I once followed a « tour » in Paris, where we were explained how bees manage to thrive in the city, flying from balcony plant to balcony plant, high up in the plane trees, across the very busy Peripherique and into a public park in the near suburbs. Needless to say, we didn’t see one bee, except for those inhabiting beehives in a rooftop garden above a sports hall from which they go on their expeditions. They can be helped, even in cities! Amazing.

I love supporting our local insects, bees and butterflies. The other day I heard that the amount of bees and flies are dropped to 50%. I was so shocked and so scared for the future, if people don't change their ways soon😭 Sometimes it feels like our efforts are a drop on a hot plate (this will probably be a Dutch saying, don't know the English equivalent😆) But I'm also pleased to see that if a bee or butterfly stops by, that there is something to eat for them. Maybe no food in abundance yet, since my new garden needs developing. But still. Our county leaves certain areas with flowers and grass, but then to cut it all back in rotation multiple weeks later. Maybe I need to contact the counties and ask for a different mowing plan with 3 zones: *Zone 1 near paths etc being mown every week. *Zone 2 mowing the grass and flowers in autumn. *Zone 3 leaving a patch near trees and in the middle of fields permanently all year round. I think that would be the best option for wildlife. But I think most people wouldn't be able to transition to that mindset easily. When you enter our garden, right next to our doorway to the garden, we have a tiny corner with some wildflowers including a gorgeous big, multiple stem dandelion who had gone to seed. We are sharing it with another block of housing. I heard the neighbours doing some work in the garden and saw them remove trimmed branches etc. The next day I noticed that the dandelion was removed in it's entirely, but not the forget-me-knots. I thought "Why did they do that? The dandelion didn't do anything wrong. Why do people constantly want to eliminate dandelions?" In my garden they are more then welcome. While enjoying the weather today, I also spotted a bumble bee nectaring on that one plant with tiny pink flowers from your video. Don't know the name. The bee had two large pieces of collected pollen on it's hind legs. Beautiful to watch❤

@kingfisher3011

11 ай бұрын

This is my second year of no mowing My neighbours have stopped talking to us even tho i try to explain the reasons but thats their problem They are too old to change their ways i guess

@titiaswildlifecottagegarden

11 ай бұрын

@@kingfisher3011 this will be my first year of no-mow-may/summer, I didn't had grass before. But I will keep the shared path tidy, maybe even put wood chips down. All to prevent neighbours from spraying everything down, right next to óur hedge. I don't like the tidyness, but since our hedge and garden is near a shared path, I will keep it tidy to keep the neighbours happy. What I'm doing on our property is luckily our own business🙂

@sheilajones4491

11 ай бұрын

That is so sad the poor yet gorgeous dandelion is demonised in weed killer adverts makes me so angry. I am on a new estate and the groundspeople were cutting verges too often and spraying weed killer managing to kill dozens of baby cherry trees and deliberately planted wildlife flowers. Many complained including me and i asked if they could leave the verge in front of me to develop into a meadow. Anyway does look like they are at least doing no mow May. I have also seen a couple of meadows developing in the estate now so fingers crossed things will change.

@debbiehenri345

11 ай бұрын

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was true. I saw some bees out and about very early in Spring - and then nothing for a while. A few bumble bees are bumbling about now, and I have marked off underground nests whenever I see them, but still very few solitary bees. I was hoping this year would be the year of real recovery, but something does seem to have struck them down again. Are British farmers using Neonicotinoid pesticides again? I heard the government was going to legalise it, and then the next thing I heard they have been pressured into sticking by EU rules. Didn't know if this included pesticides.

@PaulOutdoors

11 ай бұрын

@@kingfisher3011 Good for you Kevin. Sadly some do not see the connection between a healthy habitat and heathy insect/pollinator numbers. "Tidyness" and ingrained misplaced vanity sadly preferred to beauty and functionality for all.

Plants seen in the meadow: Scilla bifolia Scilla non scripta Anemone nemorosa Narcissus pseudonarcissus Tulipa sylvestris Fritillaria meleagris Taraxacum sect. ruderale Ficaria verna Muscari botryoides Primula veris Primula vulgaris Bellis perennis Ranunculus acris/repens Merculiaris perennis Allium ursinum Ajuga reptans Lamium purpureum Lamium galeobdolon and there's one in the front that looks like Aster alpinus, though I'm not sure, since it usually flowers from May to June for anyone trying to replicate :) might've missed a couple also thanks for your amazing Videos Joel :)

@conniekeshet

11 ай бұрын

Wow!! Thanks!!

@aqua_riumplant

3 ай бұрын

thank you!

