Chortle Chook Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 I've been longing to have chickens for years, but I also like to have a pretty, colourful garden. All my friends countered my desire for keeping chickens by saying 'Oh you can't keep chickens because just look at what they do to gardens'! This summer I read an article in a magazine that said if you pick the right breed and pick the right plants you can have both! Yipee. The idea was hatched, and I now have three little Silkies. I live in an end of terrace plot made to look like a cottage garden with lots of perennials and my three little Silkies free range about the place. My garden is surviving but only just and needs some help. I'd love to get a few more chooks too. Am I just being greedy? I'm not that keen on lawn but I would like to have flowers even if not the perennial type. Has anyone got any tips either of what plants to grow or how to limit chicken destruction (while still allowing my chickens free range)? In a separate topic here "Pics of the girls at a barbecue" 'Crankycookie' has shown us all a lovely garden so it has to be possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&T Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 The key (apart from the types of plants) is the amount if free-ranging your girls enjoy. The more freeranging, the more your garden will have to put up. The other thing is can you fence "sensitive" parts of the garden off? I have found that most perrenials (with larger chooks) just don't survive. If they are not eaten, they are trampled and pulled apart with their feet. My experience, has been that if you think evergreen, then they are the sort of plants you can get away with. Things like laurel, box, azaelias, (large established) heathers etc. Roses are good as well (not mini ones though). Woody things seem to work as well. Clematis can work though - if you can protect them until they are high enough to be out of reach. Non green plants aren't eaten either by ours - they seem to only like green things! Not sure how that fits in with a cottage garden theme though... Hanging baskets are a good way of adding splashes of colour -the lobelia, fuscia, pansies etc will survive if hung up high enough! (and you remember to water them, but that could just be me... ) Don't think you have to chose between chooks and garden - but you do need to ensure the run is big enough to keep the chooks in for the majority of the time, and that you accept certain plants are no longer an option! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mulberry Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 For info it's worked fine for us with 3x Pepperpots. They're extremely keen on busy lizzies, but out of their reach and begonias. Anti-peck spray worked to keep them off the begonias. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chortle Chook Posted September 23, 2010 Author Share Posted September 23, 2010 You are right about the 'woody plants' surviving the bulldoze effect. My lavender seems to be OK. Also my roses are just fine. The chooks seem to love rummaging about under them. Any tips of other shrubby plants or chook proof designs from anyone? (I don't have an acid soil so azaleas don't like it here). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CallyChook Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 my orpingtons decimated everything this year, including heather and a large azalea (half dug it up, not eaten!) I now have the front smaller garden for pretty green things, and the back mud pit for pretty feathered ones! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&T Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 You are right about the 'woody plants' surviving the bulldoze effect. My lavender seems to be OK. Also my roses are just fine. The chooks seem to love rummaging about under them. Any tips of other shrubby plants or chook proof designs from anyone? (I don't have an acid soil so azaleas don't like it here). You don't have acid now - but assuming you are composting all of your chicken "waste", you will have some very acidic compost that you can use to plant azaleas in and keep them well mulched. Great for Blueberries as well - have had some great crops since using the chicken poo compost! Oh, and if you haven't already, you will see a big improvement in your roses too if you use your compost to mulch around them. It's good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 I don't think you can have total free ranging AND keep your garden, but if you limit the free-ranging - either in area or time then it can work. I'm lucky enough to have a fairly large garden, but even so it wouldn't survive if my girls were out all the time - they can't be out anyway because I'm at work,so the compromise was a nice big WIR for them, and free ranging when I am around. I have cotoneaster, artemisia, jasmine, honeysuckle, clematis, lavender, rosemary, hebe, viburnum, euonymous, roses, choisya, hydrangea - any sort of shrub you can think of,they all seem to be ok as they are big enough not to be destroyed. I also grow aquilegia, hollyhocks, gaillardia, alchemilla (Lady's Mantle), heuchera .. can't list them all but I have not had a problem with perennials. The only things that aren't safe are things like pansies, begonias, bizzy lizzies - but I only put them in hanging baskets anyway, so they are out of reach. If you really want them to be out all the time, then you might want to consider restricting the areas where they can go, so that some bits get a rest or so that they can't get to tender plants. The compost you get is fabulous, I agree! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jewels Posted September 23, 2010 Share Posted September 23, 2010 Hi, My four girls do not touch roses, or any of the herbs I have planted (apart from the curry plant which they seem to love). I decided I would like to plant around their coop some greenery that they would not eat so I planted rosemary, lavender, bay and lemon balm which they have not touched. When I free range them they do not eat my tomato plants, courgettes, raspberries, gooseberries, any of the herbs, ferns, and I planted a meadow flower area which they go into but don't eat anything, just scratch around. I only free range them for a couple of hours a day now as when I first got my hens (only 2 then) it took them just 2 months to totally eat all my grass and leave it a horrible muddy area. Now we have reached a happy compromise with them on it for only a couple of hours a day and I feel we all benefit, them from eating a bit of greenery etc and me from having no slugs, snails and some lovely compost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenlegs Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 Hi, I have to say that I have gone down the opposite route to most on here, my 3 chickens are able to FR, where ever they want when I am about but the plants are protected by netting, including my veggie patch. I only have a very small garden and watching them it would seem they like new growth i.e. the lily's which they would have demolished when new growth was apparent but totally ignored once they were established, don't touch lavender, rosemary or hebbie but thats just mine , got my OH to build me a plant theatre, which is just a wooden shelving unit for plants, to add colour and my grass is hanging on in there, just think its just trial and error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chortle Chook Posted September 24, 2010 Author Share Posted September 24, 2010 Thanks for all these suggestions. I'm going to re-think my garden this autumn and will include more roses which I love and more shrubs (rosemary, hebe etc.) and less perennials. In my rather narrow garden I have a wiggly path going down the middle and I think I'll reverse the usual garden design advice and will put the shrubs near the front / alongside the path, underplanted with herbs such as lemon balm. I can then leave the back areas close to the fence blank for the chickens to scratch around in and make their dust baths in. Being jungle fowl they might like grubbing about at the back of the bushes. I'll also try my best at making some pretty hanging baskets to put on the fence to add extra colour. A few things that I'd miss like lillies I'll start off under wigwams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue-DiamondChick07 Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 Ive decided to turn the whole bottom of my garden into a WIR in the spring, that way I'll have a garden My Silkies have been quite gentle with the grass so far, Pekins like a good munch though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodcat Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 My lot free range the whole time and we've come up with a few tactics to help keep our garden quite happy. We tend to make sure that the flower beds have sections behind the flowers to give them somwhere to hang around and ferret etc. If you have plants that you thing they might dig up. Take some chicken wire and lay it flat on the ground with a very very thin layer of earth ontop and then plant through the chicken wire so that the plants are surounded by it. Then when they do that backwards scratch they don't like the feel of the chicken wire and stop. Place bricks round the base of your bigger plants and in pots so that they can't dig. Strangely for the most part if they aren't rabidly interested in eating the plant the digging causes most damage. And finally on the whole breeds with feathered feet tend to dig less. Not in every case but in general. My pekins are the least distructive of all my girls though mine are very good on the whole. I can't say that my garden is the prettiest on the planet and it probably wouldn't win any compatitions but for the most part it survives and actually looks quite nice. Provided your a bit careful where you put your feet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plum Posted September 24, 2010 Share Posted September 24, 2010 If your flowers go you can brighten up your garden with other things. I keep my chickens in the bottom half of my garden and have done things like hanging baskets, tiled the fence posts, put shells on the risers of the steps and other things like that in their area to add interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherbet Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 If your flowers go you can brighten up your garden with other things. I keep my chickens in the bottom half of my garden and have done things like hanging baskets, tiled the fence posts, put shells on the risers of the steps and other things like that in their area to add interest. Those shells look really great! what did you use to set them in? My garden is looking a bit worse for wear i managed to rescue some plants & put them in pots, another thing i have done is put large pots in the borders with shrubs in like hebes etc and then put brightly coloured plastic flowers in...great at this time of year & in the winter, friends didn't realise they were plastic as they were mixed in with real plants!! Chooks don't like plastic flowers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plum Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Plastic flowers We used to get them free with washing powder. I''ve got some lovely red metal flowers in the boot of my car to go down there but OH is a bit and with all my garden improvements so I'll have to sneak them in when it's too cold and wet for him. I used some waterproof tile cement to fix the shells in place. Don't you find the girls dig the soil out of the pots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherbet Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 Plastic flowers We used to get them free with washing powder. I''ve got some lovely red metal flowers in the boot of my car to go down there but OH is a bit and with all my garden improvements so I'll have to sneak them in when it's too cold and wet for him. I used some waterproof tile cement to fix the shells in place. Don't you find the girls dig the soil out of the pots? Yep they do try, they only FR when i am in the house (or rather out the house) as i am always in the garden tieding up after them..poo picking etc i shoo them off the pots, but usually about 20 times lol! They are funny! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valkyrie Posted September 27, 2010 Share Posted September 27, 2010 My orpies did just the same thing - they just walk through bushes, trample them down and then it makes a very nice path for the smaller chickens. Where I have reclaimed part of the garden for pretty flowers they push against the netting and chomp the flowers off - or leaves and flowers when it comes to fuchsias. The veggie garden is proving to be well out of bounds for the larger girls, but the smaller ones sneak in somewhere but they just can't get out. . I might have found and plugged a possible gap yesterday so I will have to see later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
