Day: July 21, 2017

When I bought three packets of different kinds of meadow seed mixes three months ago, I wondered if I would ever end up with anything resembling the colourful photographs on the boxes. I’m delighted that all three mixes have done well, sown, each in an area roughly a metre square, on the raised bed behind the pond. On a sunny day the flowers are popular with hoverflies.

I’ll definitely repeat the experiment next year. I think that a lot of these flowers will seed quite freely around the garden, so I’ll try leaving a few bare patches here and there to encourage them, but for the raised bed itself, I’ll sow a fresh seed mix.

What appears to be an all-black bumblebee visits several flowers in the mini meadow, bending the slender stem right over when it lands. A smaller gingery ochre bumblebee is more suited to the size of the flowers.

Amongst the hoverflies is one of the familiar species with the boat-shaped striped abdomen and a small, duller-looking spindle-shaped hoverfly.

I’m typing this post on my iPad as I sit on one of the stones at the corner of the raised bed. It’s the first post that I’ve ever typed, drawn, photographed (using the built-in camera on my iPad) and uploaded entirely on location in the back garden. I wonder how far I can get from the house and still use the wifi in my studio.

Like any other part of the garden, the pond needs weeding occasionally. There’s never a time of year when the pond isn’t a vital time for some form of wildlife but, as I’d been trimming around it this morning, I decided to put on my long waterproof gloves to see if I could create a bit of open water by pulling out some of the moss which has grown to blanket most of the surface.

I was surprised how easily I could drag handfuls out, even the floating clump of creeping buttercup came out in several heavy armfuls. I’ve left all the debris close to the edge to give the tadpoles, newt-poles and any other pond life a chance to find its way back into the water. The pond is looking more like a water feature and less like a marsh now that I’ve topped it up.