In this video we look at one way you can help wildlife in your garden all year round, and it won’t cost you a penny!
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Wild Your Garden – “Create a sanctuary for nature” – My latest book on how you can help wildlife in your own garden and how to install all the habitats that your local wildlife will need to thrive. Complete how to’s and step by step guides. Buy your copy online here:
https://wildyourgarden.com/product/wild-your-garden-book/
Hazelwood Landscapes – Where you will find photographs and case studies of some of the projects I have undertaken over the last 16 years and how you can enquire if you would like any advice / help with your own garden:
https://www.hazelwoodlandscapes.com
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Many thanks,
Joel Ashton
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35 Comments
Hey Joel great video as always. Where abouts is this place? I live in Essex and would like to visit there looks lovely. Also I'm currently doing my front and back garden I'm doing a wildlife pond in the back with lots of borded flowers and the front lawn is gonna be Purley wild flowers can't wait to watch it grow.
I've been planting a lot more wild flowers in my garden. To save money, I also dug up large clumps of grass and put them near the hedge. Lamium seems to spring up in the back garden, so I have transferred it to the front garden before my husband cuts the grass. I also got a large pot saucer and planted it with grass and thrown some wood and pine cones into it and some daisies too. This has been placed under a bush. Telling my husband not to mow the grass is like holding back the tide, so for those who like to cut the grass may I suggest that they dig up a patch of grass and put it in pots. Hidden away behind a shed or put on display will help the wildlife in some small way. I use my old frying pans (handle removed) for supplying drinks for wildlife. Thanks for the great videos.
Exhausting work caring for our beautiful wildlife!! Whilst you have been putting this very comprehensive piece together,which is awesome, i've been planting some devil's bit scabious, ragged robin & purple loosestrife.😁
Just done my barrel pond this evening and next to that I have a area I am going to put wildflower seeds. Never been this excited about the garden as I am this year, bring on summer. Another great video
Nice looking, clean cows. In the United States the cows poop all over themselves. I have never seen cows that aren’t covered with poop from midway to tail.
Hi Joel!! I’m Alberto, your friend from Spain. Really useful and nice video. I didn’t know about the cow species! I wrote to you a few weeks ago and wasn’t sure if you received my email. Please tell me if you didn’t.
Best wishes, hope to see you soon.
This is brilliant Joel thanks so much for all the amazing information. I’ve just uploaded a video about dandelions today which will soon get mowed by the council ☹️
I’m leaving half my back lawn area this year.😊👍
Another fabulous video Joel. Thank you so much for the info and advice. Looking forward to another no mow year. Cheers!
Thanks for a most inspirationen video. As a teenager I worked on a farm with red poll cattle – a gorgeous breed, so friendly and approachable. Thanks again
Thank you for a lovely video…like all your other productions: Amazing.
I tore up my lawn last summer, took me a few months but I managed to clear the entire 600ft area of invasive bermudagrass. Now, I've transformed it into a lush wildflower garden, full of native California plants and wildlife. So far there are tons of native bees, beetles, and birds that I've never seen on my property beforehand, and I can't wait to see how it further develops later on
I live in a north facing garden and have left the bottom of the garden to grow wild the past 2yrs. It does get a little sun but is mainly in shade as it's under a birch tree. There is a small amount of grass, which tends to flop over, but mainly bluebells, dandelions and dock leaves. I'd love to encourage more flowers, grasses etc for pollinators/wildlife. Do you have any ideas or do you have any seed mixes on you website that you could recommend? Finally going to be adding my pond this year and can't wait. You are such an inspiration, thanks.
Another top video Joel . With all the current work I’ve been doing in my garden, I’ve accumulated some excess soil from all my excavation work. It’s turned into a medium size mound to the sides of my conifer run , mostly because I had nowhere else for it and I refuse to pay out for yet another skip 😆 anyway, inspiration hit me and I now plan to sow some wildflower seeds into it to create another area of my garden to attract pollinators. 😊
Upstaged by the cows a little there Joel 😊 What a great education that was, I think you covered everything.
Hi Joel!
Wonderful video! I am a veteran NON mower (this will be my 20th summer at my property and, likewise, 20 years without a lawnmower).
And 'every' year, without fail, at least one new wild flower species has introduced itself to the garden without my help.
(In fact, one new flower is growing at the top of my garden right now. Don't know what it is but it has flower buds starting to colour up nicely).
Of course, I do introduce new flowers as well, but Nature is always full of the best surprises.
The amount of new wildlife attracted to the garden has been amazing over the past 20 years.
We have had some serious knock-backs along the way, very sadly.
Neonicotinoid pesticides was the very worst offender, 2 unusually severe winters about 15 years ago-ish? And a neighbour who thought introducing peacocks was a great idea – it is not. Thankfully, the foxes thought they looked rather tasty!