Hey Joel! What a sight to see, you can't beat a spring meadow. And like you said, even dandelions play a part. Lovely to just sit sometimes and watch all the insects busying themselves and enjoying not mowing the lawns and seeing what nature brings. That pond will be amazing when it's finished, lucky people living in such a beautiful environment. Hope you had a great weekend! Best wishes.

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Hello! Yes, I long to live somewhere like that - don't we all? They're wonderful clients and seeing all these natives that have been there for many years untouched is great. Filming the pond, going to go back again when the plants are settled and bring a full video on it :) Hope you're doing well, best wishes as always - Joel

@SisterDogmata

11 ай бұрын

@@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton One day Joel! All good here hope your gang ok too.

Fantastic video, these meadows are just so important, the field next to my plot has filled with wild flowers, I was just surrounded by so many butterflies and bees whilst on my plot. That pond looks spectacular!

Loved this. And what a beautiful setting too. Just yesterday I enjoyed watching a bumble bee inside a foxglove bloom, it was funny seeing it disappear, the bloom being poked around and seeing it backing out. The garden isn't just something beautiful to look at everyday, it's entertaining as well 🐝😊

What a GORGEOUS MEADOW!!! Not that you're hard to look at, just the opposite actually, I'd just rather see the plants, flowers, and fantastic views of nature!! Thank You for sharing ❤

That’s the best meadow that I’ve seen 😮

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Isn't it just?! Had to share this with you all George, such a beautiful setting and I just hope future owners see the natural beauty they have without any effort :) Hope you've had a good weekend, best wishes - Joel

Absolutely stunning 😍 I hope we’ll get to see that pond when it’s finished too , it looks amazing!

So beautiful 😍. I wish I could be back a child again then can run around and chase butterflies 😊

Paradise right there Joel. A veritable oasis, a pollinators banquet layed out in that magical woodland glade. Thank you for sharing this little but vital piece of heaven with us. Paul 🙏😊👍❤️

This is just beautiful - my dream garden right there! Snake’s head fritillary are one of my favourite flowers - they are little works of art! I have a small patch in my shady woodland area and last year a white one popped up!

chuffed. You say it all the time and I had to look it up finally. Glad your "chuffed" with the meadow! It is beautiful.

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Haha! Brilliant, and yes I am absolutely chuffed ;) Thank you Joan - hope you have had a good weekend, best wishes - Joel

I love this message 🤍 So often when people are wanting to make gardening “easy” it means they want everything “weed free” and and giant group plantings of tidy cultivated plants. This is the epitome of easy gardening! Plant native, and allow nature to take the helm. Once established the gardener just need to sit back and enjoy the beauty. I have vegetable beds in my backyard and a somewhat ornamental garden in my front yard but I always maintain a lot of space for native plants plants to thrive and do their thing.

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

So brilliant to hear this Chet, absolutely agree with you. Thank you for making a habitat for wildlife and considering those creatures desperately in need right now :) Best wishes, and welcome to the channel - Joel

Lovely vlog - So pretty - I can’t wait to see the finished pond 👍

Ps saw two orange tips yesterday. Helped them escape from my greenhouse

Greetings from New Zealand, 5.30am on an Autumn morning here and what a pleasure it is to awake and find the latest video from Joel,again not only interesting and informative but a stunning setting/ garden,Joel’s not too bad on the eye either👍 thanks again for posting,beautiful feast for the insects and bees

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Good morning New Zealand! 5:30am... wow. I know about time zones of course but it always makes me think twice about there being the other side of the world and it being autumn there. I really appreciate the support and encouragement, and... thank you, what a compliment :) Best wishes to you and yours - Joel

❤ all those beautiful 🤩 flowers. The local council have left a couple of small or rather tiny long bits of grass with flowers 🌸 near my front garden & near an old wall next to a 🚌 shelter. Lots of bluebells there. Took photos of them on Saturday.

So pretty! I’m hoping to create something like this under our pine trees, once we eventually manage to remove the tree trunks laying there from the storms last year 🙄 Thank you as always for your knowledge & inspiration Joel

Great vid as always. So life affirming to see wonderful gardens like that ! Envious at you being able to see them first hand. You lucky lucky bugger! 😉😊

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Thank you :) But.. you know... I feel like that when I see YOUR garden! It certainly is a privilege to see these places, although in the depths of winter it's not always that. I certainly am lucky, I know that. Hope you're keeping well - best wishes and hope to see you soon - Joel

What a wonderful woodland oasis, the wood anemones are stunning 🐝

Stunning

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Thank you Tomas - appreciated :)

Here in Ontario, Canada we have stopped this kind on widespread mowing. The dandelions are left until the middle of summer and given a haircut and then left to grow again.

stunning

Awesome Joel as usual, Thank you

Beautiful. Love the meadow. Thanks for showing

What a beautiful garden ! Another brilliant video mate, looking forward to the pond build one 😊

Soooo beautiful 😍

good job Joel thank you

Looks like a painting, so lush, a beautiful garden space indeed!

