Another guest post from Debbie cousins about local wildlife:
Many Newtown gardens are currently bursting into life in a
purple haze, thanks to this common garden plant. It is a type of Campanula or Bellflower and although it
isn’t a native plant, bees and other insects love it. Recently I was tidying up
my front garden and two people stopped to remark on this plant: one said how
lovely the purple plant was, while a neighbour asked if it was a weed or whether
it was meant to be there? There are a number of definitions for what a weed is,
but the most popular is probably ‘A wild plant
growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants’. So
it’s not a ‘weed’ as it isn’t a wild plant, but rather it is a cultivated plant
that can get a bit rampant!
Due to its open flower
structure, it is popular with pollinating insects such as bees and I recently photographed
a female red-tailed bumblebee busy collecting pollen from the flowers. She seemed
to be weighed down by the pollen baskets on her hind legs that she uses to
collect the pollen.
So while this Bellflower
might need keeping under control so that it doesn’t swamp all of your other
plants, please retain some of the cheerful blooms for people and wildlife to
enjoy!
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