native wildlife, people and places.
Featuring the work and thoughts of artists and professionals working with nature or within the creative industries.
They quickly learn to use Adobe Illustrator Draw, Capture and Photoshop, on their Apple iPad. This is a big aid to their skills building and understanding of digital drawing methods. All pencil drawings and digital artworks are uploaded to Showbie.
A part of your garden, a balconey or a few plant pots, can make a big difference for nature. This video was taken in the wild area within the garden and shows how it is becoming a part of the native local wildlife. Their lifecycles are completed within it.
Stills from the video above naming content are shown below.
1: Jack-by-the-hedge, dandelion and various grasses.
2: Bee fly on wood forget-me-not.
3: Oxeye Daisy, Hedge Parsley and Ground Elder.
4: Humingbird Hawk Moth on wild Sweet William.
5: Peacock Butterfly
6: Holly Blue Butterfly.
7: Brimstone Butterfly.
8: Orange Tip Butterfly.
9: Small Tortoishell Butterfly.
10: Common Frog.
11: Blue Tit
12: Buff-Tailed Bumblebee on wild Violet.
13: Common Wasp on Apple trunk.
14: Common Frog on Lily Pad.
15: Holly Blue Butterfly. on Oregano.
16: Small Skipper Butterfly on Lavendar
17: Mating Orange Tip Butterflies on
Jack-by-the-hedge.
These are some of plants that support the native animals and insects. An important one is an area of Nettles as this is the food plant for caterpillars of some of the most colourful garden butterflies.
If you want to enable butterflies to live in your garden you will need to have food for their caterpillars. Leaving an area to nature will enable them to arrive. To nudge nature along you should add some seeds and plants that garden butterflies need to survive.
All of these butterflies will lay there eggs on stinging nettles. Nettles in a sunny corner would be perfect for attracting them to breed and lay eggs.
From the top: Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma underside, Comma with wings open and lastly the Painted Lady
Orange Tip Butterflies on its caterpillar food plant, Jack-by-the-hedge in the garden
Holly Blue Butterflies need Holly, Cinnabar moths need Ragwort and for the Brimstone it is Buckthorn
For those shown below its the grasses, Meadow, Cock's-foot, Yorkshire Fog, Red Fescue, Creeping Soft, Downy Oat and Tor-grass
From top: Small Skipper, Marbled White, Gate Keeper, Ringlet, Large Skipper, Small Copper, Speckled Wood, Common Blue and Meadow Brown
Any space you can share with nature will be benificial. Making space on balconies, patios or gardens can become corridors of green for our wildlife. In the uk we have more than 20 million gardens that between them contain more than four times the area of our nature reserves. If you leave room for wildlife they will find it.
All the photos and videos on this page were taken in the garden since introducing wilding. A small pond, wild areas of grass, nettles alongside areas of shade and shelter.
Since leaving the bottom part of my garden wild the garden has been visited by birds, insects and animals that were not here before. Many complete their lifecycle in the garden every year. Butterflies like the Red Admirals, Orange Tips, Comma’s and Peacocks lay their eggs and hatch as a butterflies within it.
If you allow native plants to grow the butterflies will follow.
