Thanks to constant pestering from Morgan we have done our Big Garden Birdwatch. Morgan sat there quietly for a whole hour and helped me count the birds we saw. There was nothing unusual and all in all it was a fairly good representation of what we normally get in the garden, with only a couple of things missing.
The results were:
- Blackbird: 3
- Blue Tit: 2
- Carrion Crow: 2
- Chaffinch: 7
- Collared dove: 2
- Dunnock: 1
- House Sparrow: 10
- Magpie: 2
- Robin: 1
- Starling: 18
Morgan now wants to do the same in the front garden!
As well as attracting lots of wildlife to your garden, a wildlife garden also gives you an excuse to be a bit lazy with the gardening from time to time! It isn’t just about bird boxes and ponds; just as important are areas of unkempt garden and piles of logs and sticks.
We don’t have huge garden here, but it is always nice to see wildlife in it so we do various things to attract wildlife. We have several bird feeders offering peanuts, seeds and fat balls. We have a few areas of unkempt garden with wild flowers and grasses growing in them. We have a little nest box on one of the trees at the bottom of the garden.
As far as maintenance goes, then we try to leave dead seed heads and such like for a while before cutting them back. In fact we try to leave most cutting back until spring. We keep the use of pesticides and other chemicals to a minimum. We also have piles of dead wood, compost bins and heaps of sticks all of which help attract wildlife.
It does work too. We have had 24 species of bird to the garden, frogs, toads and newts, numerous butterflies and moths, grass snakes, and as far as mammals go, hedgehog, rabbit, squirrel, mice, bats and even a ferret!
If you want to know how wildlife friendly your garden is and get more hints and tips then Natural England have set up a website called the Big Wildlife Garden. You can add you garden to it and list the features that you have. Our garden is on there and the latest few things we have done mean we have 53 points and a gold certificate! I think I need to build a bird bath next.
How does your garden fare?
What a day!!
After a dry, still evening for the Machynlleth lantern parade yesterday, the wind and rain arrived in earnest this morning. Perfect for me as I had intended to go windsurfing. With gusts to 52.6 knots recorded on the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station it looked as though it was going to be wild out there. Thankfully the rain eased off and the sun even came out, but the wind kept blowing and Simon and I had an excellent windsurf session at Ynyslas.
Me, Windsurfing at Ynyslas
It isn’t all good though. I was only commenting the other day how good the pampas grass was looking, but one day of ‘proper weather’ and it’s now looking a little sorry for itself. Most of the seed heads have snapped off and are strewn around the garden.
There is more to come as well. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all look pretty windy at the moment.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of moth-trapping lately. Usually it just involves placing a moth trap in the garden overnight and then investigating the contents in the morning. The identification, counting and photographing of the moths can take a while sometimes, but generally its a fairly laid back affair.
Last night was a lovely night. Not too cold, fairly clear and barely a puff of wind so rather than just leave the moth-trap on its own, I sat out there next to it for a while and relaxed.
It was actually really nice. As dusk settled I listened to the fading bird song and saw that a blue-tit was using the nest box in the tree. Once darkness descended the sounds changed. There was still some sounds of wading birds and geese coming from the salt marshes around the estuary, the garden birds went quiet and the sounds of the waves on the beach became more prominent. All of this was puntuated by the occasional light thud of a moth hitting the trap.
I felt a bit silly sitting in the garden after dark but it was very peaceful, relaxing and highly recommended.
I got up early this morning and whilst messing around with my camera before my little photo assignment at the Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon tomorrow I snapped this photo. Flowers make such good subjects, amazing colours, lovely textures and (as long as it isn’t windy) they don’t move either.
Pretty in Pink
Looks as though it should be a lovely weekend here in Borth and with all the holiday-makers back at home and the students not yet arrived, it should be pretty quiet on the beach. I’d like to get out there an make the most of it, maybe some snorkelling or canoeing, but there’s lots of work to be done in the garden too, especially if I want some flowers like the one above.
I’ve just eaten some delicious tomatoes from the garden… Not that I ever planted any tomatoes but this year the garden seems to be covered in tomato plants that have just appeared on their own.
The only explanation for their appearance that I have is that we must have put some tomatoes that were past their best into the compost bin. The seeds then survived the composting process and spring to life once I used the compost on the garden.
I’m not complaining though as they were lovely! I just hope we get a bit more sun so that the remainder can ripen nicely.
