The Rose Chafer

Recently Pete and I were buzzed by a quite large exotic looking  irridescent green 'thing' which whizzed around our heads several times and then crash landed into one of the garden beds. First impressions were something like a Egyptian Scarab beetle but we managed to catch the insect and put it into a small pot for  identification. It was found to be a Rose Chafer. This is a very local species found only along the South coast of Britain , but widely across Europe. The larvae behave like earthworms creating compost from vegetable matter as they move around under the soil. All in all a useful species to have around.

Rose Chafer larvae

 The Rose Chafer

Greenhouse Update

The last few warm days have seen temperatures in the greenhouse stay in the 30's even with the doors open. This has had an amazing effect on the plants inside. The papyrus was transplanted into three monster flower pots last week and it has doubled in size and is now throwing up flowering spikes. The gourds seem to grow  in front of your eyes. They have now reached the roof of the greenhouse and will soon need to be trained along the supporting mesh, The rice plants have been re-potted this morning. Small cucumbers are forming and the tomatoes are just showing.

The rice plants in their new pots

The papyrus and the new flowering spikes

The overnight rain has worked wonders on the sweetcorn plants and they are starting to fill out and reach upwards. The Gardening Club are trialing four different sorts of sweetcorn this year. They are growing the usual yellow cobbed variety, and also a purple cobbed variety which has links to the Hopi Indians in North America. The other two varieties on trial are the small cobs you see in the supermarkets in cling film (usually alongside a handful of mange tout) and actual popping corn.If the latter is successful we may be able to make our own popcorn up in the garden one afternoon later in the year.

The Gardening Club's sweetcorn plants

P is for pigeon - and peas

Whilst walking up the school path earlier 17 wood pigeons flew off from the classroom plots. On inspection it appeared that they had stripped the pea plants back to the stalks and taken a liking for the small beetroot plants by nipping off the leaves from the stem. Those naughty pigeons!

Wood Pigeon looking for more peas

The willow classroom was covered with lots of immature ladybirds. They were munching on the large amounts of both greenfly and blackfly which have taken up refuge there. The picture below shows one creeping up on an unsuspecting greenfly. Hopefully these young ladybirds will find their way to the broad beans in the World War 2 garden where there are plenty of blackfly to feed on!

Immature ladybird creeping up on a greenfly (click to enlarge)

Pond News

The warm weather during May has woken up life in the school pond. Two pairs of frogs laid lots of frogspawn earlier and the tadpoles are now growing fast with many having grown small legs ready to leave the pond very soon.

young frog swimming across the pond

 However the most exciting news is that we have discovered lots of breeding dragonflies and damselflies. The nymph stages of these were seen in early Spring either walking across the bottom of the pond liner or positioned on a plant stem, waiting for prey. These nymphs will eat just about anything which they find or swims by - even a small tadpole. They have large spring-loaded jaws!

Damselfly nymph

Once the nymphs are ready to leave the pond they climb up a suitable plant stem which emerges from the water. This is often done in the early morning. Then the wonderful process of metamorphosis takes place - when a beautiful coloured insect emerges from the dull brown casing. As the insect emerges fluids are pumped into the wings to stretch them until they are perfectrly formed and then the same fluid is taken back into the body to extend the abdomen

an empty dragonfly nymph case (Click to enlarge)




The insects then bask in the sun for a while on the stem of the plant until they are ready to fly. The transformation is truely amazing.

Click to enlarge pictures of the dragonfly

 A recent pond dipping exercise found several very small newts and lots of Water Boatmen
 which were very evident rushing up to the pond surface to collect a bubble of air and then diving back down to the bottom of the pond.

A young Water Boatman-  you can easily see the oars!

The Greenhouse

The greenhouse, which is in fact too small greenhouses joined together was offered to us by a neighbour of Samantha's Mr ???? as he was selling his house before moving into a home and wanted to know that the greenhouse would go on being used.
 Insert photo

Pete and Steve took charge of dismantling the greenhouse and it was transported in many bits to the garden in June(?)

Greenhouse minus most of the glass

It was rebuilt at the top of the garden by the wall and has been a great asset allowing the children to see the different rates of grown for things grown in doors. So far in the greenhouse, there have been tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers and this year Steve has planted gourds, rice and papyrus. We are not certain, but this may be the first time rice has been grown in Dorset. The papyrus if it reaches maturity will be interesting for those children in year 5 who are studying the Egyptians who made paper from papyrus.

May 2011

These are the new rice plants, May 2011

Papyrus

Back In The Garden

This is a neglected blog. Life gets in the way and stuff gets busy, and then you forget the login and the password and put off for another day, and then another. However, the garden has moved on so much since the last post I feel it it high time there was a run through of all that has taken place and what is still planned.
The willow classroom is filling out really well. The new pond is no longer new and has been the nursery for lots of dragonfly lavae. More on that later.
The raised bed area is well established with an addition last year of a special raised bed for the pupil how is in a wheel chair.
The memory corner was officially finished and opened last summer but for those of us working on the garden regularly there is still room for improvement. Most recently a sort of boundary fence between the raised bed area and the actual memory area.
Last summer a double length second hand green house was erected and this has helped us to start a lot of things off early this year.
As a result of a competition held last year to find a design for yet another part of the garden, we now have a World War II garden complete with Anderson Shelter.
To Try and deal with all that has taken place I will work through chronologically.

Firstly the creation of the Memory Corner. This is a quiet area of the garden. A place to sit and simple contemplate and listen to the sounds of nature and take in the peace and quiet. We were helped along the way by a donation of £1500 from Holy Trinity Church in Weymouth and with some of the money provided in a lottery grant.

This is the area before we started.


We got quotes from serveral local landscaping/gardening people and decided on Dorset craftsperson Roger Lanigan from Mayfield Rural Products to do the work as he seemed to understand what we wanted to achieve.

The Work in Progress

The Finished Memory Corner

Riased bed

Grasses, lavender and rosemary with carved oak pieces

Piece of stone donated by Albion Quarries on Portland and carved by a school parent

Toadstool seating for the children

Hi guys, we are still here and loving it.