"Integrity is doing the right thing...

.. even when no one is watching"

C.S. Lewis

The warmer weather and gentle rain has ensured that the plants in the garden have put a growth spurt on and many now are in flower.  We hope that they will remain in flower for the open day which looms ever closer!

The blue bed in particular is looking stunning with an array of blue flowers which on warm days are covered in bees and other pollinating insects.

Corncockle

Bell flowered campanula

Geum

Anchusa azurea

Small flowered campanula

Love-in-a-mist

Cupid's Dart

 Around the Jurassic garden the ferns and the pseudopanax and tetrapanax are doing well and the 'tropical border' is filling out well with the banana plants reaching up with new luxuriant leaves.

The rheum and ligularias are thriving

The tropical bed

Giant chain fern under the tree fern

 The newly planted ornamental banana plant is enjoying the outside life. It has been planted among cannas and other 'hot ' flowering plants

The ornamental banana plant

A beautiful canna

 Behind the pond the woodland path has been re-opened.  The cow parsley has been particularly thick this year and it took a while to cut a way through but now access is provided along the fence line

the re-opened woodland walk

Yellow Flag and Ragged Robin at the pond edge

The wretched duckweed on the pond needs managing !

Slow worm found in the greenhouse

The newly positioned hanging baskets.

This male blackbird followed the lawn mower chasing disturbed food items!

 

The broad beans and potatoes in the WW2 garden

The Desiree crop of potatoes is in full flower

 A casual glance at the Asparagus plants revealed that we had been infested with Asparagus Beetles.  Not a garden friendly insect but nevertheless an attractive one!

Asparagus Beetle

"There are three things which cannot be long hidden...

the sun, the moon and the truth"

Buddha

 The warm weather is continuing and the garden is responding well! The tree ferns are quickly growing new fronds in the Jurassic garden and the gunnera plant is growing some very large leaves. The geranium maderense is awash with colour and the tetrapanax tree has made a growth spurt and producing many leaves.

Geranium maderense

The tree ferns growing well

Tetrapanax tree

The Gunnera plant

 In the pond the Yellow Iris plants have just started to flower.  By the end of next week they should look magnificent.

Yellow Iris

Also in the pond dragonfly activity has been high with many Broad-bodied Chasers being observed.  This is our most common breeding species in the pond.

Female Broad-bodied Chaser

Male broad-bodied Chaser

The moth trap was set during the week and despite being a warm night strangely only few moths were trapped for examination. The most interesting were several specimens of Tachystola acroxantha.  This micro moth is thought to have originated from Australia and appeared in Britain in 1908.

The Miller

Least Black Arches

Tachystoma acroxantha

In recent days the school garden and indeed the whole of Weymouth has seen a mass immigration of plutella xylostella micro moths- also known as the Diamond Backed Moth

Plutella xylostella

 In the bee beds the small flowering Campanula and the Anchusa azurea are now flowering.  The bees were quick to find them.

Geranium "Orion"

Anchusa azurea

Campanula

Nearby other plants are doing well and the 'Desiree' potato crop is looking good with flowers just starting to form

The potato patch

Gladioli

In the greenhouse the new venus-fly traps are doing well having been divided from the mother plant earlier in the year

Prior to finishing for the day a party of newly fledged Long-tailed tits were heard busily feeding in the garden.  With some detective work the young were found in the willow classroom waiting for the parents to return with food

Finally with a good prolonged dry spell of weather we were able to finish and 'sign off' the Jurassic look out.  The supporting posts have now been treated with bitumen paint at soil level to prolong the life of them.

The supporting posts now treated with bitumen paint

New safety notice on the look-out.  Please respect this!