Blue Daisy Blog

July is most definitely the month of colour - it's a riot out there! Watering, deadheading and keeping on top of weeds are most people's top 3 in the garden this month but planning ahead never hurts either...

There are always some things in the garden that you'd do differently, and your July garden is often a good time to spot those difficult patches. Make a note of the changes that you'd like to make and take photos to help your memory so that when you do come to make changes later in the season it'll be an easier job.

You know how we feel about our gorgeous and endangered pollinators so you’ll understand how delighted we were to see Friends of the Earth support the plight of our bees with their latest campaign.  

Sign up to The Bee Cause and get involved.  For a donation of £15.00 you’ll be sent a bee saver kit that includes wildflower seeds, a garden planner, a step by step guide, a plant list, some postcards, a discount voucher for bee-friendly gifts and, our personal favourite, a bee spotter guide.  

The RHS has recently released an additional plants for pollinators list - this time focusing on native wildflowers - many of which are also good for inclusion in our gardens.

The plight of our pollinators was highlighted in our recent Pledge for Pollinators article. We are passionate about trying to help our pollinators who are in serious trouble right now and whilst the reasons for their decline are varied and complex part of the problem can be attributed to the reduction in the abundance of wildflowers in the countryside.

The new list contains over 200 wildflower plants and the cultivated garden plants list that we linked to in our previous article has now also been extended to include over 400 plants.

Our gardens are becoming increasingly important in the fight to help our pollinators and we can make a real difference by including as many plants as possible in our planting schemes that are good sources of nectar and pollen.

Here at Blue Daisy we’re really passionate about saving our humble British bumble bee and other pollinating insects like the hoverflies, moths and butterflies.  The decline in our pollinating insects especially bees has been noticed through various studies over the last 50 years or so, the reasons are far reaching but one been the reduction of our wild-flower meadows through the use of chemicals.  Recently it has become a hot topic with the many organisations including the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) taking up the mantel led by Sarah Raven to help gardeners identify the best plants in garden centres.  They have introduced a badge called ‘Perfect for Pollinators’ which will be on plant labels all good garden centres.

Why are we interested in pollinating insects?  Well in brief, they transfer the pollen from one flower to the next allowing it to be fertilized, which means it will have the ability to set seed or produce fruits.  This is really important for us all, if plants aren’t able to set seed we risk reducing the amount of plants we can have as theycould become endangered or extinct. The worst case scenario is that the pollinated flowers don’t turn into fruit which means it could have a huge impact on what we are growing and eating, or not eating as the case may be!  The pollination would need to be done by hand, it would be such a laborious task taking so many hours that the products themselves would be so highly priced the average person in the street may not be able to afford them.