Visit my rewilded garden in high summer.

[@tys7794]

With more and more people being educated on topic of insect decline, paired with more native gardens and trees being planted. I believe we can give nature and the critters that live within it a chance (ourselves included) well done Dave, your content reaches many!

[@RonEstrada]

Happy birthday! I just finished reading Silent Earth. I am one of those conservative conservationists in the US (which leaves me few choices this November). Thank you for your work. I retired last year and plan on getting involved with my local conservation groups. You’d be happy to know that I’m seeing more conservatives joining this movement. Hopefully my three grandkids will enjoy seeing monarchs in the garden for many years.

[@MaxMitch22]

Happy Birthday wishes from Australia

[@helenhawkins4054]

Wonderful thanks.😊

[@gingervirus2988]

Thank you Dave, exquisite and uplifting. Coincidentally I’m still seeing quite a few Early Bumbles on my lavender

[@StephenBanks-m8n]

The loveliest garden I've seen! Thank you for a delightful and informative tour

[@dandelionpark3673]

Loved this thank you. We have no apples this year as so few pollinators around despite the trees being covered in blossom. Politicians need to take a long term view and think of future generations. We have our grandsons to stay every summer holidays in last week of July and we do the butterfly count with them. Very few seen this year, meadow brown and cabbage white, no blue and none of the vibrant coloured specimens seen this year at all. We have seen Dragon flies thankfully. We have 4 acres in mid Wales and are building lots of habitat and hope to create a garden full of life. Keep up your great work and the positive influence x

[@sarahdean6441]

Brilliant to see....seeing more insects since it's warmed up...lots of bees on my sunflowers.

[@just_alex]

Loved this. Learnt loads! Thanks Dave.

[@sam-el4oq]

I've been feeling quite down lately about the lack of insects this summer, but this video cheered me up a lot and left me feeling inspired :) I collected some wildflower seeds today and saw lots of cool insects while doing so, including some burnet moths! Thanks for the great work you do in promoting insect conservation, Dave

[@debbiesittard7653]

Happy Birthday Dave! Thank you, for giving us all the tour. Looking beautiful. I live in NE Texas and I'm extremely concerned about our Bumblebee and Butterfly population. Before Covid ( seems Covid is a time-marker now) we had an abundance of them now I could count on one hand the number I've seen in the last 2 years. Our Hummingbird population is greatly down as well. I hope our beautiful lil creatures make a recovery.

[@davegoulson6831]

Sad to hear :(

[@jemimarosebullock]

I LOVE your garden! We have a pretty wild garden, too. It may be small, but it is mighty in terms of the amount of flowers, herbs, plant, veg, wildlife!

[@carolelsey9272]

Brilliant garden with all the flowers, enjoyed the garden tour

[@kathyknoeppel1699]

Happy Birthday! Dr. Goulson - you have a counter-part in the US - Dr. Tallamy. He has been so instrumental in educating the public (like you) on the importance of planting native plants, shrubs and trees for our wildlife.

[@barbaratremain6601]

Happy birthday Dave 🎉. Lovely setting with the mallow & mauve shirt 👚🌸. Good to see what’s in your garden 🪴

[@lynnpreece8461]

Thanks for the lovely garden tour Dave. I live in Southwell home of the Bramley apple. Glad to see you are growing some. Dreadful numbers on my butterfly transect this year, it’s very worrying. Thanks for all that you do to help nature and all the little beasties 😊

[@krystynajarzabek3001]

Przepiękny , czarodziejski ogród , jestem zachwycona , dużo się dzieje , szczególnie dla ginących owadów ❤ Właściciel profesjonalny , wszystko wiedzący o tym świecie! Należy uczyć się takie wrażliwości, otaczającej nas przyrody 😅😅❤❤

[@jonathanpaske2739]

I have woodland germander nothing much to look at but bumblebees love it especially the carder

[@elliotlane3225]

Echo your thoughts about insect numbers. Definate drop here in West Yorkshire too. A great and timely video, l've just finished reading 'The garden jungle', after enjoying a run of 3 nice evenings in the garden to read your book, have a nice drink and in between chapters enjoy the antics of my resident robin and blackbird. Oh and happy belated birthday

[@debradevine3949]

Happy Birthday Dave. Thank you for the wonderful tour of your gardens. ❤❤❤

[@RedRobin808]

A belated Happy Birthday to you. Wonderful wild space for nature, pollinators and other wonderful insects to flourish. Well done.