Of the more unusual creatures that have visited the garden over the years – an otter, a pair of Merlins, a pair of Peregrine Falcons, Red Kites, hares, a Long-Eared Owl with stunningly bright eyes, most recently – Common Lizards, a fleeting visit from a Goshawk – and even a wild Puma (he haunted the area for several weeks before moving on).
I think my favourite visitors have to be the owls – the Little Owl being only one of a few species resident in the woods around us.
But I also have a soft spot for a little black moth called 'The Sweep', whose foodplant is the Pignut (easy to grow. Very pretty and delicate looking. Sow seed on your no-mow lawn, water, walk away. Done).
I had no idea that I was 'already doing the right thing by our newly arrived Lizards. In trying to keep down a particularly stubborn bramble, I threw a corrugated sheet over it last year, and the Lizard I saw just the other day – was heading in the direction of that sheet.
(I have a few more corrugated sheets and plenty of room, so I will place them strategically today).
Of the best floral surprise that suddenly popped up in the garden – the prize has to go to Hemp Agrimony. It just suddenly appeared after I smashed up a bit of old tarmac around the edge of the drive. Can't believe it had been laying dormant there all that time.
Since then, I have introduced pieces of it to a wetter part of the garden, which is more suitable – and it has attracted Red Admiral butterflies in their hundreds over the years.
(It's such an easy plant to propagate, just grab the old flower stem in late Autumn and pull. The stem will come off with a bunch of roots and next year's buds.)
### The only 'extra' piece of advice I would give is – if you plan to dispose of that mower and never cut that lawn again, should you want to plant any new trees in that lawn, 'do' put a tree guard around the base.
Voles may arrive in your garden and will girdle very young trees, even Birch, Hazel, Holly and some pines (as I discovered to my cost).
I'm not sure, but I think the voles probably do this to stop the grass turning into woodland, but if you're managing the area to prevent that anyway, you don't need their help.
I have lots of trees in my meadow (because it is partly a permaculture/bird-feeding garden), and with the exception of the Walnut, voles have attacked very nearly every species of tree I planted. So I start them off with an adapted plastic bottle or salvaged tree guard until they are large enough to man it out with the wildlife.
Once you stop mowing, you realise what a futile, time-wasting exercise it is. Also, you begin to regard other people mowing their lawns as 'trained by convention,' wasting their time, money and resources – and for what?
Seriously, why?
Unlike them, you will see the first benefits in your very first no-mow summer (and hear them too!) Birds, bugs, bats, and the frogs turn up first.
And then you have the close encounters….
My son met the otter face-to-face when he was 7. He saw the puma saunter through our garden that same year (it terrified him, but it never came back).
I have met with a Little Owl face-to-face. The same happened with a Red Squirrel, when it charged around the corner of the cottage wall – just as I was coming round from the opposite side. The Goshawk landed on a post not 10 metres in front of me. I have been almost within touching distance of a Red Deer stag (I was wearing a long red dressing gown, no idea they saw that colour as green. So, to him, I was invisible). And we arrived home late one night – to have a Harry Potter moment: a Tawny Owl sitting on our post box.
Lately, Bullfinches have turned up to peck away at the crab apple tree. I just love their amazing colours.
And not a day later, the Goldfinches were back – no doubt to nest in the very tip of my columnar conifer again, where they wave about on windy days (training for the kids I suspect).
I'll give it a go. Mowing our lawn involves quite a time and cost overhead, though I'm thinking of mowing the edges, providing access to our flower borders, and leaving the rest untouched until the end of September, which is almost the reverse of what you suggested. In fact, this would solve quite a problem for me, as I don't really have time to worry about our lawn, and, in common with many peoples' 'pride and joy', it's mostly moss anyway. I've already spotted a few butterflies in the garden, and I've learned to leave our nettle patch alone, so this will be the next stage.
Very good advice as always! I try to simulate a natural environment as we would get from grazing animals, not an easy balance as if aggressive grasses take hold they can quickly take over an area swamping out lower plants like Thyme and Horseshoe Vetch, and that does no good at all, so I tend to use a "coppicing" approach and mow hard in some areas, but leave other areas for mowing every 3 years, it is surprising how many Orchids thrive on this treatment, and I have huge clumps of 40 plus Lizard Orchids and many other solitary orchids, at this moment there are many thousands of Grape Hyacinths in the short grass areas, and the Orchids tend to be supported by the slightly longer grasses, the small rodents thrive on these long grass areas which brings in a constant presents of Kestrels and Barn Owls, the Kestrels hunting until it is quite dark, the the Barn Owls taking over,(after they have whitewashed my tractor), but if we look at a natural meadow we can see that large animals are selective feeders, so they create the same patchwork system, a lot of extra work, but well worth it! Stay safe! Chris B.
