Small garden things

I've been pulling New Zealand Willowherb (Epilobium brunnescens) off the holding wall at the back of the back terrace. I like its tininess and its flowers but it is rather invasive and I wanted to check the hornwort that was also growing there was still around. This meant pulling off quite a lot of ferns as well. (It also meant I got black fingernails which needed well scrubbed!) The ferns are well rooted so they'll grow back. Ferns need no encouragement on Boggy Brae. They are some of the boss plants!

Having taken the camera out to photograph the hornwort (I think it is Field Hornwort/Antheros agrestis), I wandered about looking at other small things, including the very ferny-looking moss, Hart's-tongue Thyme-moss (Plagiomnium undulatum).

Field Hornwort in its mossy and liverworty

environment

Hart's-tongue Thyme-moss

Broad-leaved Willowherb
growing through ferns

Enchanter's Nightshade.
I think we actually have the hybrid,
Upland Enchanter's Nightshade

From a patch, one of many, that I have left to grow wild, I pulled up seven or eight downy birch seedlings. On the underside of a leaf of one of them was this intriguing blueish ball. Then a spider came charging up the tiny tree and went into guard the ball mode so I'm guessing this is a spider egg sac. I put the wee tree and the titchy, probably very annoyed spider in among the ferny undergrowth to recover from the assault. 😬

Balmaha with Toad

Toad and I went to Balmaha today and walked through what is usually marshy ground to get to the eastern shore of Loch Lomond – a wee walk on flat ground that did my back (that I yanked painfully yesterday) good. Next time we'll take a picnic, although coming back to St Mocha Cafe and getting blueberry yogurt ice-cream and tea in lieu of lunch worked pretty well.

We loved seeing and really hearing (I was going to say just hearing but it really was really hearing) skylarks. Most of the plants we saw also grow on the boggy brae but it was lovely to see flowering rush. The first pic below shows how unusually unmuddy the muddy paths were. The hill beyond is Conic Hill, the name based on a Gaelic word meaning mossy. This was actually a hot day by Scottish standards. It was a good thing I'd woken my Tilley hat out of its long winter hibernation.