Rod Whiting (00:08.815)
Hello, have you ever tried to grow wildflowers in your garden and found it to be a lot harder than you expected? Welcome to a very big club. Today, we find out more about a really easy way to grow wildflowers anywhere in your garden space, tailored to the creatures you want to attract. What would our gardens be without the wildlife that comes to visit us? Our special guest for this episode is Dr Anna Attlee, one of the conservation scientists behind Seedball, a UK company on a mission to make rewilding simple and accessible for everyone. From balconies and backyards to community spaces, their little seedballs are helping gardeners across the country bring wildflowers and pollinators back to life. We'll find out how it all began, the science behind the idea, and just how easy it is to make our gardens more wildlife-friendly just by planting wild flowers. Let's find out a little bit more about our guest first of all. Anna, over to you. 

Ana:  So I started in a conservation science background, researching nature reserves, actually, where this came from. I was looking at nature reserves at the same time, studying a gardening course, a permaculture gardening course. I don't know if you've come across it. A more sustainable way of growing. That means that you're not impacting soil health and releasing carbon from digging and things like that. So I was kind of doing the two concurrently and found this stat that our national nature reserves combined cover an area that's less than all of our gardens. So if we just combined all of our garden spaces, we could save bees. And it literally is the simplest stat ever that if we made our garden nature reserves,
You're bringing nature back. And with the bees, of course, comes the rest of the insects, the rest of the pollinators, the birds that feed on them, the bats that feed on the insects, the moths that are coming through. And you've just got this huge ecosystem that can be restored. Not only that, you're kind of able to connect the countryside through all of the urban areas and back out the other side. So you're naturally creating these wildlife corridors, which was another bit of my research, is how do you make corridors for wildlife, basically and create that kind of stepping stones for bees to feed on. And it's just naturally it's there. And that's that doesn't even take into account the balconies and the hanging baskets and the pots in front of your garden, anything. So we've just got a huge, huge potential. And so
the thought was, well, what if we could fill them with wildflowers? Now, my problem at the time was I was not a very good gardener. And I couldn't, so my skills have grown in this business. I couldn't get wildflowers to grow. No matter what I did, I just couldn't. I sprinkled them on the soil because I didn't have much time, and I was doing my PhD. And the birds ate them, and ants took off with them, and heaven knows where they all went. So I wasted a lot of money that way.

Then I tried to raise them in seed and put them in. We had a greenhouse, a shared greenhouse in my student accommodation. And I'd forget to water them, and then they'd all be dead. It just went on and on. thought, all right, so the idea is simple. Fill it with wildflowers. But actually, that in itself is complicated because our wildflowers are really slow to germinate, and they take a while to get going.
Yeah, so the seed ball concept was really a way for gardeners to be able to chuck down some seed and not have much skill and have something grow. So that's where the thought came. 

Rod:  Before we go to the seed ball itself, let me just bring John in on this because listening to Anna there, I think it will chime with so many of us as gardeners who've had this experience with growing wildflowers. We think it looks lovely and we think, yeah, well, how difficult can it be? Scatter a few seeds and there it is. It doesn't work like that, does it? 

John Stirland:   No, it isn't like that at all, Rod. Opposite Anna, I was brought up in a gardening background and actually taught conservation as well at college. So I've come exactly opposite to you. But I totally agree when you walk around the countryside, although it is getting more colourful, you find that it is a green and pleasant land, but it is green. Every wildflower has been removed because it's in competition with cereals and things like that. You don't want wildflowers in crops. And to me, gardens are absolutely vital, you know, for conservation. I mean, I've got a smallish lawn and I don't particularly like wildflowers.

in my ornamental bit, nearer the house, but the further away you get from the lawn. You can introduce wildflowers into there, it's fantastic. I used to actually have an ornamental lawn. I get so excited about this, I've got to let Rod in sometime. But I used to mow little islands so that the clover and things like that could come up, and it was full of bees. Just leaving that little island was full of bees. 

