Flowers for pollinators.

Elecampane these are tall grow up to 5/6ft with huge leaves and insignificant yellow dandelion type flowers which attract bees etc. I bought mine as small plants over 20 years ago from Cheshire Herbs (I think).

Thanks, Maniac. Sent for and shared on email.

Have you sent for your free seeds for flowers attractive to bees?
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/bee-seeds

Today the bees were very busy on my winter flowering honeysuckle.

I remembered another one for bees. Stachys - Lambs ears. Grey and fuzzy groundcover in the winter. Pale pink spikes in the summer. Not really a floral display but the bees appreciate it.

I used to share a backyard with a buddleia. Bloody buddleia as it was known. Those rampant ones good on railway sidings I always think. It took years but eventually it gave up the will to live.

Buddleia - yes, it's attractive to butterflies. I wish I'd had dwarf versions as mine are far too big and need drastic pruning. The very dark purple one is my favourite. Something like dark knight?

Yes, jess, but she only has boys. They do quite well, all things considered .

also the Buterfly bush..! cant just think what its called..a few weeks ago..I saw a dwarf version wish I ahd kept the leaflet now..as we only have small garden...ohhhhhh is it a Budlia?? something like that..I knows its a mauve colour....

Absolutely. It would be good for girls too methinks. On all kinds of levels.

My friend two fields away makes her boys walkmin front of the car when she drives up their track after dark. They have to rescue the toads that would otherwise be squashed under the wheels and put them in the hedges. Good nature training for them.

Ah yes, newts. We had about seventy in our tiny pond in Oxfordshire. Not crested ones, I hasten to add.

It's strange that you haven't got frogspawn yet. Ours seems to have survived the ice on the pond and everything. amphibians do seems very common around here though. Maybe it's the wet climate they like.

The first of our daffodils began to open today, bird cherry buds have burst, and hawthorn. Getting there. All we need now is sunshine.

I am still living in hopes of frogspawn Bagitha. We are a bit above sea level here and are still having frosts. I keep peering hopefully into our pond and the one across the way from whence i rustled the frogspawn last year.
Not a lot of it around here generally though. We went on a long walk last year, checking out ponds, with little sign of any.
newts now, we have them. Apparently greater crested is common as muck in the arc between Oxford and Cambrige. And if any of them would like to come and play in my garden they are very welcome.

but are they the demon harlequin invader ladybirds???

Seen quite a few ladybirds.maybe they've overwintered in my Ladybird Hotel

Hoverflies are often out on snowdrops.

towerhouse, I did a similar thing with dead, dried out Japanese knotweed stems. Worked a treat.

jess, it's usual to have frogspawn in february. That's their spawning time right across the UK. I think I said elsewhere that we had frogspawn in our pond in Oxfordshire by 17 Feb or thereabouts every year. Same now in Argyll. Rosemary, on the other hand, doesn't usually flower until much later in the spring, especially as it is essentially a Mediterranean plant. Perhaps there are genetically modified cultivated versions that flower earlier.

Ah, thank you.

JessM. I chose the thickest available bamboos and cut them into 9" strips with a very sharp saw. If a blunt saw is used the bamboos tend to split. I then bundled 12 strips together and secured them with flexible wire. The strips can become loose so I used glue to keep them in place. The finished product is a bit Heath Robinson but it worked. Yes, Mason bees colonised the nest as I had placed it on a wall that had been used for several years by Mason bees who, up to then, were content with nesting in holes left from various abandoned Rawplugs. Mason bees don't make holes any bigger so they don't upset the structure of the wall.

But you've had frogspawn haven't you bagitha and we have none I think the frogs no winter ain't quite over.
How did you cut up the bamboo towerhouse? These are for mason bees aren't they?

I have just come in from the garden having made my first sowing of annuals [ mixed flowers and cornflowers ] to attract bees and butterflies. I also saw my first bumble bee! Last year I made a bees' nest out of large bamboos. Within a day of it being placed on a south-facing wall it was colonised! I have bought for this year a factory-made nest so the bees will have choices-mine or the one from Homebase. [ flowers]

Bees out already!? Rosemary flowering already!?

The squirrels have been digging holes again.

which is another tubular flower

flowering! still getting frosts here. Frogs are still lying low. I did see a honey bee this morning on the pulmonaria.