A surprisingly exhausting afternoon. Maybe I was spoilt by my old garden with the spit and a half of good Norfolk clay; this garden appears to be 4 inches of topsoil over hoggin and is very arduous to make any progress but I have the bulk of the hole ready for the next stage. I am hoping to use some of the excavated soil to raise the edges around the bog garden and increase the depth, which will be made up with spent compost from this years containers. The best news is that I managed to disturb a toad, who disappeared whilst I ran for my phone camera – ok, ran is a slight exageration so there is a potential resident already. Goodness knows where he came from as there is no water in the meadow.

Found myself humming this during my exertions >>>

I did find myself thinking it was far more work than anticipated but focused on a little at a time, just a little more and the goal of plants for wildlife. To the extent that I’m thinking about the planting. The basin holds 40 Lts whatever that is in gallons, it isn’t really large enough to make shelves as it would lose too much volume but there are some native plants that will suit the depth – cut the suit to fit the cloth and it will work out much better. There are some good suggestions in the Gardener’s World article and I have a little list! Looking forward to investigating the aquatics center, though they are more fish than plants.

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/native-plants-for-wildlife-ponds/

Took a wander round the garden, checking up on how things were doing and looking for new surprises. Found this amazing Scabiosa that I grew from seed this year. I have never heard that this could happen, where the seed head sprouts without the seeds dropping first, cool eh! Will watch this with interest.

And then I discovered these, don’t know what they will be but possibly corncockles as there was a patch of them in that area. I hope they make it through the winter and I get to find out. Isn’t it weird that I always try to learn the botanical names but these just don’t seem to stick with our wildflowers.