BIENNIAL Germinates one year, flowers the next, then dies.
PERENNIAL Survives for many years.
BULB Underground storage organ, developed from bases of the leaves.
CORM Underground storage organ, developed from the bases of the stems.
RHIZOME Underground stem.
TUBER Underground organ, developed from the roots and underground stems.
SHRUB Woody plant, branching from ground level, usually smaller than a tree.
TREE Woody plant with a central trunk, usually taller growing than a shrub.
Throughout the book you will find lists of plants for specific uses. These have been coded as follows:
B = bee plant
C = caterpillar food plant
N = butterfly nectar plant
S = Seeds for birds
F = Fruit/berries/nuts for birds/mammals
H = Attractive to hoverflies
I = Large number of associated insects
Nat = Native or naturalised species
Po = Poisonous
E = Evergreen
M = Moths
R = Rare in the wild
W = Suitable for wetland garden
JANUARY
One of the best things about a wildlife garden is that winter is a season to be welcomed rather than dreaded. Unlike a conventional garden, where a small selection of carefully chosen shrubs provides artificial ‘winter colour’, the wildlife garden is rich in its own seasonal plants, birds and animals. Gardeners tend to dislike this time of year, yet this feeling that everything is ‘on hold’ is part of its charm. If a layer of snow falls, there is little to beat the absolute stillness of a winter’s day. Of course, this calm is deceptive and lasts only as long as it takes for the first track marks to appear in the virgin snow. Just beneath the surface, the garden is teeming with life.
Keeping an eye on the bird table from the warmth of the kitchen or living-room is one of the month’s chief pleasures. A great cross-section of users should show up, including all the regulars like blackbirds, thrushes, tits and robins. There may also be flocks of migrant fieldfares, redwing or siskins seeking shelter in suburbia from the cutting winds of the open fields.
When the temperature does lift above freezing and the sun emerges temporarily to warm the earth, creatures like hedgehogs, which are normally hibernating, may stir from under a pile of leaves at the bottom of the hedge for a short food foray. Foxes are often seen in gardens during a hard winter, foraging for slugs and beetles. They are not averse to turning over a few rubbish bins either in their search for food.
As for plants, the snowdrop has become something of a clich$eA for the new year. Yet the timing of the flower is perfect; just as we have given up hope of seeing a living plant, it emerges through the melting snow — a constant reminder that this is anything but the dead of winter.
tasks
FOR THE
month
DISCOURAGE SCAVENGERS Do not leave uneaten bird food out overnight as it can attract rats and mice.
CHECKLIST
STARTING A WILDLIFE NOTEBOOK
At the start of the year, make a resolution to record the activity in your garden for one whole twelvemonth cycle. Use a hardbacked notebook or desk diary and keep it somewhere near at hand so you can make notes when you come in from the garden. Every event is worth recording, from the appearance of the first snowdrop to the last holly berry disappearing in the beak of a visiting fieldfare.
Keeping a notebook is not just a pleasant exercise, it will also help you to plan next year’s garden and monitor changes in the frequency and behaviour of local wildlife. It doesn’t need to be elaborate or a literary masterpiece, just the date and a few notes will do. As the garden develops and the range of species increases, it will provide a lasting record not only for your own use, but perhaps for future owners of your house and garden.
LOOKING AFTER THE BIRDS
This is probably the month during which garden birds benefit most from a little human intervention.
Natural food sources like windfallen apples and hawthorn berries have been used up by the population of local birds, in competition with visitors from the Arctic north who take refuge in gardens at this time of year. Insects are in hibernation, the ground is frozen solid and water sources are iced over. It is therefore vital to feed birds regularly, putting out food every day. Early morning is the best time, although you can put out a second ‘feed’ in the early afternoon. Fresh
