I started feeding birds over the last winter, seeds and fat balls. I've stopped feeding now, it's the end of April. This attracted a lot of different kinds of small birds. I had a problem last year with black aphids on my Nordmann/Noble tree tips and green fly on the roses every year but this spring I've had no black aphids and very few greenfly on the roses. Today I noticed a blue tit moving around the roses picking at the tips of new shoots, the main area greenfly attack. So feed the small birds over winter to encourage them into your garden, they are great pest controllers.
We have several feral and pet cats who regularly pass through or sunbathe in our garden but still get lots of small birds. Occasionally one of the younger ones will become fascinated by the bird feeder and make some clumsy attempts at stalking but I’ve never seen any sign of success. Maybe I’m lucky and our local cat population are genetically inept hunters and the pet ones too well fed at home
We give them all names. One of the old feral ones is Hunter, ironically named as he was completely inept as a kitten and has never improved ( thank goodness) 🤣🐱
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I feed the small birds all year round, as I have bird cages specifically for them to access. They eat less once the insects etc start appearing, but it means they come in on a regular basis. I don't grow a lot of plants which are susceptible, and it's too early yet for them to be appearing, but the blue tits are easily the best chompers of aphids here. The new sweet pea foliage/buds are the main targets, and they see them off very quickly.
Just noticing how old this thread is - and the last poster at the time was the much missed @Wintersong.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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First year my big Acer is covered in black fly
I'll wait for the ladybirds to arrive
Nothing else effected yet...
We give them all names. One of the old feral ones is Hunter, ironically named as he was completely inept as a kitten and has never improved ( thank goodness) 🤣🐱
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I don't grow a lot of plants which are susceptible, and it's too early yet for them to be appearing, but the blue tits are easily the best chompers of aphids here. The new sweet pea foliage/buds are the main targets, and they see them off very quickly.
Just noticing how old this thread is - and the last poster at the time was the much missed @Wintersong.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
This one morphed from aphids as the pests to cats. Did someone recommend eating cats?
It's not surprising we give attention to pests at this time of the year:
1. First time looking at the plants
2. Nice tasty, tender, new leaves
3. One sunny day and the opportunist pest populations explode. The predators take a few days to catch up.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."