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Category Archives: Pond

Alas, poor frogs!

08 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by marytheherb in Pond, Wildlife

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frogs, pond conservation

Last week I ventured out into the sodden garden after a few days of drier weather. Walking around by the pond I was horrified to see 7 dead, bloated, frogs floating in the water. I have seen one or two like this after a cold patch, when the pond freezes over, but not more. We wondered if it was our radical clearing out of the pond in October that had somehow left them vulnerable.

The pond before clearingpond sept

The naked pond – although still some submerged floating plants

pind dec 2012

Having taken advice from the organisation called Pond Conservation, it seems that we wouldn’t have done much harm with our clear-out, quite the reverse really. It is most likely that they did suffer when there was a cold snap a week or two before Christmas and then took their time to float to the top of the pond. I hadn’t tried to keep a patch of water clear of ice this season, so I must remember to do this in the future in order to prevent any build-up of noxious gases. I really do hate my frogs to be hurt!

Slugs rule ok!

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by marytheherb in Gardening, Pond, Vegetable gardening, Wildlife

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frogs, slugs

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?

This week in the garden – 5th November 2011

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by marytheherb in Gardening, Pond

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Although we have had some desperately needed rain this week there has been ample opportunity to get into the garden and the rain has made the heavy clay much easier to work.

At present I am working on the ‘east border’ next to a large row of hedgerow trees – ash and field maple. This area is in the shade for much of the day in summer and autumn and it is essentially dry shade. There are some very difficult weeds here, mainly tormentil, which certainly lives up to its name, but also a lot of ivy and invasive grass.

Some of the plants are doing well but are smothered in weeds, e.g. sedum, golden marjoram, lysimachia. Sweet cicely is also happy here. So I will probably dig everything out and put back anything that I can rescue from weed roots. I am edging part of the border against the path with a very pretty Bergenia ‘Overture’ – beautiful magenta flowers. I used not to like bergenia but in a large garden where effective groundcover is required it is a really useful plant. This year another bergenia has flowered well from August until now, although it usually flowers in April.

I have bought and planted a couple of geranium macrorrhizum and a heuchera. I have also bought a number of crocus Chrysanthus ‘Cream Beauty’ some Narcissus cyclamineus ‘Reggae’ and Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ that will go into the back of the border around a newly planted hazel cutting. Since this will not nearly cover the area I will be infilling with as many divided hardy geraniums as  I can muster and moving pulmonaria seedlings from anywhere I can but mostly from here.

Another bed was a mess of convolvulus and jack by the hedge but the bergenia and pulmonaria have provided fantastic ground cover very quickly.

Last weekend we cleared out the larger of our ponds. Usually one of us falls in but this year we seemed to manage ok. We were clearing out stratiotes and glyceria – I wish we had never introduced the latter. The water lily, which is really too large for this pond, can wait another year before we lift it out and, I hope, get one that is a more suitable size.

Plant of the month – October

The prize has to go to this rambling rose. Its performance is usually poor, being highly susceptible to mildew, and the flowers are often dried up looking but in October, following a severe cutting back, it has been very pretty. It is looking even better now.

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