Nature Notes 3: Wildflowers For Your Garden

"Weeds are flowers too once you get to know them".
A. A Milne

Making a wildflower garden is very easy; just dig and rake over some soil or put some compost in pots and leave it to see what appears. However you may wish to manage things a bit more carefully if you want to avoid just the most common of plants. You can obtain a surprising number of wildflower seeds on ebay, however here are two easy to grow plants that I have tried growing:

RAGGED ROBIN

Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) is a perennial with ragged, deeply-lobed pink petals in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is a widespread though locally declining plant of marshes, damp meadows and wet woodland clearings. Carried on tall stems above clumps of dark green, strapped-shaped leaves, the lacy flowers appear to hang in the air like a mist.
Unfortunately Ragged Robin is in decline in Britain due to modern agricultural practices. Wet meadows, rush-pastures and fens have been drained for agriculture so that marsh plants have become much less frequent than before World War Two. Ragged Robins bloom from May to August, occasionally later, and  attract both butterflies and bees which feed on the nectar.
Ragged Robin is easy to grow, however it doesn't like to fight too hard with other plants for space. I grow it in pots and it needs to be kept damp so I grow mine in pots with no holes in the bottom. Clumps can be lifted and divided in autumn or sow fresh seed in late summer and leave outside to germinate the following spring. The seeds are very easy to collect as they sit in a cup-shaped flower head which can just be tipped over a jar.

RED CAMPION

Red Campion ( Silene dioica ) is a biennial or short-lived perennial which, like Ragged Robin, is in the family Caryophyllaceae. It grows in woodland, shady lanes, hedgerows and on mountain ledges and coastal cliffs. The bright rose-pink flowers of Red Campion brighten up roadsides throughout the summer. Just as the Bluebells finish flowering in our woodlands, Red Campion starts to come into bloom. If they grow side-by-side for a few weeks, they can turn a woodland floor into an amazing sea of pink and blue.
Red Campion prefers to grow in shady parts of the garden and does not tolerate marshy soil as well as Ragged Robin, so it needs pots with holes in the bottom. It is prone to blackfly. The seeds are easy to collect, just shake the seed heads over a jar.

FURTHER READING

"The Encyclopedia of British Wild Flowers" John Akeroyd

"Weeds" Richard Mabey

Nature Notes 2: The Madness of the March Hare

In recent years I've enjoyed watching hares dancing and boxing in spring, in fields close to where I grew up in Leicestershire. The brown hare's spring behaviour can appear quite strange and has given rise to the expression 'as mad as a March hare'. In fact such 'madness' is simply part of their courting ritual.
Unlike rabbits, hares are not particularly sociable animals but they do show an intense, if sporadic, interest in each other during the mating season. This lasts from mid-February to mid-September however it is most noticeable at the start of the breeding season when all of the females tend to come into the breeding condition at about the same time. A male hare (a jack) will mate with as many females (does) as he can, following each doe around. Sometimes the boxing matches are between rival jacks fighting over the doe. They rise up on their hind legs, box and batter each other with their forepaws and turn in circles with their hind legs thumping the ground. Until recently it was thought that these displays were mostly between rival jacks however it is now known that it is usually the larger female fending off the advances of a too amorous male.
Having mated, the jack and doe go their separate ways, the jack to look for yet another doe.

Baby hares are called leverets. Each doe will give birth to several litters during the season, the first usually at the end of February/beginning of march. Litters consist of around 1-4 leverets which are born out in the open, usually in shallow depressions in long grass. Here they must lie absolutely still to avoid the attention of foxes and birds of prey.

Brown hare leverets.

Hares differ from rabbits due to the hare's longer, black-tipped ears, slimmer body and more muscular hind legs.

Hare

Rabbit

'Hareports'

In recent years some of the hares' most bizarre behaviour has been seen at airports. Several times in recent decades large numbers of hares have been reported at Heathrow, Gatwick and Belfast airports living on the grass along the runways. It seems odd that hares, which have very sensitive hearing, should live in such an ear-shattering environment, yet they seem to enjoy racing alongside the planes as they take off as if trying to outstrip them. However there is a sad side to this in that it is a symptom of the decline of viable habitats elsewhere.

Hares at Belfast Airport

Declining Hare Numbers

Unfortunately, like much of our wildlife, hare numbers are declining in the UK. Hares, unlike foxes for example, have not adapted to survive in urban areas, nor do they live in woodlands and most nature reserves are too small to support viable populations. During the 1800s there were around four million brown hares in Britain and this has declined by around 80%. The intensification of agriculture has been a major factor in this, since it has reduced the biodiversity and food supplies which hares need. For example 95% of hay meadows have been lost since World War Two. We simply cannot allow this to continue. You can read more about this issue on the Hare Preservation Trust website here:
http://www.hare-preservation-trust.co.uk/status.php

Further Reading

"Rabbits & Hares" Anne McBride Whittet Books London 1988

Nature Notes 1: Frogs

The frogs have been spawning in my pond and three clumps of frogspawn have appeared. Spring is when frogs and toads are most active (from February onwards to be precise) as this is the breeding season when they migrate to the spawning ponds. Very often frogs and toads return to the same pond every year and this is usually the one in which they were born. Toads tend to be fastidious about this, while frogs are more likely to try a new garden pond. When frogs start migrating varies and they won't travel on frosty nights, but usually they are on the move by February. Once spawning begins, the males make their 'purring croaks' and the water is alive with splashes, kicks and frogs scampering about everywhere.

UK Frog and Toad Decline

There are three species of frogs and two species of toads in the British Isles. These are the common frog, edible frog, marsh frog, common toad and natterjack toad. It is common frogs that reside in my pond. Frogspawn can be distinguished from toadspawn because it is laid in clumps while toadspawn is laid in strands. Toads are squatter in appearance than frogs and move with a clumsy walk rather than hopping. Modern farming practices, urbanisation and pollution are devastating frog and toad populations around the world, with almost a third of global species under threat.
In the UK, numbers of natterjack toads have declined by 75% since 1900. According to a 2011 report by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust, common frogs are becoming less common in the south of England, especially in areas which have experienced most development in recent decades.

Common Frog

Natterjack Toad

You can find a list of amphibian and reptile conservation groups in the UK here:
Amphibian & Reptile Groups in the UK   

How To Encourage Frogs and Toads into Your Garden

Frogs have declined so much in the open countryside due to modern farming methods that gardens are now a vital habitat, indeed it is probably the case that without gardens frogs and toads would be extinct across whole areas of the UK. To encourage frogs and toads into your garden you need to create a 'frog & toad larder' ie don't try to get rid of slugs, snails and plant-eating insects. Let the frogs eat them. Also you need to build a pond. A pond can be a small, ready made plastic one from a garden centre (like mine). Almost any garden pond is likely to be suitable for frogs. The pond can be shaded but not too shaded as tadpoles do better in warm water which gets some sunshine. It is good to leave some long grass and a rockery around the pond.

Further Reading:

"Frogs & Toads" by Trevor Beebee (Whittet Books, London, 1985)