The miniature wildflower meadow at the top of the garden, which measures about 4 by 3 metres, is now full of flowering St John's Wort and Knapweed sp.
Although the ribwort plaintain and salad burnet have gone to seed, trefoils, vetches, poppies, buttercups, red campion and oxeye daisies are still displaying a few flowers.
Oxeye Daisy
St John's Wort
St John's Wort and Knapweed
Knapweed
There are a few scabious flowers scattered about the miniature meadow
Self Heal
Yarrow
Although the wild flowers don't attract as many butterflies as I had hoped the air is full of the sounds of several species of bumble bee, hoverflies and the occasional honey bee.
Elsewhere in the garden there have been several butterfly species around in the last week - small white, speckled wood and red admiral and last Sunday a ringlet (the first I have seen in the garden since 2005). The garden butterfly list for 2011 now stands at 10 species. Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers should be appearing soon.
We had a rare sighting of a fox in the garden on 18th June early in the morning and have spotted a common/smooth newt tadpole in the pond. The racing pigeon which I thought had moved on has made several more appearances and there are still several juvenile birds on the feeders - mainly goldfinches, greenfinches, house sparrows, blue and great tits. The amount of young birds (especially blue and great tits) does seem lower than in past years so perhaps it has been a poor breeding year locally as demonstrated by the sad failure of our garden blue tits to raise the young.
The herbaceous border is full of colour at the moment and here a few photos:
The buddleias are coming into flower and will hopefully attract some butterflies
Rowan berries are starting to ripen (always a reminder to me that autumn isn't that far away)
And here's a new arbour to replace the dilapidated old one
Wish we had a little meadow! Perfect for the insects. (Wouldn't mind that lovely arbour either - what a good design).
ReplyDeleteMust admit I could sit and watch the insects for hours up there. Its our second attempt though the first was a grass and wildflower mix and the grasses took over so we dug it over and left it fallow and replanted with a wildflower mix - its been fascinating to see how the different flower species have dominated over the last 8 years!
ReplyDeleteThe arbour was a good buy to replace a homemade one! It was in the BandQ sale last autumn and very reasonable although I would have preferred it to have been stained green!
the meadow looks lovely. it seems very butterfly light this year.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pete. Not many butterflies in the garden so far compared to other years.
ReplyDelete