Rod:   Let's talk about these seaballs. How do they work, then, Anna? Just describe the process. 

Ana:   It's developed in two places. There's a Matanobu Fukuoka, who is a Japanese permaculturist, who used it for farming, and the Native Americans have used it. So these are two ancient techniques which I've adapted for UK conditions, and that is mixing clay with seed, and in our case, we have a bit of compost and chilli powder. So there's a slight adaptation to the old school recipe that was required, and then you just throw them down. So they sit on top of the soil. In the crudest manner, it's mimicking bird poop. So it's all mixed up and protected. So it's the idea that nature takes its course. You scatter them and just leave them. Yeah, yeah. Wow. And when we originally started off, it was mostly of our kind of scientific mixes. It was much more perennial-based than annuals. So it was for the really slow growers that we did. And we did a mix that no matter where you threw it, whether it's shade or sun, whether you had acid soil or soil, you don't need to know your soils. You don't need to know anything. You could just be as clueless as me and throw it, and then we just let it sort itself out. So the plants that were suited to the sun would come up. Those in the shade, like your foxgloves, would come up, you know, so you're basically letting nature sort itself out. And the only thing you needed was patience, essentially.

John:  So, it does just sort itself out, doesn't it? I mean, you'll get seeds that drop on certain soils and they'll never they'll germinate, but they don't like this and die off. And so, yeah. So you've got a group of seeds. Do you do colour ranges? 

Ana:   So we've been going over maybe over 10 years. Oh, my God. How old are the oldest kids? God, the top 12 years. Blimey. Life just goes, doesn't it? We do, we do all sorts of mixes. We do specific colours. We do single species now because people do want to create their garden, you know, so they want the oxide or they want the poppy or they want, you know, your red campion. It makes sense. So, we've worked with charities to, so your lawn flowers, we've got a lawn flower mix that we worked with the Wildlife Trust on.

And then the great thing is, because I'm a conservationist, we give money back to the conservation charities that we work with. So for that, think it's £1.50 per bag that you buy goes back to the Wildlife Trust. So it's a lovely full circle thing where you're growing for wildlife, but also supporting a charity that helps wildlife. And that's the lawn mix, but we've got hedgehog mix with People's Trust for Endangered Species. Yeah, we've gone through loads. We had a bat mix, which we did with the Natural History Museum, but we're continuing on that now. In a different range, we've got beetle mixes, all sorts. 

Rod:   Well, yeah, because you talk about bees, but I mean, of course, pollinators come in all shapes and sizes, don't they? And the insect population, there's a serious concern around that now, isn't there? I think we've all noticed, apart from ladybirds, this autumn. 

Ana:  Yeah, Ladybirds swarming on houses (laughs).

Rod: But we've all noticed the lack of insects and even worms. I've noticed a real drop in the number of worms in the garden. Whether that's just one of those seasons or not. 

Ana:   It's all related.  I love to grow. So I used to write tons of papers, and nobody read them; my academic papers, obviously just boring. And then we did, I did advise in government for a while and...you know, they don't listen and this has been so liberating because actually we've got a platform on social media where we can talk about the insects and we can do a mix that helps them and we can say this is why actually you might not like wasps but actually they're amazing pollinators and here's what to do if they come to your picnic and so we've got this amazing educational platform and sea bull is so much more than just the wild flowers you talked about the soil and the worms so why I
came into this was not disturbing the soil because I'd just come off a massive peatland research project. So protecting our peatlands and not releasing carbon, and that digging can really impact the soil microbes and therefore impact your soil health, your worms that are living there and release carbon. So basically, the less you're digging into anything, the better. So that idea of putting something on top was something we were keen to go with. So yeah, we got one that you can throw on a lawn. The lawn mix with the Wildlife Trust. This is when your grass gets -  I have always disliked this bitty grass after winter, and you end up with these patches and and you know you think I've created this amazing grass all the summer, and then spring comes and it's just missing bits So these seed balls basically you just put them in each of these spots and it fills it back up with daisies and bird's foot trefoil and clover. And it's like, for me, I have childhood memories of making daisy chains. You know, I used to just sit hours and hours at school making daisy chains. And it's been quite nice with our lawn, with the kids, to go, well, actually, there's never any daisies. Where are the daisies to do the daisy chains? 