I’m in a beautiful town in the Peak District and the council has mowed edges of grassed areas but there are plentiful dandelions, daisies and Lady’s Smock. My granddaughter (5) had a great time blowing all the fluff off the dandelions. She didn’t want to miss one and it took a long time to get home. ❤️

Gorgeous.

Thanks

Thank you for such a beautiful video. That is one of those perfect spaces, filled with the most beautiful carpet of natural delight you could ever wish to dream upon:) I mean look at all those amazingly pretty and most adorable flowers, I love how they all grow together, like they are hugging each other. This place looks so heavenly, and imagine how it will feel when that amazing wildlife pond is complete. Gonna be a piece of paradise, and such a wonderful home to our gifts from nature. Can't wait to see more:)

that glade is amazing. lets have you plant some more of them please! I am going to look for a place to plant a glade like this on my new property sometime very soon! thank you for showing this one🌻

Thank you Joel for a beautiful new video, what a pretty garden. today I have been in the garden and planted the first piece of meadow flowers, as well as Lavender, Anemone pulsatilla and Echinacea. I hope to get more flowers seeds in and plants in the ground tomorrow, as well as starting to dig the next piece for another flower meadow. my pond is on hiatus as the ground is too dry for me to dig in at the moment. I almost finished our hibernaculum, which when it is completely finished will also be covered with meadow flowers

How beautiful!! I’m going to plant some wild plants in the lawn of my front garden soon. I’ll start with primroses.

Excellent video, as always. The Bluebells in my garden look magnificent this year - the result of dedicated seed sowing. The Lesser Celandine always impress, not just with the yellow flowers, but also with their lovely glossy green leaves. I've added many more Snowdrops too, as these are wonderful not just for early insect life, but also for building a very rich, dark soil. Good for those of us with thin, rocky soils.

Look forward to the balcony wildflower episode. I review many planning applications on landscape so any tips are welcome.

Need to get me some snakes heads for the front lawn 12 species were already there Last month added around 50 wood anemone roots so looking forward to next Spring already all the front gardens here have no borders and so far i am the only one to adopt this policy❤

Beautiful and inspiring.

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

I knew this would be up your street Tracey :) Hope you've had a good weekend, Joel

A very enjoyable video Joel

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Thank you Mark, I really appreciate that :) Best wishes, Joel

Another amazing video joel great to see how well the garden looks hopefully mine will be the same in quite a few more years time 🐸💚🐸

I'm in Colorado. I've tried to plant some of these bulbs in the lawn. Most of them haven't come up well. I also haven't noticed bees going to the flowers that have come up. All well. I tried. They are pretty.

Always a pleasure seeing what your up to 😁

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Thank you :) This was a few weeks ago but I have so many videos to bring you it's difficult deciding which ones will be relevant to everyone, and most helpful, right now - hope you've had a good weekend, Best wishes - Joel

Beautiful. My attempt at a meadow has been taken over by creeping buttercup which has killed off the grass and any other plants by the looks of it. Its now spreading into the flower beds. I still have e few snakes heads but not many. I keep planting more but we get lily beetle here which destroys them.

Great video. I saw my first ever yellow tip butterfly yesterday, and another today. I don't know what plants they were visiting in my garden but I must be doing something right 😊

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Absolutely you are!! I know this for sure :) Although the colour may have looked yellow, I am thinking it was probably Orange Tip - and they'll be in the garden if you have Garlic Mustard, Honesty, Cuckoo Flower... they will nectar on other things but if you have Garlic Mustard look out for eggs (bright orange) - hope you've had a good weekend, best wishes - Joel

@dogproofwildlifegardening3164

11 ай бұрын

@@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton I meant orange tip, sorry, no idea why I said yellow, probably just over excited about seeing one! I had a great weekend thanks, installed a 6 bay swift box I made with leftover timber and heard coal tit chick's being fed in another box I put up last month. Love this time of year when nature bursts into life😊 cheers Leon

We have spanish bluebells in our garden. The neighbour thinks they are lovely and has actually planted more. They have invaded, strangling all my rockery plants. I have dug them out several times over the years but they just come back. They are pretty but I have heard that they may be a threat to our native bluebells?

