"Mike_stone" wrote in message
...

Hello all,

I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. I'm looking forward to
looking through the older posts to see what discussions have been going
on.

I've been working on creating a wildlife garden to attract birds and
animals to my urban back garden.

What flowers to people recommend to attract butterlfies?

Many thanks in advance.

Kind regards,




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Mike_stone


Hi Mike from another Mike

I notice that you also want to attract birds. We have a 'bird friendly
gardens', I say 'gardens' much to the amusement of some on uk.rec.gardening
because our total garden is only 120 feet x 20 feet, but is divided up into
'gardens', gravel, veg, lawn etc etc and when we had it open to the public
someone remarked it was like walking from 'garden to garden', or 'room to
room'

We attract all sorts of birds and we have Bluetits nesting and working like
the clappers to feed young in the nest box which is about 12 feet from my
computer desk. They take no notice of us going in and out the Patio doors
:-))

Bird feeders with Peanuts and water are two of the things to attract birds
but the most important is the hedges and bushes they can nip into in a
hurry.

Take a look at the garden, taken in the Spring,
http://www.myalbum.com/Album=MUKLG34Q and the birds taken in the Winter,
http://www.myalbum.com/Album=YM8WG6CO which reminds me, they bath all the
year round, even when I have to break the ice in the bird bath.



Feeders. Water. Bushes and trees. An advantage of a small garden is that the
birds are concentrated in a small area. My daughter and son in law have a 2
acre landscaped walled garden complete with a massive pond, but the birds,
which includes dozens of Ducklings at the right time of the year, Magpies,
Woodpeckers, etc etc etc, are spread out. I have a show from the comfort of
an arm chair :-))



Good luck in getting your garden 'bird friendly'. It's taken about 6 years
to get the Bluetits to use the box for nesting ;-)



Mike

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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
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