Nature Chain Winsley

  28 July Facebook Leafcutter Bees & Wildlife Gardening Notes Stop Press! Where are the Leafcutter Bees? Many bee doors still closed from the end of last June ( top left), one open (top right)... others disturbed, but are these dishevelled barriers from creatures within leaving or another animal trying to gain illicit entry? Elsewhere all is well – bumbles delve deep for nectar of Evening Primrose  whilst Rose Campion tempts the butterflies and bright Pot Marigolds  are feeding us and a myriad of bees and other insects. July has come in, but all is still quiet in the bee hotels... The Red Masons have set up for next year’s generation quietly hidden behind tight mud and pollen doors. I am getting concerned. 1 -The Leafcutters are nowhere to be seen. Has a spider or other predator taken all? These solitary bees are very visible in the garden as they cut tiny leaf circles   – the bee dropped these) to make their constructions – don’t worry, they do no har...

 21 July Facebook Butterflies 2. Butterfly garden irresistible & Wildlife Gardening Notes It is turning into a bumper year for butterflies! Great news as their numbers have been plummeting. Flower borders and shrubs are alive with wings, as much as cultivated and wild meadows. Border favourites for butterflies and bees, particularly bumbles, are lavender  with Comma; pre-loved(!) pre-loved(!) Rose Campion with male Brimstone;   Veronica with Comma, showing the actual comma on the underside of its wings;  Globe Thistle with bumble – the other four on this flower and one of the White butterflies were too busy jostling in their feeding frenzy for me to get in focus! Into the cultivated mix put in a few wild plants which are even more irresistible to these valuable pollinating insects, then the banquet is complete. The wild herb, marjoram  in pale to fuller pinks, is a useful flower cluster ‘filler’ between cultivated plants and a butterfly magnet: wit...

 14 July 2025  Butterflies, Wildflowers and Wildlife Gardening Tips At last! It is a summer of butterflies – fluttering five, six, ten at a time, all feverishly feeding, defending their flower, grabbing a space, threatening an intruder, all happening at once. But approach with a mobile to capture these magic moments and they dart  faster, change preference and direction, or worse still, fly off!  Gatekeeper unfurling its long ‘drinking straw’ tongue. One trick is to be out there when they are feeding voraciously as if their life depends on it ... which it does... sweet liquid nectar when energy levels are low after night darkness. Butterflies also rest in the sun to warm up... they are cold-blooded animals, dependent on external temperatures to get going. There are many sites online listing good butterfly flowers, but very often the insects ignore the horticultural pundits and head straight for the ‘old faithfuls’, tried and tested through time by countless generatio...

  7 July 2025 Roses and Wildlife Gardening 2 ‘We’ll shove two sticks in each hole, dear... they won’t all grow’ Quote: my mother pushing rose cuttings into unpromising, shallow, stony, limestone earth... But they all grew! A testament to the nodes along a stem to develop new roots and shoots, and Free roses!  Many years on, it is a continuing fight for space between Bobby, Dorothy and spoilt Little Pet - ‘Bobby James’ ‘Dorothy Perkins’ (last week’s post (3 & 5 )), ‘Little Pet’  ‘Albertine’ (last week’s post (2 )) ‘ American Pillar’  and the ‘Alexandra Rose’  All these are very easy to propagate... if you would like cuttings of these, come to the Autumn Nature Chain events, make your request to one of the team and I will oblige! Colourful advertisement overload is often inevitable as roses have, after all, been bred over the centuries for human delight, for example Mrs Sam McGredy  introduced1929) and the packed creamy gold frills of the beautifu...

  30 June 2025  Roses and Wildlife Gardening Summer, roses, warm scented days ‘... are such stuff as dreams are made on...’ or gardener’s dreams certainly! Carefully placed in grand designs, climbers and ramblers sprawling over cottage gardens, allotment flowers for cutting – roses are the all-time favourites.  Vibrant bright red,  (  ‘Parkdirektor Riggers’),  delicate apple-scented pink  (  ‘Albertine’), profuse bunches of bright pink ( 3 ‘ Dorothy Perkins’) – all gardener’s favourites standing the test of time from 1957, 1921 and early 1900’s. Wildlife Gardening Tips : But are they any good for a wildlife garden? Photo says ‘definitely yes’ – quote White-tailed Bumble Bee! Families of Bluetits would also vote ‘yes’. Frequently I see them working their way steadily along this ‘Dorothy Perkins’ stem and other roses, picking tiny creatures from amongst the leaves... presumably greenfly, as a visiting professional gardener marvelled at the fa...