Creating a Swift friendly garden - part 1

Last year, I moved into a house with a small, north facing garden with not much happening in it - just a lawn and a shed. 

Excitingly, I discovered I was living in an area of Lewes popular with Swifts - and was able to have a Swift nest box installed by Lewes Swift Supporters (or LSS - who are also involved with Wildflower Lewes and the Friends of Lewes tree planting wing - Lewes Urban Arboretum). 

LSS formed to try to reverse the alarming decline of Swifts locally. And part of that is about making Lewes as wildlife-rich as possible to attract and support these glorious birds. 

Although my outdoor space is little and urban, last summer we had the joy of seeing and hearing Swifts screaming overhead. So a natural progression was to transform as much as I could into a haven for insects to support Swifts and other wildlife. I checked our website for advice, spoke to colleagues and decided to create a pond, low-growing wildflower meadow and living roof on the shed. I've put up a bee hotel too and I'd brought a number of trees and other plants in pots with me, plus we'd add some other planting that would support wildlife year-round, including Honeysuckle and Holly..

Michael Blencowe wrote about creating his own wildflower meadow here, which is fantastic, but it's not possible to get anything like a turf stripper in my urban garden. It's surrounded by other gardens. So the plan was to cover the grass up with membrane over winter, hoping that would kill most of it off. We did this in autumn, having dug a small pond in the middle of the lawn (with sides that allow creatures to get out). The shed roof also had some alterations to strengthen it and make it suitable for a living roof. I'll blog about my living roof project separately. 

Fast forward to spring, and, recovering from an operation, I was desperate to get cracking, but in no fit state. So I explained my predicament to Audrey and Nick of Lewes Swift Supporters and they were kind enough to come and help out (I say help out - I did very little, and part of the time it was snowing. They were heroic). I'd pre-ordered the right amount of low flowering lawn seed mix for the space from these guys. I wanted something I could walk on, eventually. We were pleased that the membrane had done what was hoped, very little grass remained, but the ground was compacted. So the first stage was breaking up the surface using a spade and fork. After that, they raked it.

Then they sowed the seed and pressed it into the earth. Nick suggested I see how it goes and, if there is too much grass, I'll sow Yellow Rattle in the autumn to manage that. 

It will need mowing twice a year, in March and September.

So now we just have to wait and see! I'll post some more pictures once the seed starts growing - and hopefully, the insects come visiting. 

Read Part 2 here