A Trough for Wildflowers ~ Responding to a BBC Springwatch SOS

Those of you who read my previous post will know that we visited NT Ickworth some days ago to see the wonderful lambs. The photo above shows the striking rotunda, and if you click the next link, you will see a photo of another rotunda, this time on Belle Isle in the Lake District, which is associated with Fletcher Christian of Mutiny on the Bounty fame (or infamy). But I digress. 

This post is neither about lambs nor acts of derring-do on the high seas. The photo above shows the walled garden at Ickworth last August, when the wildflowers were abundant. Now you may feel that to grow wildflowers from packaged seed is a bit of a contradiction in terms; but, quite apart from the riot of colour, just think of all the pollen that will be attracting our insects. And we do have a nettle patch at home as well.

[UPDATE on 11 April 2017: at this point it seems a good idea to insert the helpful comment from fellow poet and blogger, Mavis Gulliver, as some of us may wish to follow her advice...  Mavis writes... 'We've been gardening for wild flowers on Islay for 21 years but rather than introduce non-native species and importing seed from the continent we gather local seed and have progressed from 1.2 acres of bracken,rocks and heather clumps to 204 species. Of course some have come of their own accord once our mowing regime encouraged them. Soon we will be leaving for a new challenge where I plan to follow the same principles. Gardening in this way doesn't produce such a colourful show as the packs of wild seed but we are helping to maintain the local flora.' Thank you, Mavis, so much for this important tip.]


I posted the tulip photo below in my previous post, but I am posting it again because it is current, and helps to show the extent of the area covered by poppies, cornflowers and all the other beauties in the photo above. 

The August 2016 photo below, shows blues, yellows, reds, whites and greens of this garden: what a spread for our pollen-gatherers...

... like this one...

Inspired not only by the riot of colour at Ickworth but also by the BBC Springwatch SOS exhortation to have a small wildflower planter within the garden, we bought ourselves a green trough and have planted three packets (quite large ones) of mixed wildflower seed. I have moved the primroses to another place now, and have filled the trough with soil pretty much up to the top. Small green shoots, reminding me of the first flush of mustard and cress from the days when we planted small seeds on blotting paper and squares of flannel, have already started to appear.

Needless to say, I can hardly wait for the first bud to open, and, if all goes according to plan, for the insects to come flying in.

The blackboard below was at Ickworth last summer, and while our own wildflower trough will be minuscule in comparison with the Ickworth garden, it should help to encourage wildlife into our homepatch.

Do drop a comment if you plan to plant a wildflower 'garden', too...
I plan to give intermittent updates on our green trough.