My post Wild things for gardeners, bee beautiful set a challenge for June. And I looked forward to the fantastic wildness I would see in the 30 Days Wild challenge.
30 Days Wild is The Wildlife Trusts’ annual challenge where they ask everyone to do one wild thing a day throughout the month of June.
More details can be found here https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild
I was sure we could do that! And a magic experience it turned out to be.
Exciting that it was Insect Week too as well. 19th to 25th June. Details below. https://www.insectweek.org/
As a passionate gardener who gardens for wildlife, and all-important pollinators, I was raring to get involved and get involved I did.
In addition, I thought it would be fun to be wild every day for a month. I am managing that quite well!
Click here for details of my wild weeks one and two 30 Days Wild. First week challenge 30 Days Wild, week two of the challenge and please read on for wild week three.
A birthday treat on day fifteen
The start of week three and another jolly hot day for June 15th.
I hosted a birthday party in my garden. An evening of laughter, food, and a tipple or three. We were joined by plenty of wildlife, which was fabulous.
To begin with, we flopped around as it was still so hot, and watched the bees on the flowers. Initially, the bees were buzzing around all the beautiful red poppies but by early evening, these flowers had all faded away. Plenty more in bud for the morning though.
By early evening, the bees were congregating around all the sweet william blooms. A colourful mix or white, light pink, dark pink and my favourite, the almost black Nigricans.
As a result of sowing a large amount of hesperis, sweet rocket, we had an evening of smelling the beautiful scent these flowers give and seeing the white blooms glow in the twilight.
Besides the flowers, we were treated to the beautiful sight of several male stag beetles flying around the garden. Many wows were heard!
Several moths were seen and a couple of bats swooping around as well.
Overall, a beautiful evening to spend together, celebrate a birthday, see nature close up and enjoy a spectacular sunset, see the photo above.
Day sixteen of fantastic wildness
Onto 16th June. I inspected all my flower borders today.
Usually, the beautiful Ox-Eye Daisy grows in the wild area of my garden but this year it has run wild! A little too much fantastic wildness here! A takeover bid in several of my flower borders, in particular, crowding out my dahlias, cosmos, and scabious.
Consequently, some of the Ox-Eye needs to come out. I shall set to with a trowel, some pots and the watering can!
After a tussle with these daisies, I have several potted up and well watered to share with friends. I shall explain they are beautiful, fabulous for wildlife, but rather thuggish. Therefore, a cut after flowering is best to avoid them self seeding with abandon!
I know these plants hate being moved, but a jolly prompt removal, straight into a pot, plenty of water and a pat with the words “nothing’s happened here, carry on” seems to work!
Overall, a good morning’s work. My flower borders have room for the dahlias and other flowers to grow and the Ox-Eye Daisy will now delight the pollinators in other gardens too.
Additionally, all the Ox-Eye Daisies in the wild areas of my garden get to continue looking beautiful and feeding the wildlife.
I notice that these flowers are always covered in hoverflies and many types of beetle so a fabulous addition for wildlife in the gardens, providing you keep it in check!
Time for Gardener’s World on I player. I would never be indoors at 8pm to watch it in real time, I am gardening and watching the wildlife!
Wild Day seventeen
June 17th and a day to observe all my dahlias. I want to see which ones are budding up, which are starting to bloom, and which are flowering away merrily already.
This will take some time, as I have planted two hundred more in my garden this year!
All two hundred tubers were potted on in my greenhouse, Favolosa, and planted out after the last frosts.
Additionally, I sowed some dahlia seeds this year as usual. Bishop’s Children and a new variety called Black Beauty. All fabulous dahlias for pollinators and jolly beautiful too.
I will also be taking photos of each of the flowers, something I love to do. These will then be shared on my blog of course.
I also take photos to remind me where the flowers are in the borders, so I do not damage the tubers when planting more tulip bulbs in November. Additionally, it is lovely to gaze at photos of your flowers over the winter, and look forward to next summer. A real boost to wellbeing over a dark and cold winter.
My dahlias are mostly varieties for the pollinators, see my post 12 of the best dahlias for pollinators for those that were best last year.
And my post 10 beautiful dahlia flowers for pollinators for the first one of 2023.
However, I also grow some of the flamboyant and blousy dinner plate and decorative types, for their sheer beauty. Additionally, I cut a few for the vases indoors.
And here is one of my posts on these 10 beautiful dahlias chosen for you
I adore all dahlias, hence my nickname of Dahlia Queen. Dahlias are flowers that bloom their socks off till the first frosts, so months of beauty in the garden and months of food for the pollinators. How fabulous is that!
Eighteenth day of fantastic wildness
June 18th and a fabulous treat for me. I have chosen to sow some of my biennial flowers today. A biennial flower takes two years to complete its life cycle. I sow mine in June or July, grow them on in Favolosa, my greenhouse, and plant out the following spring, ready for some beautiful flowers.
