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I have a 5 year old Meditteranean Spur Thighed tortoise, and this year he can go outside for longer than I have let him before.

What's confusing me is that I don't know if the rest of you are from US or UK, I don't know if you keep meditteranean tortoises and whether they need to be kept the same. (if you get what I mean!)

I know that lots of tortoises in the UK have plainish runs with not much in, (from what I've seen). I want a much more interesting and enriching run. Will hostas, hebes, carex grasses, pansies etc be ok in his run? as well as the usual dandelions and other weeds.

I know you must get this lots :s sorry. but any help will be really useful

a pic of him is attatched

Hi Ryanp15: Anything you can do to make your tortoise's habitat easy-on-the-eye, only helps to enrich the tortoise's life. First of all you should look at images of the tortoise's natural habitat and try to reproduce that for him. I don't keep the Med. tortoises (except Russians), so I don't know what their natural land looks like, but I would think clumps of some sort of plant, chunks of wood (a grape burl, etc.), edible plantings, and maybe even a small boulder, scaled down to size.

Welcome to the forum, and good for you, trying to make your tortoise's life more interesting!!

Yvonne

Ryanp15, welcome to the forum. Nice looking Tort you have. We have people from all over the world here and quite a few have Greeks, You can look under Greek Geeks http://tortoiseforum.org/greek-geeks-f-30.html
Yes, whether in the US, UK or anywhere for that matter making a tort habitat exciting for the tort is a good thing. Here are some lists of some plants for landscaping http://www.russiantortoise.org/edible_plants.htm
http://www.sdturtle.org/Tortoise%20Plant...evised.htm
http://www.turtlecafe.com/ediblelandscaping.htm

Just make sure you do not get plants that have been sprayed with chemicals or have Chemical plant food in their soil. They should have a period to clean out the chemicals. I usually give mine 3 months. You can get some of these plants from organic gardeners listed on the net if needed. Good Luck and Congrats on giving your tort an exciting, safe place to live.

i'm in the UK and my runs are far from plain lol Plain seems more of a US thing.
*ducks*

here are a couple of mine these are last years pics now in the process of perking them up again for this season.

I don't think it's a situation more in one place or another. I think it's more that as knowledge of what plants can be used and how to create a more realistic environment it spreads. Goes a lot I think also with the general publics awareness of their outside rooms. Plus some folks are just more comfortable with creating wonderful worlds for their torts then are others.

The sweet thing is every time you see what somebody else has created, it gives you new thoughts and ideas to use on your own.

Nice areas Stells.

thanks for everyones advice i think i've got a few more ideas. nice enclosures stells

i was thinking of reinforcing the sides of my current tun with a corregated plastic, would this be ok? It would also hep to obscure his view, as he likes to try coming out all the time!

oh also, can i see fuschia in your run stell? Somebody was going to give me some fuschia

yep it is a fuschia theres also........ hmmmmm lets think ........
Rosemary, Lavender, Iceplant, Pansy, Petunia, Hosta, Campanula, a variety of weeds and thats all i can think of right now lol.
The long tunnel is roofing ridge and there are some stones in the weeds, somewhere in that lot.
Oh and a water dish, wooden hide, Terracotta pots on their sides and coldframe

See fushia is a plant I keep looking at, but never try. Stells do your torts like eating them or do they tend to leave them alone?