To fruit or not to fruit?

The worms have spent some time thinking of tasks in the garden for April this week. There’s quite a few to dos, like pruning your ornamental quince after flowering … or leaving it to set fruit … follow our blog to get more daily gardening cartoons, ideas, tasks and tips.

After flowering either prune or leave your ornamental quince to grow its astringent fruits. In this cartoon two worms are looking at ornamental quince fruits on a branch at ground level. One worm explains, “you can eat them, but I find they numb my tongue and contract my throat” The other worm is lying on its back with its mouth wide ope, it just says,”yeeessss”

Wild flower meadows flower for longer due to the diverse range of plants in them. That’s more flowers for you, and more food for the bees and insects. Plant one and join the Gardener’s World Put Pollinators First campaign – raising awareness of the decline of our pollinators @GWmagazine

The Wrigglers have joined the #putpollinators first Campaign

Click to see our ‘Put Pollinators First’ page

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Gardener’s world launched its #putpollinatorsfirst campaign, as part of their 30th Anniversary celebrations of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. See what you can do to play your part:

Join in the Gardener’s World team and pledge here

With a panel of pollinator experts, committed to helping bees and other pollinating insects to thrive, Dr Trevor Dines says, ” Since the 1930’s, over 97 percent of our wildflower meadows have been destroyed. That’s 7.5 million acres, gone. Now you can understand why our pollinators are in such trouble.”

There are 3 ideas:

Sow some pollinator meadow seeds

Create habitats for butterflies, moths and caterpillars

Make a cornfield nectar bar

By making a meadow, even on a small scale, we can provide a banquet for pollinators that’ll help them to thrive.

Here are some seed suppliers and links:

Dobies

Thomson and Morgan – how to sow wildflower seeds

RHS – How to grow a mini wild flower meadow