What's Wild in the Garden This Year

Robin on the pond

I have been trying to attract smaller beings into the garden and I really think there are more this year, largely because I have introduced more wild flowers. So here is a list of wild  things growing in July. It is by no means a full list but it does show the sort of things that are there. 

For eating I have fennel, chives, wild garlic, red veined sorrel, sweet cicely, jack-in-the-hedge, thyme, lovage, oregano, wild strawberries, perennial cabbage, nasturtium. 

Oregano

Perennial cabbage with the white butterfly that loves to eat it

Wild geranium and bee

Wild flowers include marshmallow in a tub - it looks like a thistle but has no thorns, bird's foot trefoil,   fox-and-cubs, campion, daisies, red clover, yellow rattle (which partly feeds on the grass and allows other things to grow there), teazel, marguerites, buttercups, dandelions and geraniums. This year I grew several tubs of wild flowers, with the idea that if I put them in the garden they would get lost, whereas if they sow themselves from a tub, they might choose the best places. We shall see.

I also have plenty of ferns, roses, foxgloves, geraniums and so on, which attract wildlife and the double compost heap which I had built when I moved in. 

This year I certainly have more wildlife, many more spiders for example, some of them really strange, and many more smaller flying things which I'm rather bad at identifying.