zero maintenance wildlife garden patch.

There's a patch at the bottom of the garden had been used as a rubbish dump when the flat was let.  A feral privet and a couple of elders had overgrown the rubbish, so I chopped them right back, got rid of the rubbish and old bricks lying around, (there were the remains of an ash-paling fence, the wood badly rotted, but the galvanised wire in perfect nick after what must be at least forty years; I remember those fences being ubiquitous in the 60s), and heaped up the cuttings from the trees.  I'll have a bonfire, probably on Bonfire Night, glyosphate the very coarse grass that's growing along the path edge, and then turn it over.   

I've got four gorse plants, the only survivors, I think, from the seeds I blogged about here which are therefore nearly five years old. I'll plant them there.  I've also got a jam jar full of poppy seeds.  They're at least two years old, but they've been in a cool dark cupboard, and there are a lot, so hopefully if I scatter them all around I should get a dozen or so plants.  And I know that these poppies are self seeding, because they're a ubiquitous weed in the irl Pig Sty Avenue, which is where they were harvested. 

I'm going to buy seeds for teasel, borage, evening primrose and tobacco plant.  I know the first two are self seeding.  I don't know about the other two, but I'm going to take a punt on them being so, because I want them for the moths, and I particularly want moths because I saw a bat flying over the other night, and I want to encourage it and its pals.  

I'm going to broadcast sow these all in November, so on a wing and a prayer.  The plants will have to fend for themselves against the local flora, which will reasonably enough put in an appearance.  The only gardening I'll be able to give this patch will be to cut back the privet and elder once a year, or maybe even every two years.  Work means I don't have time for the rest of the garden, but I hope this patch will be a wee self-propagating oasis.


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