Butterflies
During September I noticed three small but colourful caterpillars on the leaves of a Pyracantha, Red Column shrub. From a book I identified the caterpillars as the larva of the Grey Dagger moth. I was pleased to discover the larva because I had seen a Grey Dagger moth in the garden in August and thought what an attractive moth. I have attached a photo of the larva, which was taken in the garden.
The Pyracantha Red Column has become one of my favourite garden shrubs, because in autumn it has a lovely display of red berries that the Blackbirds adore.
Verbena bonariensis is a perennial, which grows up to 2 m high with a spread of 45 cm. It has clusters of tiny lilac-purple flowers that crown a tall branching stem that flower for weeks. It has attracted many different types of butterflies and has been so successful I have planted more. Also in the same area I have planted some Sedum spectabile.
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A few thoughts and observations on my garden meadow patch experiment.
A small area 7.5m x 2m was seeded with Mini Meadow mixture of wild flowers and grass seeds in spring 2005, after removing the turf. This year 2006 the meadow area has been left uncut and has grown vigerously, which suggests that the soil is too fertile. In August, the mini meadow has been dominated by knapweed and a lot of Wild Carrot. With the area being small, the Wild Carrot being tall and abundant, it made the meadow look untidy and may not be suitable for such a small area. Putting this small problem aside the meadow patch has been alive with bees, hover flies, other flies, Soldier beetles, Lady birds, and Sloe bugs, which has been interesting.
The seed packet instructions recommended cutting the meadow in October, this being a spring, summer meadow all in one. I thought that was great until I listened to Chris Beardshaw on Gardeners Questiontime, when he said, ‘Combined meadows are not really successful; it is better to choose either spring or summer flowering meadow and cut accordingly’. Do you know of any body that has experienced this problem?
I am willing to double the meadow area once I have decided what is best. One way to proceed, maybe to have a dedicated spring meadow for the new area and adjust the existing meadow to a summer meadow adding more suitable plants. I have requested a Landlife Wildflower catalogue and they maybe able to suggest a suitable seed mix.
Below is a list of seeds sown in the existing meadow patch; Plants that have been seen throughout the year are highlighted.
Black Medick, Cat’s-ear, Common Birds-foot-trefoil, Common Knapweed, Common Sorrel, Common Vetch, Cowslip, Daisy, Dandelion, Field Scabious, Greater Knapweed, Hoary Plantain, Kidney Vetch, Lady’s Bedstraw, Meadow Buttercup, Meadow Crane’s-bill, Oxeye Daisy, Red Clover, Ribwort Plantain, Salad Burnet, Selfheal, White Campion, Wild Carrot, Yarrow, Yellow-rattle.
During late August most of the meadow has turned to seed and appears dead, but on close inspection the seed heads of Knapweed and Wild Carrot are crawling with Sloe Bugs.
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