I find this an odd time of year in my garden. There are still late summer flowers in bloom at the moment including pink Cosmos, Verbena and a few sweet peas, yet we have had our first brambling on the feeders – a male who blatantly showed off and then promptly disappeared! I look forward to seeing him again. And while the weather is relatively mild, the odd bumblebee and small tortoiseshell butterfly are also around. The bumblebees are visiting lavender flowers that are still hanging on in a sheltered part of the garden – all huge queen bumbles that should be looking for a hibernation place now. The vole, shrew and mouse activity throughout the garden this year will have provided them with plenty of places to find an abandoned nest to spend the winter months.
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About wildlifegardening
Jenny Steel was a Plant Ecologist at Oxford University before becoming a writer. She has more than 20 years experience of writing about and teaching ecology, natural history and wildlife gardening. She is also a photographer, journalist and former plant nursery owner, and a lecturer and tutor in adult education. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television programmes including Gardener’s World with Alan Titchmarsh, and she presented a series of items on the BBC 2 gardening show, How Does Your Garden Grow. She has worked with and written for a variety of organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England, Atropos, Ernest Charles, the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA), Haiths, Usborne Books, Complete Gardens, Oxfordshire County Council, the charity Growing Native and several of the Wildlife Trusts. She is also the Garden Bird Guru for the wild bird food company JustAddBirds of which she was a co-founder. The Emmy Award winning film company Panache Productions are currently making a film about her wildlife garden in South Shropshire. She has written 10 books on wildlife gardening. Her website can be found at www.wildlife-gardening.co.uk and her bird food company at www.JustAddBirds.co.uk
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