Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary
Tuesday, 1st May, 2007
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IT'S
IN THE SHADE each morning but our front garden gets a low, golden side-light
on a spring/summer evening. It's not as immaculate as some gardens but you can
see why I wouldn’t bother to go around with a weed-gun.
I’d like to get blue speedwell (below, left), which grows on one small lawn down the road, to grow among our daisies. Selfheal (below, right) is another low-growing ‘weed’ that can get established on turf. It has a compact purple flower that my mother-in-law (who would like to eradicate it from her lawn) likens to the nuggets of ground beef you get on pizzas.
The rosettes of foxgloves (right) are getting established under the beech hedge and they’re going to look just right there when they flower in the summer. To allow them to grow I’ll limit my mowing along that edge of the lawn.
Encouraging
wild flowers still further, I’ve decided to try mowing a semi-circle on
the drive side of the lawn, with an arc of grass and wild flowers left to grow
along the edges.
The log roll at the edge of the raised bed is due for replacement and I’d
like to get some local sandstone and build a low drystone retaining wall there.