Moving bamboo

About eight years ago, when Toadlet was still at primary school, she wanted me to buy some plants at a school sale. One was a kind of spurge and one was a small pot of bamboo. I decided to make a kind of half basket for the steep bank up from the back terrace. The soil is thin there and is full of bits of old paint from before our time. I lined the basket with some leftover pond fleece and filled it with home-made compost. I planted the bamboo and the spurge in there. In this picture, taken in May 2014, you can see that the spurge did quite well. It has a lovely brightness about it, seeds profusely and spreads. There's some red campion behind it and also the bamboo, still small. It's actually quite hard to see in the photo but it is there. This is my one and only basket weaving effort and it stood the test of time. Until today.

I got Toad to help me dig the bamboo out. It had got somewhat taller and more robust-looking over the years and blocked a bit of the view up the garden. There were side shoots too. It needs more space to spread.

Here is where we dug. Yes, those are bricks at the back. Apparently there used to be a shed or garage of some sort on  what had been made into a flat concrete ledge. There isn't very much flat ground on the Boggy Brae. We used to park the Rattletrap on what we presume had been the floor of the garage. We found what Toad said was an old spark plug, some bits of broken glass, and another hard rusted and crusted bit of metal that was unidentifiable.

old spark plug and some broken glass

After that I wheelbarrowed the bamboo down to the Boggy Bottom of the garden, on the Scrawny the Tree side, and dug a hole. I dug out a couple of bricks here too. I think we'd start to worry if we didn't find bricks or bits of bricks every time we dug anywhere! Anyway, that hole is deeper than it looks and the bamboo went in just fine. I carefully avoided treading on the iris that has planted itself there.

Bamboo in its new place

From the Boggy Bottom it was nice to look up to wild cherry trees that are flowering away just now.

Toad is going to sell that Topaz dinghy. This is why I've changed from Boat Bog to Boggy Bottom. When that boat is sold, we'll be boatless.

Buttercups all the way down

From the back terrace down to the boggy bottom (otherwise known as the Boat Bog because Toad's Wayfarer dinghy sat there unused for nearly a decade; he has freecycled it now and only has the wee Topaz) of the Boggy Brae it's buttercups all the way down – a little over 40 metres. You might be able to make out some sticks and black string (made out of Toadlet's old school tights! Re-use, recycle and all that jazz). I've marked where Whorled Caraway is growing there and in two other places so Toad doesn't mow them down by mistake.

Buttercups all the way across from the Boat Bog (which is less boggy right now than I've ever seen it in ten years; we've had a good, long-for-here dry spell) and diagonally across the front lawn too:

from bottom to where the hedge appears to end
(it doesn't!) is about 30 metres

There are no mow areas in here too, marking patches of wild angelica and primroses. Both are spreading because I leave them to seed each year. The flag irises are doing well. I counted eighty flowers the other day. I've stopped counting. The sort of effect I'm after is like this field of wild angelica and purple loosestrife that I saw on my way to Oban a couple of years ago in August. We haven't any purple loosestrife yet but there's knapweed and Devil's-bit Scabious aplenty. Marsh thistles too if I let them; I do rather discourage them as they are a bit imperialistic in their march for dominance.

The Libertaria grandiflora that appeared in the Boat Bog last year under grey sallow is doing well as you can see. I hope it spreads.

Beside the hedge (see above), while I was pacing the buttercups' spread, I found a Northern Marsh Orchid.

Northern Marsh Orchid

At the top of the front bank there is one Southern Marsh Orchid as well. It pops up in the same place every year, whereas the Northerns pop up randomly and never in the same place twice. I'm guessing they spread more easily by seed and the single Southern grows from its rhizome or tuber each year. I've found a good web page to read: Laneside Hardy Orchid Nursery. I'd like to encourage more marsh orchids. Below is a pic of 'Southern' at the moment (well, two days ago) and in late June 2014.

Another spreader is Reflexed Stonecrop. It grows on the dry stone wall at the top of the front bank. Last year there was, unusually, only one flowering shoot. This year there are five and I found some non-flowering bits on the ground below the wall in among the primroses. When I took a step down the bank to get that shot to the left, a little bird flew out from a hole in the gorund nearby. I was very excited to find what I think is a Willow Warbler nest. I scarpered pretty fast and hope the bird returned to sit on her clutch.

Willow Warbler eggs,
I think

Elsewhere foxgloves and honeysuckle are getting going and the azalea that I call the Salmon Azalea is blooming beautifully.