Fluor

Cardoon

Nectar Bar

Our Ivy is a real nectar bar.

Lots of bees, bumble bees, wasps, flies, hoverflies and even some butterflies are enjoying it.

Holiday!

The next 3 weeks I'll be off from work!
Finally I can do whatever I want :)
I'l be blogging regularly.

Hopefully you're enjoying your holiday or weekend right now! 

Knapweed

This Centaurea jacea (aka Knapwort, Harshweed, brown knapweed) attracts lots of bees.

Another bee house

I've made this  a long time ago from some leftovers of clay.

For the decoration I used a leaf with fat veins.

After these blocks of clay were fired, they layed in our shed for quite some time before they got used at last :-)

The solitary bees use all kinds of material to fill the holes.

Broken dolomite from our driveway, white loam from our wall in the shed and all sorts of wax.

Nestbox

Don't get fooled!!!

These houses may look like bird's nest boxes but they are solitary bee houses.

We hung these posh looking houses a few days ago.

I wonder when we will have some inhabitants.

Hedgerow

In 2011 we planted a hedgerow next to the brook.

We bougt these native plants a couple of years ealier and planted these in our front garden.

After some serious growth we desided to replant them.

The idea is to start a mixed hedgerow for birds in our back garden.
If these plants are tall enough we'll do some hedge laying.

The compost heap was still a mess in 2011.

We bought some flat pack compost bins made of recycled plastic.

It looks like the hedge is doing fine. Just one plant died. 

A miracle in itself because we've planted on very wet soil.

 The blackthorn is blossoming right now.

Not only a beautiful plant but also a shrub with serious big thorns.

It is said to give you bloodpoisoning after you wounded yourself on this shrub. So be careful!

But on the other hand in march-april its blossom is very important to bees.