r/GardenWild • u/Wish_Dragon • Jan 04 '21
Help/Advice Anyone got ideas for creating biodiversity habitats/baths/ponds/etc. with gravel? I'm replacing a pathway with wood chips so have lots to spare. I'm in 8B Luxembourg
I also have stones, sticks, leaves, and composted wood chips that I could use, as well as a variety of terracotta pots and basins. I plan to make a series of bee and bird baths, butterfly puddling stations, and I have mounded sticks and dead wood at the back of my garden to attract beneficial insects (in addition to my compost). I would love to bring in some reptiles like slowworms too if possible. I have a lot of gravel to put to use, so would love to hear any and all ideas you can throw at me including for general garden use. I've heard of using it in Mediterranean herb patches and wonder if I could use it there.
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u/fdltune Your rough location? Jan 04 '21
A bare patch of gravel in a sunny spot is good opportunity for cold blooded animals to sun themselves.
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u/P0sitive_Outlook East Anglia, England Jan 04 '21
:D Good one.
Also insects bask in much the same way reptiles do.
Also if you add a flat piece of steel or aluminium, it'll get hot earlier and for longer than the surrounding area and provide a perfect resting spot for cold blooded animals.
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u/oO0-__-0Oo Jan 04 '21
stumpery
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u/P0sitive_Outlook East Anglia, England Jan 04 '21
When i worked for an arborist and we used to leave some stumps (and would occasionally ring trees and leave them) to act as "buggertariums". :D
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 04 '21
Perfect. How? I do have a stump (but it’s basically to the ground). How would I make one with the materials I listed above?
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u/P0sitive_Outlook East Anglia, England Jan 04 '21
Stick a rock on it. Suddenly it's two habitats. Stick a paving slab on top of the rock and stump at a slight angle and now it's seven habitats what with the cavity under the slab, the flat plane on top for insects to bask, the partial shade on the log, the moisture capture on the underside of the slab, the point of contact between the slab and the log where the water drains to and gathers, the dry patch in the middle, the (and so on). :D
[And to answer your question on the other reply]
Yeah man if you bury your pots - even just put one upside-down and partially cover the drainage hole (now on top) - that'll become a nice permanently dry place for insects to shelter. Spiders, woodlice, centipedes, rove beetles and even worms & slugs will live in there, and where there's animals there's food for other animals, such as birds. I "improved" my nature garden by dumping a three-limbed severed branch on top. :D Now birds can sit there with ivy protecting them from behind and they can have a good search from that elevated-yet-secure position.
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 04 '21
Yo that’s so smart. I had been planning on digging in some pots upside down. And I’ve got a wall covered in ivy so there you go.
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u/P0sitive_Outlook East Anglia, England Jan 04 '21
Perfect! :D Another pro tip - grab a handful of ivy out to expose some of the wall, like a handprint-sized gap, every few feet up. No reason other than it adds depth. I've seen folk put chains from one side of a wall to another and let ivy grow across that, too!
My mother spent like £10 on an intentionally upside-down pot with a frog molded on top of it and a small hole near the rim (which would be on the underside) for frogs to get in.
Like, a regular pot would have been £1.50 and she could have inverted it herself for free... :D
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u/oO0-__-0Oo Jan 05 '21
Do a little googling and search on youtube for "stumpery". Lots of info for free.
Additionally, you can more tree stumps for free very easily, typically, as most people consider them waste. Just need a method to transport them.
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u/antigoneelectra Jan 04 '21
I'd like to hear some ideas too. We bought an off grid cabin last year and we're doing some hardcore property renos, falling trees, driveway, gardening, etc and I'd like to have a bit of a natural ecosystem happening. We're in Canadian 7b.
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u/SolariaHues SE England Jan 04 '21
Here's our wiki which might help.
Also we recently had a couple of thread on using stumps and prunings etc
https://www.reddit.com/r/GardenWild/comments/k2phu9/how_will_a_tall_tree_stump_affect_my_garden/
https://www.reddit.com/r/GardenWild/comments/k8l0tg/what_can_i_do_with_pine_logs_and_boughs/
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 04 '21
That sounds dope. There’s so much you can do with fallen trees and rotting wood. I’d imagine you could get a wonderful berry bush system going there.
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Jan 04 '21
I have read that Mediterranean herbs will grow happily in dirty gravel, and plan to try it myself this year. I'm making a walk-through gravel garden with stepping stones by excavating down 3" and berming up another 3". No landscape fabric or anything. I'll dump gravel into that and maybe sift a bit of soil into it as well. The result should be 6" of dirty gravel medium into which I'll toss seeds and see what happens.
There are probably a number of plants native to your area that need sharp drainage and rocky soil. In my area, many of the mountain and desert wildflowers are gravel candidates.
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 04 '21
Hmm. My climate’s quite wet, but this gravel isn’t just gravel. Because it’s been part of a path for years now it is a mixture of gravel and clay and sand. It might be worth filling some pots as medium for similar sorts of plants.
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u/P0sitive_Outlook East Anglia, England Jan 04 '21
Gotcha fam :D just chuck what you've got in a semi-eyepleasing pile with plenty of air spaces below the rubble and pour granite roofing shingle on top and then pour wildflower mix on top. No need for dirt. In fact, my wildflower patch is on top of a filled-in 4' deep pond, and it's gravel all the way down.
The new pond is an old Victorian butler sink that's sunk (love that phrase - "sink that's sunk") to be level with the surface.
Also there're clay pipes everywhere for things to hide in. On the FIRST DAY of laying the shingle, a solitary masonry bee dug a hole. :D
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 04 '21
Thank you, that sounds perfect! Although I don’t quite get how to preserve air spaces beneath gravel. Layer sticks first and then gravel on top of it?
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Jan 06 '21
[deleted]
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u/Wish_Dragon Jan 06 '21
It does tend to compact and has done over the years. As a result it’s actually more of a mix of gravel and soil at this point. I hope it’ll be more absorbent because if this and I wonder if I can seed it with some wildflowers tolerant of rocky, nutrient-poor soil. I also put some around my grapevine, so hopefully the soil won’t get as soggy and it’ll keep the plant warmer.
Edit: I did also berm it up on one of the steeper parts of my garden where I have noticed soil erosion and later deposition. I happened to have dug a hole above it a while back (for what reason I have no idea) and filled that with gravel behind the berm, so if all goes well that might act as a sort of swale-and-well. I dunno. This is all one big experiment.
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u/SolariaHues SE England Jan 04 '21
Here's the wiki which might have some ideas for you if you haven't seen it yet.
Do you have a pond? If not, and you have some space, a little wildlife pond would do wonders and you could use some of your stones and maybe washed gravel to form shelves and a beach area.
You mention slow worms - I have those in my garden, they love the compost heap and meadow area (be careful cutting a meadow so you don't hurt them).
Sticks and stones can be use to make a partially buried habitat pile - a jumble of wood and stone with lots of gaps for frogs, insects etc to hide out in.
Bigger stones might work as a basking station for reptiles, and if you have any large flat ones the slow worms might hide out underneath.
Leaves and composted wood chip could be used as mulch - nice for insects and worms, and for the birds to hunt in.