Enjoying the dragonflies..

"Do not speak unless it improves on silence"


This week's quote is taken from Tibetan teaching.  During the week when the working party was taking a pause it was so calm and peaceful you could hear the clicking from the wings of the dragonflies feeding over the garden.

Three species of dragonflies were noted in the garden one afternoon recently - perhaps the most interesting one was the Southern Hawker. An irregular visitor to the pond but it has been seen egg laying there in previous years.

Southern Hawker

The cabbage and curly kale plants have been devastated by the caterpillars of the large white butterfly.  The caterpillars are often cryptic to see but these two were caught unawares basking in the sun

In the bee nesting box many of the Red Mason Bees have hatched  but it appears that perhaps these boxes are not so good for the bees as spiders get inside them and spin cobwebs there and the newly hatched bees fly straight into the cobweb and fall prey to the spider.  A design fault maybe but the bees deserve better than this.  A modification will be considered.

The bee box in the pond area

Inside the box- several dead bees can be seen

Elsewhere in the garden Mrs Davidson's fig tree has produced a lot of fruit in the first year.

Ripe figs- ready for eating

In Mrs Legg's bed there is a profusion of colour and perhaps the most curious are the Mexican Hats which were sown last year

Mexican Hat flowers

In the Jurassic Garden work on the path continues.  The main run of the path leading into the ammonite shaped centre piece had been laid and secured. The recycled edging has proved to be a good choice and is very flexible.  The posts which came with them are also very strong.

The entrance which leads in to the garden

The stubby posts work well in the very hard ground here!

The path into the garden area

Lengths were joined using sawn-off bolts and hammered together

At one stage six lengths of edging were joined together to enable the garden group to get a good round curve instead of fixing one length to another. This required some considerable man-handling but luckily some visitors were only to pleased to help!

The garden has also been visited on several afternoons recently by our friends next door in Highclere House who have enjoyed wandering around the garden and taking in the peace and quiet here.

Finally the Sparrowhawk which regularly flies over the garden was caught taking a bath the other afternoon.  Some stealth was required but a couple of pictures were taken before it took off again