My cats love Love LOVE the long grass and spend much more time outside in the summer months than they used to. They don't damage the wildflowers beyond establishing their own little regular pathways and like nothing more than to find a favourite patch in the partial shade of the long grass where they can snooze outside without getting sunburned.
Mine aren't great hunters; I know house cats get a lot of flack for their impact on wildlife but as I see it, if my two start finding lizards, voles, frogs, slow worms and suchlike It'd be a positive sign that I'm creating a healthy habitat.
I have been trying to have a wildflower area for some time. I garden on clay and get a lot of moss, wood avens and creeping buttercup which smothers the grass. The area that grew grass and looked great for a bout a month was then completely flattened , I think, by foxes. Also the grass gets brambles and nettles sprouting in it if its left uncut. Im having to come to terms with the fact I am.never going to have a flower filled meadow. I have an area where I leave nettles and brambles for wildlife but they do spread across the garden if I don't keep on top of them. Not easy now I'm getting on a bit.
I Will persevere.
I love all your advice. Since returning to the UK after travelling Africa myself and my partner are missing the simple wildlife we encountered, the reduction in the more common bird and bug life in my area is so shocking due to development. This year my partners decided to dig a wildlife pond and we're leaving areas unmowed, planting wild flowers and building bird and bat boxes and bug hotels! I just wish we had more space! Keep up the great work!
New pond videosssssss
I’m absolutely amazed at the endless list of animals, insects and birds that benefit from not mowing your lawn. What an easy simple way to help wildlife 🦔
❤ watching this Joel. The clover 🍀 is starting to appear plus these wee white flowers. I’ll take a photo of them tomorrow, if I remember, then tweet them.
Beautiful cows. I didn't know that they could be so curious. 😄
Well said Joel 👏🏻
What a great video Joel have to say the cows where the stars in this vid 😂…My perennial wildflower meadow starting to come to life,cowslip & wild primroses looking good specially for the pollinating bees I have grasshoppers in my front garden.
Merci !
Hi Joel I am lucky to have grasshoppers every year under my front room window in my front garden. I have a wonderful flower border and have my spring flowers plus lots of perennials which I grow from seed . I love seeing them and there seems to be hundreds! I am new to your channel and I love all the knowledge I am gaining from you. Thank y ou so much.
Great advice and it works even in the smallest garden. Our north-facing little front "lawn" was 99% wet moss so two years ago I dug it out, dug in lots of sand for drainage and sowed a meadow mix plus extra short-growing lawn wildflower seed. It grew well and I mowed it normally for a year to establish it, then last year we'd intended to mow it monthly but it looked so beautiful by the end of May I just left it and had #NoMowSummer almost by accident! The neighbour liked it, the Vicar admired it and I saw some passers-by get their phones out and take pictures! About 1/4 of our back garden former lawn is now mown monthly (the rest is full-on wildflower meadow) and right now the daises and dandelions are in full bloom in the flowering lawn and I saw my first Speckled Wood of the year nectaring on them this week.
Hi Joe I love wildlife and birds everything , this year I have already preparing my garden for next year wildlife garden. but I’m terrified with snakes. What if I’m going to step on them by mistake? Are they venomous? I’m terrified for my life when it comes to any kind of snakes including pet ones.
Hm. Where i live, mediteranean, these hot months are snake season. We have several very posinous varieties in my village. For years only remove the posinous variety, still keeping weeds and grass short by homes helps us see the snakes! Tiny gardens anyway.
Hi Joel, could I get your advice on mice in the garden? My new place has a small garden which I have begun to work on mainly for herbs and wildflowers and pollinators but at the back there is a large 3 step loose rock structure that is bound together with wire. It was covered in ivy right down to my lawn so I have stripped it back to the top step as I didn't want to remove it completely being that it is vital for pollinators towards the end of the year but I wanted to free up the first couple steps to line my pots on. I've noticed mouse activity in and out of the rock gaps as I'm sure they are nesting in there. I don't want to harm them as every animal plays its part but I'm also conscious of the population getting out of hand as it seems a perfect breeding ground for them. What would be your advice on this? They aren't causing any problems atm and don't seem invasive but would love to hear what you would do in my place.
Great presentation and yes we do for the last two years no cutting what used to be a lawn, but is no longer one last year it was incredible to see just how many and how varied our visiting insects were. Thank you for getting the message across in a lovely easy way for people to learn, we do need more to do the same. So please keep up the great work 💕 for all our 🐝 🐛🦋🐌🦟🐞🕷🦉🦇🦆🦅
Aww those cows are adorable . I’m afraid I mow our garden & my veg plot really short. We get LOADS of teeny weeny toads/ frogs & im terrified of standing on them 😳…..But…..luckily we have a very wild area next to the veg plot which is totally untouched, so I don’t feel too guilty 🥴
Always great advice…. Thanks Joel 😊