Clearly, I will need to sow more hesperis (sweet rocket). The white hesperis has been beautiful this year in my garden and has smelt divine. However, I do not seem to have much of the purple hesperis, so time to sow some seed for next year.
I absolutely love sowing seeds, so a fabulous day of 30 days wild for me, and all the flowers will be for the pollinators next year.
Besides the purple hesperis, I will be sowing some nigella. This flower is a hardy annual that performs better when treated as a biennial. So, sowing in the summer, I find the plants start to bloom earlier the following season and flower far more prolifically than those sown in spring.
Additionally, I will sow some foxgloves and aquilegia. Two more beautiful flowers for the garden, and for the pollinators.
Last up for sowing (do not believe that, as I do not either!) will be the fabulous Echium Blue Bedder. An absolute beauty of a flower and a magnet for the pollinators. See above for a photo of one of my Echium borders last year.
Also, fitted in a trip to the family. Fathers day, so I had to wash the compost off my hands. Rest assured, the compost returned to my fingers once I returned!
Heading towards some supper
I squeezed in some time for organising my wildflower seed plan as well, ready for sowing outside in the Autumn and again in Spring. In addition, I will need to sow more Yellow Rattle in November to help keep the grass in check and allow the wildflowers to grow.
I found time for seed organising because I did not need to water any pots in the evening. And the reason for this, it poured with rain! Wow, I had not seen any of that falling out of the sky for a jolly long time!
Finally, time to get the compost off my hands again, put my lovely chickens in bed for a snooze, and forage for some supper.
What a fabulous day.
Day nineteen of wildness
19th June and a beautiful spider decided the wildness today for me. I was walking across an area of lawn and bent down to see a bee on a clover flower. Luckily, I spotted this little spider. I thought it was a wolf spider and a quick check of my books confirmed this.
The wolf spider is a spider that hunts on the ground during the day. It chases its prey and leaps on it, which is why it was named wolf. It frequents gardens and can often be seen sunbathing in the summer, although I have not noticed one before.
The female wolf spider carries her round egg-sac underneath the back end of her body. This egg-sac is attached to the organs that produce silk.
The female spider will carry the young on her back for a few days after they hatch. I hope to be able to see this sight. Fingers crossed.
I was so lucky to spot this spider in the grass with her egg-sac attached. She waited patiently whilst I took about twenty photos and then slowly moved off.
I found out that wolf spiders can bite. They have venomous fangs that can penetrate human skin. However, their bites are usually not dangerous to humans as the venom is relatively weak.
Therefore, I was careful, and did not get too close, or make any sudden movements. I did not wish to alarm this lovely creature, so I hoped I would not have given her any reason to give me a nip!
Spider spotting
As a result of spotting this spider, I decided to spend more time looking for other spiders living in the garden. I saw some that were so small, I would probably not have noticed them in the past.
Observing my flowers closely, I was able to see a small brown spider and some white ones. These were identified as the common garden spider and, another check of the books, the white ones, as pale crab spiders.
I also had a visit from a money spider. This one appeared on my arm when I had sat down on the sun longer for a latte.
This spider lets out a strand of silk into the air, and it then flies about. This is how these little spiders often land on us.
The tale we were told when young was that when this spider landed on someone, the person would be coming into money. Hence the name money spider!
An interesting day, searching for spiders.
Consequently, some fascinating discoveries and some more knowledge learned about these arachnids we share our gardens with.
Some more information on the wolf spider can be found here https://glenlivet-wildlife.co.uk/insects/wolf-spider-uk/?utm_content=cmp-true
Twentieth day of fantastic wildness
20th June was an interesting day, delving around in the log piles seen above. Some fantastic wildness was seen.
A pile of logs simulates fallen trees and is considered essential in a wildlife garden so I have as many as I can. It is best to make these in a shady spot, so that it remains cool and damp.
Primarily, I have log piles in an area called Stumpy End, for stag beetle larvae. See my post 30 Days Wild. First week challenge for more details on stag beetles in my garden.
I wanted to see what other wildlife was living in a log pile in my parents garden, so it was time to have a gentle fudge around in the rotting wood.
First to be seen was a common black millipede. These are about 30mm long. They coil up when disturbed and they feed on decaying matter and fungi.
Next, were several woodlice. Although woodlice live on land, they breathe through gills which require moist air to function. When I read this, I thought it was fascinating. We see so many of these, curling up into a ball when disturbed, but do not always know much about them.
The final results of wild wood fudging
Finally, a few earwigs were seen. Earwigs eat plant and insect material, dead or alive. They hunt at night and find dark, cool places to shelter in during the day.
Clearly a log pile is ideal for them and full of fantastic wildness. I know that they are not always popular with dahlia growers as they can eat the flowers and roots.