Coryline Australis
I’m on a mission to turn the main road through Ynyslas into an avenue of palm trees!
OK, it’ll probably never happen but I think it would look nice. One of the things I like about the Isle of Man is the number of palm trees there. More accurately they are actually Cordyline Australis which have a number of common names including Manx Palm or Cabbage Palm and they are everywhere on the Isle of Man, giving it a somewhat tropical look!
As you arrive on the island by plane, the area around the airport is full of pretty impressive specimens and if you arrive by boat it isn’t long before you see some.
They grow well here in West Wales too and withstand the sandy soil, winds and sea spray that all too commonly destroy most plants. There are already quite a few in Ynyslas but I think it would look nice if there were more. We have one that is growing well in our back garden but I’m now on a mission to get more of them growing, especially along the road. I’ve planted one in the front garden right by the fence and a couple more will join that soon. Lets just hope they stand up to the winds as gardening in a windy area is always difficult.
I’m even giving a few away as presents to people (usually to say thanks for feeding the cat whilst we’ve been away), hopefully they’ll plant them in their gardens too and before you know it, Ynyslas will take on a tropical look!
So, if you live in Ynyslas, plant one in your front garden, they aren’t expensive to buy, they grow well, are easy to look after and will brighten up your life!
The weather has been a little mad lately. Yesterday we had monsoon conditions in the morning with around 12mm of rain in an hour or so, but by the afternoon it was glorious sunshine and I even fell asleep in the hammock out in the garden! Perfect weather for the garden to grow though, although there was a bit of wind as usual which does its best to ruin any plants around here! When I say a bit of wind, it was gusting to just over 40 knots which is in fact quite a lot of wind!
Normally I’d be out on the water windsurfing but I’m still recovering from my recent chest infection etc. so I had to stay at home. I did manage to wander around the garden in the sunshine for a bit though and things do indeed seem to be growing well.
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- Poppy
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- Bee on Borage
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- Poppy
Somehow we have tomato plants all over the garden. I think they must have grown from seeds in the compost bin but they seem to be doing OK and some of them are even ripening. They are making parts of the garden look a little messy but I’m still trying to get things established so any growth is good as it provides shelter for other things. Talking of which, the Goji Berry bushes that we put in earlier in the year seem to be doing really well. They seem to cope well with the wind, we’ll just have to see how they fare with the winter.
I now have some plans for a nice big flower bed at the far end of the garden and some little seating areas.. Time to get to the garden centre and spend some money! Either that or make some seats out of flotsam and jetsam from the beach!
Garden Hammock
Whilst Kia and Shaun were here earlier in the week and the sun was shining I decided to put up a hammock in the garden. Morgan of course decided he loved it as well and wants it up all the time now.
I have to admit though, it is quite comfortable and if I still had a laptop I would probably find myself working from the hammock at the bottom of the garden on days like today.
In fact, its Friday afternoon, the sun is shining I’ve been ‘working’ hard all morning, I think I’ll have lunch in the hammock now! What better way to while away an hour or so.
In the Hammock
I'm having 'THIS' much fun
Hold on tight
Iris
I haven’t mentioned the garden for a while. It was looking lovely last year, but for various reasons that I won’t go into here (not yet anyway) it was destroyed over the winter. The Pergola was ripped down, most of the grass has gone and many plants were uprooted, squashed or otherwise met an untimely end.
Not to worry though as it (once again) gave me something of a blank canvas to work with!
Things are beginning to look a little better. The pergola has been reinstated, the grass is beginning to grow, although the ‘lawn’ is far from level, some new plants have been added and others are beginning to revive. It seems to be going through a blue patch at the moment with some lovely blue irises and the Ceanothus taking centre stage amongst the bluebells. The purples and pinks of the chives, Geraniums and lilac compliment these blues too and the the whites of the Olearia are just beginning to take over.
I’m not too sure if the Pampus Grass has survived its hacking back and repositioning but we shall see. I’ve also planted various shrubs that will hopefully grow well this year to start providing some much needed shelter once more.
Soon we should see a transfotmation from the blues and purples of May to the yellows of June and July as the Yellow Flag Irises, loosestrife and Innula are all to start flowering soon.
We may have had to start again, but I think we’ll manage to regain control over the next few months.
Ceanothus
Geranium
Iris
