It’s been great to have a few weeks at home for the Easter break, as it has given me time to get out in my garden around my other work. With good weather last week and with the blackbirds having fledged, I could spend a bit of time around the pond. I had cleared it out in the Autumn as it had been overgrown with Yellow Flag and it was looking a little bare. I treated myself to some new pond plants to supplement the existing planting. I could see a few newts in there, as well as frogs, although I only had one patch of frogspawn this year.
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I also have a patio area, at the other end of the house, outside the conservatory. Having had a new oil tank installed in this area this winter, I was left with a rather unattractive plastic oil tank and quite a lot of mess at the far end from all the soil that was dug up. A good few days of tidying and installation of a fencing panel, I have started to create a screen for it. A clematis will hopefully screen it further.
This area is a little sun trap and the Bee Plaza, my collection of bee hotels, have been very busy with red mason bees. Every year, I add another bee hotel to this wall and I think it makes a lovely feature.
This area is mainly planted with pots of plants that are nectar rich and that will attract insects this summer. It is tempting to just plant your pots up with standard bedding, but many do not offer much to insects. Why not plant some pots up with invertebrates oin mind? They look great and should be great for butterflies and bees by the summer… #gallery-20331-2 { margin: auto; } #gallery-20331-2 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-20331-2 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-20331-2 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
After my blackbirds fledged, I had been on the look out for another nest to move the camera to. I had seen a robin disappear into the ivy around a stone bird bath. A careful investigation revealed a finished nest! I carefully slipped the camera inside and it was just perfect timing. Within a day, she had laid her first egg! This camera is live streaming on my website so you can watch this new little family! You can just see the camera cable out of the right of this ivy mound!
My hub blue tit is still sitting tight on her 11 eggs, which are due to hatch around this weekend. My second sitting room box has a blue tit occupant who is also on eggs. Both these nests can also be watched, live, on my website.
My fox camera is not live streaming at the moment, as I have the nest boxes instead. I still have the camera on my system though and I was very surprised to have this visitor in the week. It has visited a couple of times. The nearest sett that I know of, is about a mile away.
There are still a number of foxes visiting and one vixen is certainly feeding cubs somewhere, so may be we will see them sometime in May!
My garden gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure and the wonderful week of weather last week made it all the more lovely! You can’t beat an Easter cuppa and toasted hot cross buns in your sunny garden!
