[Ozric]

[quote="Julia"]As I am preparing for the next tortoise season I wonder how many people keep their little treasures in the middle of cities, I am also interested in garden designs that are suitable for tortoises, but also for their owners and families to use at the same time.

Hi Julia, its a bit of an issue for us but thankfully me and the torts are winning !! Seriously, I have been accused of turning our back garden into a 'shanty town for tortoises' - there is not a lot I can do about the low dog kennel shed adjoining the coldframe but the actual outdoor enclosure is quite attractive. I do selective planting in there, some of the plants are tortoise foods like campanulas but I also have decorative plants in it that are not poisonous but they don't bother eating such as Hebe. I also have a wildflower meadow area that is lovely in the summer and I've got heaps of tort foods in there such as Cats Ear, clovers, Trefoils etc. I also grow plants in borders that are nice to look at but can also feed such as lamiums, bugle, cuckoo flower. The you have your lavertera which is nice in the summer and the torts eat the flowers, and the honeysuckle as well. I have made my garden sound big - its not, I just do everything intensively in it and its two miles from Glasgow central station.

I also planted attractive but thorny hedging all the way round the inside of the high fencing.

If you are keeping large species and/ or have adults roaming freely, a certain amount of damage is inevitable.