Stonehouse Gardening Club

Providing food for wildlife year-round is vital. I’m sure the bees in Stonehouse are grateful to the Stonehouse Gardening Club who are creating a Winter Wildlife Garden on the north side of the station.  They call it “work in progress” but there are some well-established plants there.  I was in Stonehouse yesterday talking to a school about a wild garden project and thought I’d stop off and have a look.  The rain stopped and the sun came out and the bees arrived.  I saw one huge bumblebee and lots of honey bees.  Although there are several fragrant shrubs their favourite was definitely the winter-flowering honeysuckle.  It’s a shrubby plant rather than a climber and it smells divine clearly and is clearly providing food for wildlife.  The Mahonia was second favourite.

I have mahonia in my garden but rarely see bees on it, although the Blue Tits love it and seem to prefer it to the bird feeder at the moment so I assume there are lots of aphids.  I decided to do a little research, although I didn’t answer my question I found this lovely blog about bees and mahonia which if any of you are thinking this would be a good addition to your garden it goes into different varieties Mahonia and Bees.  Yesterday was mild but apparently, bumblebees can be out foraging in really cold weather.  One of the really good things about mahonia is the length of the flowering season.  I’m starting to wonder if I can pack another one in – as well as my winter honeysuckle.  The more we can provide food for wildlife year-round the better.

Nature and Mental Health

I got a chance to watch this spider repair its web, which is on a very dirty window, it was fascinating and completely absorbed me for about 10 minutes. It set me thinking about how little time it takes just to be absorbed in the wonder of nature.  If you are feeling overwhelmed by the world at the moment make sure you get out in nature and take a moment to wonder at it.