@margaretc9656

11 ай бұрын

Alexandra from The Middle-Sized Garden mentions Spanish Bluebells in her youtube video. - she says they're a pest

Beautiful. Very pretty. Unfortunately, my neighbour mowed his garden before I got a chance to speak to him, but I'm hoping he won't mow it again now for most of the summer. We have a big thistle growing in our garden, it's right in a corner, up against our little circular garden wall, so not so easy to remove and I'm hoping my mum leaves it be and doesn't go and buy weed killer. It's just leaves at the moment, can't see the big tall stem yet. Anyway, I wanted to ask you how you packgage oxygenating pond plants in the post? I want to buy some hornwort for my mini wildlife pond in a very small bucket, but am very concerned about buying it online because I'm sure by the time it gets to me in the post, being out of water for however many days, it will be dead. How do you packgage and send yours? 🙂

I've just today caught my neighbour creeping into my garden and trampling over all my yellow rattle and wild flower seedlings in order to pull up my dandelions. 🙄

@snail6queen6hammy

11 ай бұрын

That is really bad. What’s wrong with some people?

@kevinking7860

11 ай бұрын

Thats utter vandalism and trespassing my neighbours on the right refuse to talk to me because I let the front lawn grow

@-Pol-

7 ай бұрын

@@kevinking7860 I just use a push mower now and use it to mow an 18" border around the edge of the former lawn, as well as a crescent from one corner to the front door as a shortcut for the postman to enjoy. To my mind this is a clear indicator that my meadow is a conscious effort and not a dereliction of my duty serve the community with neatly trimmed conformity. There are a few no mow plots up and down my street. The ones I like best are the ones that are semi wild. The one that makes me smile is one that's simply half mown. one side short and neat and the other side wanton and wild! I can't help but wonder if it's a marital compromise!

Great video, what a stunning location. I've had a nature pond in for a few years now, amazing how many more insects, bees, damselflies and dragonflies are now in our garden. I've just planted up some native wildflowers, with the plan to convert our nature wasteland lawn into something more beneficial. I have a question, how does one if needed control the grass / grasses around the area? Thank you.

@StevenVacher

11 ай бұрын

I managed to capture this video on the weekend, one of 3 dragonflies I saw emerge in the one day. kzread.info/dash/bejne/m5Oc3Kycn5SupMo.html

Awesome video fella! May I ask do you do courses, landscaping, ecology ect? Not that you don’t have enough on your plate already, KZread, Website and your landscaping! 🤣 It would be great if you could pass on your knowledge in a commercial sense?

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Hi Adam, thank you - I really appreciate it :) Yep, way too much on at the moment and I know there are landscaping companies that are moving towards "wildlife gardens", even Chelsea are getting on board, 38 years AFTER Chris Baines made the first ever wildlife garden. But there does seem to be an upsurge I've noticed in the last couple of years - I do also get emails from clients that have had "wildlife landscapers" in and then ask me to rectify when things don't go as planned, causing further cost. It's taken me 18 years to get to this stage, and I still learn every day of course but it is something I've thought about for later years. I am happy to teach on-the-job and, via an enquiry from KZread I actually have a fantastic young guy helping me out and joining me from Wednesday this week, and I hope it will be a long-term thing. It's the interest in wildlife that is most important of course :) If you're in the UK do drop me a line at enquiries@wildyourgarden.com - best wishes, Joel

Would you be able to ever do some 1 year on or 2 year on videos of some of these wildlife ponds you put in. Would be really interesting to see them after a year or so.

@WildYourGardenWithJoelAshton

11 ай бұрын

Hi Connor - this is planned for this year. With working all over the UK (from Cornwall to Scotland, east to west etc) it means I am unable to stay to film them a few weeks later, which would be ideal but not practical. This year my logistics/planner reminds me when I'm back in places I've been before and I plan to revisit lots - one late next week actually :) If you wanted to see how they look after a few weeks once the plants have established, this short video of just a few of the many I've made using this method is here - both large and small: kzread.info/dash/bejne/nHtl2ZmGhcvOiNY.html Hope this helps - best wishes, Joel

So pretty! I’d love to recreate something similar 🙂 bit of a silly question, (really new to gardening) but could you grow wildflower meadow in the same space once these flowers have finished their thing? 😊

@roaxeskhadil

11 ай бұрын

You'll grow one more or less automatically. You can't cut the grass when these flowers stop blooming, you'll need to wait a month or two, until the leaves dry up. or they won't come back. And that is the death of any "clean" lawn. You'll soon be hunting for other flowers you might plant/sow, just to avoid having just ugly, knee-high, grass. 😀