Pond pre-duckweed removal….
Dear Readers, well here we are, back in East Finchley. Gosh, has it been dry! Some of the plant containers were positively dusty, and the duckweed had taken advantage of us not doing a regular skimming and has taken over the whole pond.
What was a delight, though, was to see the whitebeam….
…and the hawthorn coming back to life. it will take them a few seasons to recover properly, but I have made both trees a promise that I’ll give them a much less drastic trim more frequently, so that they never need something so drastic again.
My wildflower seeds are popping up, and I see rather a lot of garlic mustard, which is no bad thing – the orange-tip and brimstone butterflies love it, and it’s even edible. Plus, it springs up and then dies back, so there won’t always be so much of it.
Garlic mustard (Jack-by-the-hedge)
And the Lamium orvala (balm-leaved deadnettle) is doing very well this year, and is taking advantage of the sunnier conditions now that it isn’t so overshadowed. The bumblebees love it!
We seem to have a lot of white Herb Robert…
and, of course, green alkanet, though a little less than last year.
John started to remove some of the duckweed, and spotted this little guy… I love the way that they swim with their legs by their sides, like some kind of sea monster.
And there are some adult frogs left…
…and lots of tadpoles, which get tangled up with the duckweed and have to be gently flicked back into the pond.
So we removed about two thirds of the duckweed, to make sure there was still a bit of shade. No doubt it will be back to complete cover once we turn our backs.
And blimey, it’s very warm, even in our north-facing garden. There are lots of holly blue butterflies, quite a few small red damselflies, and the first fledgling starlings. Ah spring. what a wonderful season.
We have a pond too, about 17 months old now. I planted it up for wildlife, no fish thanks, we’ll deal with any Mozzies that turn up ourselves.
Mozzies didn’t turn up, phew! What did was Ruddy Darter Damselflies – singly, in pairs, mating, egg laying, then singly again, guarding ‘his’ pond.
What turned up this February was Frogspawn. Woohoo!
It duly hatched and the squigglers became tadpoles, with paler bellies, some with spots on their ‘heads’. An adult frog ‘plopped’ in one warm afternoon. We have an adult frog already! Great, we have Far Too Many ravenous molluscs, particularly since the ‘resident’ Hedgehog didn’t return after winter 22-23.
Blanket weed also turned up, in abundance. Hoiking it out on a bamboo cane has been a great way of taking stock of pondlife: the odd tadpole which hasn’t swum away, even though I wafted it about underwater, nymphs of various sizes – at least one of which metamorphosed into a Ruddy Darter.
There’s been some duckweed, which I’ve duly fished out. And more recently Beautiful Demoiselles in all their turquoise finery – displaying, mating, egg laying, having Buzz-Offs with the Ruddy Darters. There was even a Vagrant Dragonfly – & boy are they ENORMOUS compared with the Damselflies.
Right, I think the rain might have stopped, so I’m off to sit by the pond, once I’ve fished out some more Blanket Weed, and watch what else turns up.
And maybe a trip to the Pond Plant suppliers for more aerating plants, and some more to shade the surface
Having a pond is such a constant joy. There’s always something going on! And I take such comfort in the way that the damselflies and frogs and newts now breed here. It’s not often in life that you can see the direct contribution to biodiversity of a single act.
My little back yard garden in Southern California is looking its best as well right now! It is a constant delight. Seeds have taken a hold, even though many of them have to fight for sunlight as we have shade trees around. And it’s before the heavy dose of insects and worms take hold….that’ll come later. I’ve got a whole patch of wildflowers coming up in between the huge terracotta pots with winter and summer squash. I figure the wildflowers will have done their fireworks and be on the later stage of life by the time the squash vines need somewhere to park themselves. My tomato plants (Japanese breed – Momotaro – also in massive terracotta pots – are in the warmest, sunniest part of the vegetable garden, and responding accordingly. They’re growing about a 7 to 9 inches a week! I’ve released some ladybugs into the garden, but honestly don’t think I have enough prey to keep them all around. And our stunning cat Geiger (who I raised from 3 days old) surveys his entire kingdom from his luxurious “catio” we built for him, which includes a 12 foot long tunnel that levitates above the pollinator garden. A note for those who think the catio is a bridge too far….we have lots of aggressive coyotes in our area. They can jump fences as high as 14 feet, and even attack dogs who are on leashes being walked with their human! So this is to keep Geiger safe, as well as all the birds and wild critters that he might hunt.
I think catios make a lot of sense, for Geiger and for the other wildlife…