However, I grow over three hundred dahlias in my garden and have not found the earwigs to be much of a problem. famous last words!
I have found one or two in my dinner plate dahlias, presumably as there are so many petals to nestle into.
But I have learnt to shake them out if I want to cut a flower to bring in for a vase. Chasing earwigs around indoors taught me a valuable lesson!
The earwigs have had the occasional nibble of one of the dinner plate or decorative blooms, but I grow enough to share some with the resident wildlife!
Final day of wild week three
June 21st and the final day of wild week three and some fantastic wildness this week.
I always seemed to be racing out of the back doors and travelling up the garden. Suddenly, I stopped and realised that the honeysuckle near the cottage was in full bloom. Time for some photos. See the one above.
The noise of the bees buzzing was a fabulous sound. So, I stopped to listen and watch the bees and hoverflies on the blooms.
I could smell the lovely scent from the honeysuckle flowers and went closer for a deep sniff or ten. So much fantastic wildness and wildlife in one place.
After watching the bees and hoverflies on the lovely, scented flowers, I noticed that there were many different hoverflies on the blooms.
Hoverflies are also known as syrphid flies, flower flies, and drone flies, but I will stick with hoverfly as I think this describes them best.
Their name, hoverfly, is due to their unique ability to hover in midair. They can also fly backward, a feat that few other flying insects possess.
I started to wonder how many different species there were. Clearly, some research was needed into these useful pollinators.
Time for some hoverfly research
So, I found out that in Britain there are over two-hundred and seventy species recorded. Additionally, that numbers are boosted in some species due to migration to this country. How interesting to find that there are such a large number of different species.
I learnt that scientists studying migratory hoverflies have found that up to four billion fly to and from Britain each year. Crickey, that is a large number!
Additionally, that adult hoverflies use powerful tailwinds to travel hundreds of miles in a day and will migrate in spring from Mainland Europe to lay eggs in Britain. Some absolutely fascinating facts.
The larger species of hoverfly are often brightly coloured and very common. I noticed that many of them in my garden have ornate body patterns, often black and yellow, said to mimic wasps and bees.
I knew that over forty percent of hoverflies have larvae that eat aphids. Consequently, this would be roughly one-hundred and ten species of munchers.
Clearly, a search through the garden for larvae was next on the list. I wondered how many varieties I would find. More fantastic wildness on the radar then!
As a result of my search, I found that all the larvae looked similar, a sort of greenish brownish colour.
Additionally, I also spotted a large amount of ladybird larvae munching on the aphids. These were a dark grey, almost black colour with bright orange markings.
Fortunately, the aphids all seemed to be congregating on some of the campion flowers, and I have swathes of these flowers. Therefore, the rest of my flowers were being left alone. Fingers crossed that continues then!
Gosh, the end of another week of fantastic wildness
I have learnt so much this week in my wild adventures of fantastic wildness.
So much about hoverflies for a start. These hoverflies play an important role, pollinating crops and flowers. Additionally, the larvae eat up the aphids, so they are very welcome in my garden.
Additionally, I learnt more about the spiders that share my garden and I enjoyed all my time outdoors with the wildlife and my beautiful flowers.
Read more at Gardening Know How: Syrphid Fly Eggs And Larvae: Tips On Hoverfly Identification In Gardens https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/beneficial/hoverfly-eggs-larvae.htm
This finishes the fascinating and magic third week of 30 Days Wild.
Click here for the final week of wildness Wild 30 days. The beautiful finale
My reading list
I will probably add to my reading list and have my eye on these books.
Spiders of the world. Natural history. The book says: Learn all about the world of spiders in this complete and comprehensive guide, filled with stunning facts, beautiful photography and diagrams to help you understand everything you ever needed to know about arachnids! Sounds good to me and it has very good reviews. See the link below
I would also like to learn more about fascinatingly hoverflies. This book looks to be a good one for reference. Britain’s Hoverflies: A Field Guide to the Hoverflies of Great Britain and Ireland Third Edition Fully Revised and Updated (WILD Guides of Britain & Europe. Quoted as a beautifully illustrated photographic field guide to the hoverflies of Great Britain and Ireland, focusing on the species that can be most readily identified. It is the perfect companion for wildlife enthusiasts. Another one for my list then to be pre-ordered for December! See the link below
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4 responses to “The fantastic wildness of magic week 3”
So much information in this blog. Was fascinating to read and taught me much that I didn’t know about the insects who live amongst us. Thank you.
Thank you for your positive comments, really pleased you liked the blog. It is fascinating to watch and learn more about the wildlife in our gardens. I saw and learnt so much, it is a surprise this post wasn’t 4000 words! Thanks again.
Thank you, that was really interesting
So pleased you found this one interesting. I really enjoyed my wild 30 days, learning more about wildlife and making it all into posts. Thank you for your comments.