Fuchsia Fest

Here are some of the Fuchsias in my garden at the moment. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 There's some confusion as to whether this is in fact a Fuchsia, but I'll include her anyway because I love her!

 Isn't she beautiful?

August in bloom

Welcome to my garden.

  

 The weather this summer hasn't inspired me to go into the garden very much let alone write about it, but here are some pictures I managed to take last month. The honeysuckle and jasmine didn't last as long this year as they did last year, but this seems to have been the case with everything in my garden.

 My garden had a weird compliment when a friend was trying to repair my front gate, 'Your garden has too many butterflies'!!!!! Can a garden have too many? I rather like to see them fluttering around, a garden may  be packed with flowers but to me without a bit of movement from either birds or butterflies it's a dead place. So far this year I've seen the small tortoiseshell pictured below, Peacock, Red Admiral, Cabbage white, Common blue and Wall brown  which settles on me while I am sitting reading. The Peacock and Red Admiral like to bask in the sun on the front of the house. I staggered the pruning of the Buddlea this year to try to prolong the flowering season I think it's worked .

The son has got his hat on.....

 and so has Finn and  friend.

 And lastly I found this little visitor hiding in the undergrowth.

A New(t) Visitor To My Garden

Can you see the new visitor to my garden hiding amongst the tadpoles? I have wanted to attract newts to my garden ever since I put the bath there for the frogs and at last I don't know how many years later one has appeared.I think it must be a smooth newt as this is the most common and the back feet do not appear to be webbed as for a palmate newt. I hope she has a mate with her and they produce newt tadpoles.

Newts migrate to the ponds they will use for breeding under the cover of darkness,usually in the wet.They are brilliant climbers and so can overcome most obstacles. The females mate with a number of males keeping their sperm in a special chamber inside her until her eggs are ripe for fertilization. She will lay between 100-300 eggs each one coated in jelly and wrapped individually in an underwater leaf to hide it from predators.This can take up to a week to accomplish.The tadpoles eat their way out of the egg in 3-4 weeks, they have stubby gills for breathing and a pair of adhesive organs to attach themselves to any firm object they encounter as they have no limbs at this stage. It doesn't take long for their forelimbs to develop and they absorb these organs as they no longer need them. The gills also develop taking on a feathery ruff-like appearance. The tadpole has minute teeth which it uses to take small aquatic organisms which form it's staple diet.After about 6 weeks the back legs appear and the tadpoles can crawl on the pond floor to hide from predators such as Dragon fly larvae and sticklebacks, frogs and toads. The tadpole from an egg laid in mid summer will take about 10 weeks for metamorphosis to complete, but it will be several more months before it reaches adulthood and is ready to return to land, where it will find a damp crevice to live in. Tadpoles from late hatched eggs will overwinter in the pond.  Once they have left the pond they will live on insects,small snails, slugs and worms. A smooth newt will take 2-3 years to reach maturity, a crested newt can be up to 4. Newts can live for 20 years although few probably survive for longer than 6.

R.I.P. Tara Cat

Tara my old cat passed away yesterday. I'm not exactly sure how old she was but it must be somewhere between 18 and 20 which is quite a good age for a cat. She had gone very thin and was suffering from feline alzheimers but she was still enjoying life and would still go visiting her numerous friends. She loved sitting with the children of the road and would still conscientiously patrol her territory although if anyone fed her she would go to sleep and forget to come home! So it was very upsetting when she came home on Sunday night with a broken back leg. Not being strong enough to undergo surgery we did the only thing possible and took her for that final trip to the vet. 

I brought her home and laid her to rest in the garden next to one of my David Austen roses which I bought a couple of months ago. The children are all devastated and all day they have been asking if they can see where she is buried and say goodbye to her. Jake made her a little headstone and laid some flowers over her!

 The rose I buried her next to has been in bud for a couple of weeks now, but when I went out this morning the first flower had just opened! It smells divine.

R.I.P. Tara Cat.

Stars of the month

Here are some of the stars shining in my garden this month.

 Theses double daisies have been flowering all winter long.

 The Allium have just come into flower to keep them company

 The Peony is beautiful while it lasts, but doesnot last for very long.

 The Aquilega self seed and come back every year,

 The Mahonia is looking a little sorry for itself at the moment, but I had one of those magic moments today when Mr. Blackbird came and started eating the berries from it not three feet away from me, of course the camera was indoors....

 And last but not least seeds from the willow tree have blown all over the London Pride and stuck to it making it look all furry.

A Trip Around The Front Garden

These are the daisies I planted last September, I've been really pleased with them, as they have flowered all winter, unlike the winter flowering pansies which I planted at the same time. I'm hoping I'll be able to divide them up and keep them going for next year when they finish flowering.

 My cold frame was falling to pieces and all my seedlings were being eaten by slugs,(I hate slugs), so I broke it up and have put some pots in it's place. There are my two free clematis and the fuschia Hawkshead plug plants I got from Country Living magazine hardening off as well. In the other pots are my fuschias I have kept from last year, some sweat pea seedlings and some mint I have been given from Dee's garden.

 The wallflower are getting too leggy so when they have finished flowering I am going to be ruthless and pull them up and replace them for next year.

 I have been very busy tidying up along the path, isn't it amazing how many flower pots, plastic sacks and other debris get put down waiting to be moved later?

 The Ajuga loves it here and is threatening to take over.

 And last but not least, there are still some bluebells in flower, although in the back garden they are starting to go to seed.

Sunny Sunday

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon on Sunday. Here are some photos of Smudge and Finn enjoying themselves in the garden.