[@carollovatt7822]

Such a lovely tour. Lots of bees here in the garden in Staffordshire but not as many butterflies this year. Thank you for some gardening inspiration and belated birthday wishes 🎉

[@steve1264f]

Happy birthday Dave hope you're having a great day. Nice to see butterflies in your wonderful garden as they've been so scarce as we all know & bees & other insects of course. I actually saw a peacock butterfly today it really made my day, so beautiful. Keep up the great work we're all behind you all of us subscribers & doing our best to help the little beasties. Enjoy the rest of your birthday 🎉👍

[@mandiemckinnon2874]

Thank you for a glorious walk through your garden 😎 Last year near my house in Berkshire UK there was a large patch of ragwort which was totally covered in gatekeeper butterflies - it was entrancing!

[@anthonydavies6021]

Glorious. Nature can still thrive given an opportunity to do so, and your garden is right up there for that! The amount of work you do for this is not necessarily obvioius, but your appreciation for bees and our other natural neighbours is a lovely thing to share, for which many thanks. The recent hot weather seems to have given the invertebrates a vital injection, and yesterday there were many more butterflies out and about, thank goodness. However, I have searched many a ragwort plant in my local area but found nary a cinnabar caterpillar, sad to say. They could be found easily in my younger days.

[@margaridamaia9187]

Happy Birthday !

[@katieannjones89]

Happy Birthday! 🎉💐🎁🎂🎈 Your garden is gorgeous, I'd love all that land and the peace and quiet❤️ I'm in Northumberland. My garden is tiny, but this year for the first time I've grown Phacelia. They've grown a lot taller than I expected, but they're always covered in bees. I think I'll be growing it every year now I know😊

[@lindseyravenemrich9279]

Wow- I absolutely loved that tour whilst relaxing in the bath- I am inspired to do similar! Keep inspiring others and keep up the fight ❤

[@nellmanning8547]

Very interesting video, keep making them, I loved it !!!

[@silvanamarceca170]

Amazing...thank younfor the video...i am doing the sane in my garden and allotment...as well wild flowers are good for the soil...it's important look after the soil so we look after the planet and our pollinators....

[@cumbrianrambler7715]

Hooray a new video. Happy buzzday. Lots of dragonflies and butters along our river in damp warm west cumbria.

[@rankine67]

We live in Finistere, Brittany by the coast and have an acre plot within which we have let a good portion of go wild .It has 🐝 been amazing to see all that nature brings in when you allow it to choose it's own path instead of manicured lawns.

[@simoningate2056]

Red Admirals and Painted Ladies would be down due the poor weather and few coming over from Europe and Africa. Last year and the one before was fantastic for Red Admirals - I remember seeing nearly 100 feeding on brambles on a walk. Where I live in Cambridgeshire it seems to have been a good year for Commas and poor for Small Tortoiseshells.

[@YarrowPressburg]

Ragwort is considered an invasive species, here on this small island in northern USA. There is a team that pulls it out along the road, but it does take over some ranches. Personally I love it but still have to pull it for the owner, although we have no livestock here the deer and cattle don’t touch it, but when it’s balled up with the hay is when the cattle eat it without being able to discriminate. Love what you do! I’m trying to do the same, I’ve got hundreds of bumblebees all season long, my garden is not big but is surrounded by forest.

[@maryodoherty4789]

🌼 BIRTHDAY GREETINGS from Dublin. Thank you as always Dave for your inspiration .

[@nickiramsay2421]

Thanks for the tour and happy birthday for yesterday 🥳🎂 My bumblebee numbers have started picking up, my teasles and hollyhocks have been buzzing with buff tails and carders. Still barely seen any leafcutters though. I’ve been doing the butterfly counts and I’ve not recorded a single blue butterfly and I think a small copper and a few whites have been the only non brown family contribution.

[@bearhustler]

Happy Birthday! My little garden is finally looking a bit more normal this week, Gatekeepers are around, carpenter bees coming out of my bee boxes and finally some better numbers of bumblebees.

[@jelee5240]

Many Happy Returns of the Day.

[@Schorsch123]

Happy Birthday, dear Dave! I had mine 14 days before. 😉

[@minkymoo4794]

Happy Birthday Dave!

[@EvaKondrup]

Happy birthsday. I have a allotment south of Copenhagen and today has been a beautiful summersday. Like you I experience a terrible drop in numbers of butterflies and bees. Still have lots of bumblebees. I even had a bumblebee, which had made a nest in a corner of my house😮. I tried to block the entrance, but it kept trying to get in and succeded while I was away. And then I just gave up and let it stay. I couldn't bear to kill it after reading A sting in a tale. I even find myself talking to bumblebees😂 Inspirered by you I have grown a lot of plants from seed, but this year the young plants have been eaten by slugs😢 Thank you for you talk in Copenhagen, which I enjoyed even though the message is depressing. Keep up what you're doing. Hope the politicians will listen.

