and otherwise.

Let’s start the story in the spring.

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The sandpit has a south-facing slope that catches the sun through much of the day and is extensive and easy to dig in. As a result, it’s used by a large number of different bee species, but some highlights include Colletes cunicularius, a remarkable species that was rare until quite recently and suddenly went boom, and is unusual among Colletes species in the UK for being large and spring active; and quite a high number of Anthophora plumipes. Some years you get an impressive nesting aggregation of Andrena barbilabris, which specialises in nesting in sandy soils. There are also common species – Andrena nitida tends to do well, as do the kleptoparasites of the most abundant bee species here!

There’s also an impressive year-round population of green tiger beetles!

As we move into the summer, there is a dip in the bee populations but some other insects turn up. Odynerus spinipes nests in the sand cliff, making its fantastic lacework chimneys. Ammophila wasps create their little hidden nests…and raid each others’! Oxybelus unglumis drags flies in its back legs into its nests.

I suspect the species diversity isn’t enough to get it any sort of notable status, but heathland is rare in Kent so any patch has value. It would be great if it could be protected I guess.

*A side note. Confirming the ID from specimens was a real pain. It’s quite funny how Colletes hederae is simultaneously “unmistakeable” and an absolute irritation to identify. Unmistakeable, as in once you look closely it’s clearly not at all like a honeybee and in general unless you have nearby saltmarsh or heathland, that’s the cute Colletes you see on ivy flowers; absolutely a nightmare because if there is a chance it’s either C. halophilus or C. succinctus you will probably spend far too long staring at the glossa and trying to decide how shiny it is (or isn’t).