Autumn Shoots, Colour and Optimistic Signs

After the depressing north wind that nearly finished all the growth in my wildlife area, I can now see hope of regrowth and some late summer colour.

Nasturtiums

The colour is provided by nasturtiums that are growing strongly and managing o escape the snails that were eating them previously.  I do think the egg shells that I put around the pot has given them a fighting start.  These bright red flowers are lovely to see as summer draws to a close.  The poppies are also growing, but as soon as a flower appears it gets eaten, usually at night so I can't tell who the culprit is.


As you might be able to see from this picture, there is one bud about to flower and one eaten flower off to the left.  I cannot guarantee I will ever see the bud flower as if it comes out at night again it won't be there in the morning!

Tasty Poppies

     
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had planted some autumn flowering bulbs.  These will provide some colour and also attract and bees that might

Two tiny shoots mid photo

still be around.  I have finally  noticed some growth as you can see from this picture.  There are four coming through like this in the same pot. No sign of others at the moment, but it shows that something is happening..



The Sea Thistle (Eryngium Gigantium) that was so popular and good at attracting bees withered and died, or so I thought.  But now there is the tiniest shoot coming out of the broken stump proving that there is still life and this plant might come back bigger and stronger next year.

Sea Thistle Shoot

Finally, the buddleia which was so badly battered by the wind, is now growing leaves again and looking quite healthy.  Proving what a tough little plant it is.   I haven't seen one butterfly on it, but I have in the last two weeks seen a cabbage white butterfly and two red admirals.

Prompted by this I have now put a log sheet in the front of our Wildlife Watching folder so that we and guests can log any interesting wildlife sightings either in the grounds of Phoenix Court of the nearby area.

Bad storm = bad news

Oh dear, a really strong northerly wind on Thursday, together with torrential rain has made my buddleia look quite ill.  I hope it does manage to pull round now things have got calmer as it still hasn't attracted one butterfly.  Obviously this points to what a bad year it has been in 2012 for butterflies.  With any luck the buddleia will come back stronger next year and butterflies might get weather that gives them more of a chance.

I'm not going to attach a picture of the buddleia, it's too depressing!

The bulbs I planted about 10 days ago still have potential to bring some late summer colour and nasturtiums are still flowering and dodging snails!

August Success

August is a very busy month here at Phoenix Court and I have very much had to let my tubs do their own thing, with the occasional bit of watering from me during dry periods.  I now find that each time I go out to my garden patch there are often three bees or so buzzing around the plants, which is a lovely stage to get to.  The absolute star performers in bee attraction are the sea hollies and the hebe.  The sea holly shown in the video was planted last year and is looking much healthier than the one I planted in a large tub this year.  But both are popular with bees.

Other things that are also of interest are flowers on the herbs such as golden marjoram and mint.

Flowering mint

Still no butterflies showing an interest in the buddleia.  In fact I haven't seen any butterflies around here this summer other than a loan cabbage white fluttering at the front of Phoenix Court.

To add some late colour and further interest to bees, I yesterday planted some Autumn flowering bulbs - Colchicum Autumnale Album and Conqueror crocus.  These should flower in the next few weeks.  Obviously still at risk from slugs but the egg shells appear to be working on a poppy, which is starting to flourish again.

Evasive action

I have mentioned a few times about snails eating my poppies and nasturtiums.

Well I heard a while ago that snails and slugs don't like going over egg shells. So I have used egg shells from three breakfast servings, crushed them up and put them in the tubs that are being attacked.

I'll see how it goes and hopefully the plants will get a chance to recover.

Progress Update

It's good to see the occasional success from my efforts and earlier today I noticed this.  It's not the clearest picture, but just underneath the tied up bamboo canes there is a spider, which was making it's way in and out of the canes.  It's the dark little speck against the stone wall.  Well, I know it's there and it's very welcome.

Bumble bee on Sea Thistle

Also, I am often now seeing bumblebees around the plants that are
flowering.  These really are the most lovable insects that are lovely to see around my plants and it is so important that we all do everything we can to help
and aid their survival.

Bumblebee on hebe flower

After a slight battle with snails, who have been thriving in the damp weather, it's great now to have nasturtium plants flowering as these are very popular with bees and other insects.  I have a few flowering around the tubs and plant beds now.  They make up for the poppies that were enthusiastically eaten by snails.  I actually saw one snail eating a flower, but was too incensed to take a picture.  Looking on the internet, I am not the only person suffering a the hand of snails but at least now the two poppy plants are starting to fight back although there are no flowers at the moment!

Garden Bioblitz 2012

Last weekend I took part in the 2012 Garden Bioblitz, which involves finding as many wild flowers (those in your garden that were not deliberately planted) and all wildlife that is in your garden or flying over your garden for a 24 hour period.  This involves taking pictures, identifying the items/creatures and recording the pictures on iSpot and details on iRecord.  I have a very difficult growing space, as I have mentioned before, but I thought I would give the Bioblitz a go as a way of finding out how, if at all, I have managed to attract wildlife and wild flowers.  It was a lovely sunny, warm day so there was no hardship being out and about taking photos.


Here are some pictures of what I did manage to find.  

Ribwort Plantain

Some identification of plants was given by most helpful twitterers who were also doing their Bioblitz at the same time.  Examples of this are:-  Ribwort Plantain, a weed, which grows very successfully on our lawn.  Obivously not a rare component of grass land, but it's there and now I know what it is.  It does seem to be like be insects.  

White stonecrop

Also identified by a twitterer was White Stonecrop.  This nestles on a part of a wall where some of the brick work has come away and again seems very popular with insects.  As a type of Sedum, I guest that's why it's quite hardy and also popular to wildlife.  Anyway, now I know what it is it can stay!

Almeria with a bee

Then I suppose there were the usual things.   You might just about be able to see this bee on one of my almeria plants.  I noticed it first of all on the White Stonecrop, but it moved around and I managed to get a picture here.

Then I noticed this spider, which looks suspended in mid air, but was actually building a web between to the railings around our carpark.

Spider building a web

We always have clover growing on our lawn and I have tried to move some to my wild flower area, but this is an example of the genuinely wild growing clover.

Red clover

As I moved tubs and rocks around I realised we have a whole population of wood lice.  These were very difficult to photograph as the moment they were exposed to the sunlight they scurried away down cracks or into the earth.

centipede

But possibly my most exciting find (although not remarkably rare) was this centipede. Also hidden underneath a tub but in one of the wells at the front of Phoenix Court.  These areas get very little light and so it's difficult to grow anything, but they do seem to be popular areas for insects and bugs.

Obviously I also had to note the ever-present seagulls but didn't get a picture of any of them flying overhead or nesting on the roof.  Other sightings were a ladybird, an unidentified and difficult to photograph bug on a car tyre parked on our car park and a type of daisy that I am still trying to identify.  

Still though no sign of any butterflies on the buddleia, which is flowering away.  Maybe this will happen later in the year.

Not mega results and I do hope that by Garden Bioblitz 2013 I have more to find but it's a start.

Buddleia

It's a lovely day here in Scarborough and my Buddleia is starting to flower. No butterflies and I've just heard it's a bad year for them because of the wet weather. Let's hope the Scarborough butterflies find my Buddleia.