Monthly Archives: July 2012

Wild flowers at College Lake

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Wildlife

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What a difference a week makes. The weather is fantastic and yesterday we had a beautiful day at College Lake near Tring. This is an old quarry that is now managed by Beds, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. There are two lakes and a range of other habitats (woodland, grassland, open meadow, wildlife garden etc) in this lovely chalk downland.

For more information see BBOWT website http://www.bbowt.org.uk/

There are plenty of bird hides around the site with a charming one at ground level next to a shady pond with a frogs’ eye view of things. The new visitor centre has refreshments available at some times of day and great views over the reserve.

Yesterday we were looking at all aspects of wildlife, especially birds, and at the start of our walk we were treated to the sight of two hobbys in the cloudless sky. We also saw oystercatchers, redshanks, lapwings and a variety of gulls.

For me though, the real treat was the variety of wild flowers in the area providing nourishment for many beautiful butterflies. Unfortunately butterflies are not easy to identify or photograph but they included gatekeepers and marbled whites.

Here are some of the wild flowers we saw. I hope I have identified them correctly.

Greater Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa)

Pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis)

Common Centaury (Centaurium minus)

Melilot (Melilotus officinalis)

Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)

Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare)

Yellow-wort (Blackstonia perfoliata)

The pleasures of small things

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Flower arrangements, Flower garden, Herbs

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Over the last three days we have had some good, dry, almost warm weather. After mowing the lawn the garden looked quite respectable. The flowers seem quite unphased by all the rain and are blooming as usual. Even the roses did not seem to be as spoiled as I would have expected.

I went and picked a small bunch of flowers for our visitor’s bedroom and was pleased to see how beautiful the most unobtrusive flowers can look in a vase. How well pale yellow and mauve go together.

This arrangement consists of Marjoram ‘Acorn Bank’, curry plant, several types of pot marjoram, an annoying weed, name unknown but shown in the top right of the picture in pale pink, although it is usually purple and bachelor’s buttons or Santolina chamaecyparissus. The button-like flowers of the latter, so easy to ignore, especially as the plant grows straggly, are actually exquisite when they open out.

Santolina chamaecyparissus flowers

Slugs rule ok!

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Gardening, Pond, Vegetable gardening, Wildlife

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You may not have believed my last post when I commented on the disastrous vegetable situation this year so I am posting some pictures of the damage, almost entirely due to the slugs, although pigeons are not wholly without blame, and the weather started things off badly and ensured the plants were poor specimens and ready to be attacked. (Click on the first two photos for larger slugs!)

Broad bean brunch

Radish relish

Pathetic peas

Calamatous cabbages (note potato intruder)

Paltry potatoes

I have been fighting a brave battle on the strawberry front and we have had plenty of lovely fruit, but yesterday’s rain re-inforced slug numbers and I am giving up there too.

I suppose I should say that I don’t use slug pellets because we have a couple of ponds and there are loads of frogs hopping about the garden and they come first. Frogs are having a hard time over the planet and I am trying to make their lives as easy as possible here, so I suppose there will be the odd year when I really pay for that strategy.

Looking forward to next year now. It can’t be this bad can it?

Roses win the day

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Flower garden, Vegetable gardening

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I returned from a week’s holiday to find the garden very verdant, apart from the vegetables, many of which have been decimated by the prodigious slug population. The potatoes have not grown and are going yellow and the broad beans are still small and although they have flowers I do not expect much of them. The strawberries, however, are ripening well and only a few are succumbing to mildew.

In the flower garden the roses are performing admirably. The hybrid tea ‘High Sheriff’ is in its beautiful first flush.

Rosa ‘High Sheriff’

I hope I can save it from the black spot that disfigured it so badly last year.

Here are some ‘Harlow Carr’ blooms picked for the house.

Rosa ‘Harlow Carr’

Meanwhile ‘Wedding Day’ is doing what it does best, scrambling through a tree.

R. ‘Wedding Day’