Please can anybody confirm whether or not this plant is Ragwort? My neighbour has complained about it, even though it is in my own garden - and has told me I have to pull it up. If this is Ragwort, please can anyone give me lots of reasons to tell her, why it should be left alone? I live in a semi-rural area but nowhere near any grazing animals and I like my garden to be as natural as possible.
Yes, Ragwort. If you don't have grazing animals, and don't cut the grass for hay to feed to animals, you are under no obligation to remove it.
You will find a lot of reasons why to keep it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobaea_vulgaris#Ecological_importance. I like your natural garden very much. Welcome to the forum!
Thanks - I love my garden like this too! I have lots of wildlife as well as wild plants - there are grass snakes and slow worms frogs, toads & newts in a little pond as well all the insect life and birds - it's never boring round here.
Beautiful. Unlike some conventional gardens it looks alive! It makes me happy, too, to see a snake, birds, a frog or a skink in my gardens. After the initial scare I even learned to like rabbits. They love my clover and other wild vegetation and don't do any harm to my flowers. The constant humming of insects is very relaxing. I have a mix here: edible garden, cultivated flowers beds and the rest is given to Nature. Have a look at some native plants and mushrooms growing on my property: My native garden .
I too enjoy a wild, natural garden, glad to hear there are others who enjoy sharing the land with the rest of nature
Did anybody else in the UK watch this week's episode of Gardeners' World on Friday (BBC2)? The whole programme was dedicated to wildlife gardens and it showed some amazing places. If you can access the BBC iPlayer, it's well worth a look. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mw1h
do you mind if I ask which state ( if in US) or country the tree is in? It soundl like you are in th UK? Is it winter or cold most of the time? I'm just wondering b/c I had one when I lived in Maine and it was quite nice, but, no where near as nice as this one in the photo. It is absolutely gorgeous. Also, how tall (approximately) do you think it is? Thanks very much!
Hi, yes I'm in the UK, in the South East of England. It's summer here at the moment but never gets too hot - or too cold in the winter. We get the odd hot or cold snap for a week or so but most of the time, the summer temperatures are around 25ºC and winter usually above 0. I'm not that good on judging heights but it's almost as tall as an ordinary telegraph pole which is quite close by if that's any help - so maybe a little over 20 feet - but that's very approximate? I've got another tree like this one in my back garden (this one is in the front) but the other one is much younger and doesn't look nearly as healthy, so I'm thinking about transplanting the little one somewhere it may like better.