[@juliethartwell4525]

Happy Birthday! 😊

[@GeorgeTGWTBN]

Happy Birthday! 🎉 🐝🦋🐞🐦‍⬛

[@ollyk22]

There seem to be a lot of Hornet mimic hoverflies this year - lots posted on a facebook group, far more than I have seen before!

[@antraxxslingshots]

It is the 3rd gardenyear for me, with constant improvements in plants for insects, removing lawn, planing flowers etc. and each year the insec population in my garden has grown. Most Butterlies, Bees, 2nd year with a Bumblebeesnest in one of my raised beds...can´t complain. loving it.

[@joannasz2345]

Happy birthday 🎉

[@InkNSap]

Happy birthday Dave! :D ❤

[@johnmccarthy115]

Many happy returns DG, the only critters that have thrived this year are the dratted slugs n snails 😡 Every year seems to get worse but this year is particularly bad, we can but hope it's a fallow year 🤷‍♀️🤞🤞

[@girlinagale]

Swallows and swifts left last week of July, that feels earlier than I'm used to. I'm in south Lincolnshire, a small town with a large woodland within 1/4 mile and I'm very disappointed in how few garden birds I've seen. Last year I moved from Cambridgeshire where there would be sparrows, dunnock, blackbirds, wren, occasional green woodpecker, thrushes, jackdaws, flocks of goldfinches on the feeders, always a robin, house martins, swifts, swallows every day. All I really see now is pigeons. Too many immaculate gardens, too much use of "spray" and a preponderance of that ghastly plastic grass. I shall do my best to make my little garden a haven for life.

[@jandersson2053]

Happy birthday and thanks for another lovely video! What type of grape are you growing? They look stunning! Also, do you have two row stonecrop around where you live? I went to a local garden centre in Stockholm, Sweden, and the two row stonecrops were fully covered by bees! I've never seen that many! Not a millimeter of the plants were seen, due to all the pollinators. Beautiful!

[@kathrynhopkins]

The ringlet butterfly likes grasses such as cock's-foot and false brome. I would imagine the late summer or early autumn hay cut is quite damaging to their life cycle as they don't lay eggs until July-August and then don't seek overwintering shelter at the base of grass until October - maybe this is why some of our meadow butterflies are less common? Just a theory - although I believe some research has been done on this but the results are not widely distributed outside of research platforms.

[@marymcandrew7667]

Happy Birthday Dave! We're trying to do our bit in the Scottish Borders. Our house sits on just over 1 acre, and we've let lots of it go wild but are also introducing native and non native flowers in for the bugs. We try to put things that can battle it out with long grass, and hope to introduce yellow rattle too. The grasses are very important for lots of moth species as larvae food, I'm not sure about any butterflies. I have a question that I think you'd be most qualified to answer, if some moths need grass to have their life cycle, how can we know what time of year is safe to chop it down? Are there eggs laid on it? Do the larvae burrow underground for winter, so it's ok to cut in late autumn? I've found different moth species in cocoons under ground and some actual caterpillars in the dead of winter. It's been a fantastic season for grasses, all the varieties we have are so tall!

[@jonmccaugherty1476]

Hello Dave, just discovered your channel and wondered if you had any suggestions for plants for deep shade. One side of my garden has quite tall beech trees and under them it is very dark. Thanks

[@davegoulson6831]

Try pulmonaria, foxgloves, aquilegia, bluebells

[@albert2395]

Dave, what part of the country are you in? Because all of my Alliums have gone over now. I live in Tooting, London.😊 I love your garden! I've transformed my sisters garden, a mix of plants, with a pond and a lawn turning into a flower meadow!!!❤😊

[@nemkini]

im transforming the rose garden i inherited from my father into a wild garden (keeping thr rosebushes as memory of him). last week my neighbour was very upset and told me that the garden is now the eyesore of the entire village this happened in Switzerland.

[@helenyoung8012]

I have had to give up on my dahlias and raspberries this year due to slug and snail damage!!!

[@silvanamarceca170]

..just a note...your allotment could be banned from most of the Allotment society...so we need educate people don't use weed-killer and to keep more wild grass and flowers in our allotments too...in Ely Cambridgeshire I try to do a lot of educational activities for explaining all these things...involving new politicians...I hope they will help me

[@pootlemum]

No Dave Hornets and wasps are not wonderful creatures!!