John:   Some people have clover lawns. I mean, clover can be cut and it looks beautiful when it's cut. Clover fixes nitrogen, and the grass grows better as well, so you've got that double benefit. 

Ana:   Especially with small gardens, you know, in new-builds where people have got these new patches of lawn, often it's laid with turf and then turf just dies straight off you, and I see a lot of people about that and actually these work, creating a wildflower lawn, a mix, especially with clover, especially if you've got dogs and kids, that's really sensible, even ignoring the eco-friendly conservation benefit. It's a clever way of going about having some green.

Rod:   There will be lawn purists, and I have Steve Fives in mind when I say this, and he'll probably watch this, who react, as I did, in horror at the thought of putting Birdsfoot Trefoil in the lawn rather than trying to get it out of the lawn. So I guess there's a balance to be struck. And just because you have a lawn and you want to keep it neat and tidy and lush and green doesn't mean you can't play the wildlife game and the conservation game because you've got borders and you've got the rest of the garden that you can do stuff. all do our bit, you know? 

Ana:    So it's not about saying, you know, rewild everything. It's not at all. You can make a huge difference when a hanging basket. You want your little patch at the back, that's fine. You want to have the back of your lawn, move some bits through it. It all makes a massive difference. 

Rod:   So, do you target specific, well, you obviously do target specific creatures with the seedballs, but I'm thinking, what are the real heroes for bees and butterflies?

Ana:   So the real heroes out of everything, the bees, I did research actually on this... 

Rod: We asked 1000 bees. Sorry, Ana (Laughs). 

Ana:   I went in, did a meta-analysis of all the research papers that have been done on this.  Wild marjoram, actually, is one of the biggest pulls for bees, but bees really like blue. So blues and purples, that is their thing, and for butterflies, the Ox-eye Daisy actually is hugely important because it's almost like a landing pad for them to go and get their nectar and, and, and it's a really amazing flower, but also it's, it's one that is acceptable to a lot of gardeners for that reason that it looks so much like a Marguerite or something that they're familiar with. and so yeah, those are real big winners, but anything is really, any wildflower is is a huge help. 

John: Can I ask you, do you ever put nettles in your, you know, how peacock butterflies love nettles to lay their eggs on, yeah, do you do them? 

Ana: That was the one I wanted to do first, that was one of my first mixes I ever wanted to do, is put nettles in.  We haven't, we put dandelions in, there are still dandelions in some of our mixes, but when we first did that 10 years ago,  there were lots of people saying, why have you got dandelions in? I'm not happy with that. So imagine if I put nettles in. 

Rod:   So, presumably, you have a website where we can choose for ourselves what specific seedballs we require. It sounds as though there's quite a selection there. 

Ana:   So your local garden centre probably stocks us. I think we're in, how many, about 800 to 900 different shops and garden centres now across the UK on Amazon, not on the high street, and then on our website, seedball.co.uk, where you can also choose your own bespoke mix. So if you have specific flowers and things that you like, you can choose it there, or you can create your own gift product on our website as well.

and kind of modify our packaging. So that's another thing that you can do. And for people with small gardens, small spaces, so maybe a balcony or a really very small yard, is there an opportunity for them to bring these products into their spaces? Yeah, all of these were developed from our flat in London on the balcony and in the window boxes and in the hanging basket, so everything will work. One of my favourite things to do is get birdsfoot trefoil and put it in a hanging basket, and it tumbles down, and it looks incredible. Also lot of people think that wildflowers require huge root space, and it's not necessarily the case. They will miniaturise to smaller pots so don't feel put off if you've got not masses of space. You just want to have a window box. Window boxes will work really well, and I always like our bee mix for that because of the birdsfoot trefoil that just tumbles down and looks incredible. Every single mix has been tested. I'm just trying to - and fact-checking myself - has been tested in very tiny pots. 

John:   I mean, a lot of wildflowers do well in very thin soils, don't they? You look at the South Downs and places where it's basically short four inches down, the number of wildflowers on there is fantastic. And we often find that there's too much fertiliser and there's too much competition, and they wipe themselves out.  To me, you don't want soil that's too rich.

Ana:   Well, you've, I mean, you're the horticulturist, so you've got the exact point. is it. And it's something I say again and again, because actually in that rich soil, you do get very weedy thuggish plants that will outcompete them. Yeah. You know, because they are so slow-growing that you actually want quite poor soil. You don't want to make too much effort. You don't need to mulch your beds. I mean, really, it is it's a nice lazy garden approach. 

Rod:  That will appeal to a lot of people, I'm sure. Yeah, like it. What's your favourite wildflower, Anna? 

Ana:   My favourite has always been the red campion. So I think that appears in a lot of the mixes. It is such a beautiful flower, such a showy flower. I've always loved the way that its petals are like little hearts. It's very Alice in Wonderland kind of esque flower. So, yeah, that's always been my favourite. 

John:   I'd go along with all the Cylenes. Yeah, fantastic! Bladder campions. 

Ana:   Yes, all the different campions are fabulous, we had them under in a woodland mix, and they grow they grew really well in a woodland. So they're our shade mix for that reason.

Rod:   Just looking at it from a wider perspective, if everyone made one small change after listening to us chat here, what would you love it to be? Apart from buying seed balls, obviously. 

Ana:   (Laughs) Yeah, seed balls are a side mission, I suppose, to all of this, because it's actually about realising that wilderness and being wild and helping nature is not about something out there away from you. It's part of your everyday life. You can incorporate it into your garden, incorporate it into your hanging basket, and each one of us can make a massive difference to conservation just through the tiniest little impact. You don't need to change a beautiful lawn into anything different. You just make a little difference and realise we're all part of nature. 

John:   Absolutely, I know. I've always said anybody who starts a garden is helping wildlife right from the very start because if you've got a bit of soil the life in that bit of soil is phenomenal and if you can help that and build on that anything that lives needs three things doesn't it shelter, food and somewhere to breed and if they've got they've got everything they need. They don't need a telly. They don't need a glass of red at the end of the day or whatever. All they need is those three things. Flowers and things go a heck of a long way. 

Rod:   Yeah, but you know, what is the one bit of magic that transforms your experience when you're out in the garden? It's a visitor, isn't it? It's whether it's a bee or a butterfly, a fox, whatever it might be, a blackbird, whatever it might be. That's the extra sprinkle of magic that makes the garden, for me anyway, that's what makes it worthwhile. Yeah. You can have pretty flowers and you can have a nice, neat lawn, but without those creatures coming in. 

John:   I live on the edge of a town. I've got a major road running past my house
and I can see roe deer at certain times from my study window, which is just absolutely... I couldn't believe it when the first day I got here. That's roe deer. Because I'm next to a cemetery, but it's an arboretum as well. And yeah, absolutely fabulous. 

Ana:   Yeah. think being a gardener is the closest thing to being a magician that could possibly exist, isn't it? 

John:   Yeah, absolutely. And you don't need a gym membership as well. 

Rod:   (Laughs) Yeah. Well, I think on that positive note, it's a great place to finish up. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Anna, it's lovely to meet you. If you want to find out more about Seedball, just go to their website, seedball.co.uk. But hopefully we've dispelled a few myths, and we've planted the seed. That's what it's all about. 

Ana:   Thank you for having me. Lovely to see you. 

Rod:   Thank you very much, John. Always a pleasure and happy gardening, all. See you soon. 

John:   Bye folks.